Bailey Barash of Barash Productions emailed me a video link to a 21 minute video on Edna Lewis. Maybe it was because I had spent the evening before frying chicken at home, or that I had pulled Donald Link's recipe for buttermilk biscuits beforehand to mix this morning, but I was mentally groovin' for a Southern Food pep-rally. Watching this reminded me of her importance in American food culture. Arguably just as important as Julia Child and definitely moreso than Alice Waters when it comes to fresh ingredients. (I actually knew close to nothing about Mrs. Child growing up, but I had heard of Edna Lewis.)
Miss Lewis defined Southern cuisine in America. She represents this cuisine when it was all about coaxing the beautiful natural flavors in common ingredients. It's too bad that many of these foods are so lacking in flavor today. In the same way that poor cooks learned to take the lesser cuts of animals and turn them into tasty dishes, we are faced with trying to add flavor to bland mass produced meats and vegetables today. I have made it a point of pride to use naturally raised free range chicken for frying (from Whole Foods, since sadly these are the best available to me... for home cooking, not as a chef). Hearing Miss Lewis talk about frying chickens being available for a short time out of the year, that they were selected chickens raised separately and fed a special diet to insure maximum flavor and juiciness when fried... well, that's humbling. I feel fortunate to have experienced just a small portion of this food culture in my life. It's too bad that our food systems, while protecting us against going hungry have also alienated us from our food roots. Maybe that's part of the sadness that Michael Ruhlman feels at the end of his recent post.
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