Fairhope, Alabama
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| Emily Blejwas at Fairhope museum. |
MONTHLY MUSEUM TALK
Author Emily Blejwas presented her book 'The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods' to a big crowd at the History Museum Saturday.
She said the "winding path" toward writing the book began when she graduated from University of Alabama in 2004 with a sociology degree, and then decided to pursue a masters at Auburn where she became interested in "historic tourism as an economic development strategy."
Her first effort, a civil rights trail history, was not received well by the publisher because that had been done before, but some other kind of "trail"was suggested; that's how she finally decided to "use food to tell a historic trail story."
14 CHAPTERS/14 FOODS
Each chapter represents a particular type of Alabama food, each with a story of its own, beginning with chapter one about corn, a staple of the first indigenous people living in the area when they shifted from nomadic to agricultural civilization. Even as late as the 1840s in the state, growing corn still surpassed even cotton by almost twenty-fold.
Other chapters range from gumbo and Creole/African American culture, shrimp and the Asian influence along the Gulf, importing of bananas as a economic mainstay for Mobile, pies and comfort food in the Black Belt during the civil rights movement, miners and Milos tea in Birmingham, ladies' tomato clubs, barbecue clubs, and the importance of chicken stew to Scot-Irish firefighters in northern counties.
The diversity of "food cultures" in the state is a main theme from the book, she said.
Published review: "The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods explores well-known
Alabama food traditions to reveal salient histories of the state in a
new way. In this book that is part history, part travelogue, and part
cookbook, Emily Blejwas pays homage to fourteen emblematic foods,
dishes, and beverages, one per chapter, as a lens for exploring the
diverse cultures and traditions of the state ... ."
Copies are available from the Page and Palette bookstore, Amazon.com, and elsewhere; University of Alabama Press is the publisher.
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