Food, Glorious Food...

...remember the song? From Oliver as I recall, and it certainly is a defining statement for a lot of Southerners. We do love our food! Now there's a museum dedicated to Southern Food and Drink, and a literary festival on the same theme is being held at it next Saturday, October 24th. Where is it? Where else: New Orleans, which I suppose has dibs on the title Capitol of Southern Food.

To quote Billy Joel: The good old days weren't always good, tomorrow's not as bad as it seems...." but one thing that has changed from those "old days" is Sunday Dinner. How many modern Southern women (or men for that matter!) spend much of the day cooking a meal for an extended family anymore? Maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas...but the rest? Maybe that's why they call it the Southern Food and Beverage museum. I've lived in the South most of my life, and have managed to enjoy enough of those slow cooked (and served) meals to appreciate them as an important cultural touchstone.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not nostalgic for the amount of work that went into those big meals, and I am well aware that the hard labor was accomplished in many homes by underpaid minority workers.

But the slowness of the cooking process was a positive. It allowed a lot of time for conversation, for generational interaction. Now it's microwaved or partly-prepared meals from the supermarket that take minutes to put on the table and an equal time to eat. There's a game to watch or yard work to do or a run back to the office or Facebook to update or the blog...

No, I don't want us to go back to beating the clothes on rocks to clean 'em so there will be more time to chat, but not all improvement is. And it wouldn't hurt to settle back for a while and listen to each other.