ENS 374 THE FATE OF FOOD: SOUTHERN FOODWAYS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Many food historians make the case that Southern Cuisine is the original American food. The coast of the southern United States is where Spanish culture first met Native American culture, followed by English and French influences and the powerful impacts of Afro-Caribbean culinary traditions and innovations. For decades, especially after the Civil War, and again during and after the Depression, as Southern culture experienced major upheavals, the agricultural and food traditions were also disrupted. These disruptions have helped shape the renaissance of Southern food we are currently experiencing. In this class we will examine the history of southern foodways and its integral ties to the various ethnic cultures that influenced it. We will study the ways these food traditions were preserved in small regional communities and only recently began to emerge again as traditional southern cuisine has become a focal point of American popular food culture. Southern foodways, like most regional cuisines, has always been closely linked to local agricultural practices. 5 Today, climate change is the new disruption, and poses a serious threat to all regional food systems, but its impact on southern agriculture and food systems will likely be significant. How will we adapt?