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Welcome to the SFA

Welcome to the Southern Foodways Alliance -- an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture with headquarters at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi.

The Southern Foodways Alliance documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. We set a common table where black and white, rich and poor -- all who gather-- may consider our history and our future in a spirit of reconciliation.

SFA Films

Telling the Stories Behind
the Food.

SFA films tell the stories of the men and women who grow, create, serve and consume the food and drink of the American South. Films are produced in concert with Andy Harper and the University of Mississippi’s Center for Media Production

SFA Filmmaker, Joe York

Described by Corby Kummer in The Atlantic Monthly as “the gifted young filmmaker…,” Joe has a hot hand.

His first film, Saving Seeds, has been a favorite on the film circuit and was a finalist for the Golden Snail Award from Slow Food.

Joe’s long form documentary, Whole Hog, is an examination of barbecue culture in west-central Tennessee. At the core of the story is whole hog stalwart Ricky Parker, pitmaster at B.E. Scott’s Bar B Que in Lexington, TN. The film was presented at the Culinary Institute of America’s 2005 Worlds of Flavor Conference in St. Helena, CA. Leslie Kelly of the Memphis Commercial Appeal best described the audience response to the premiere of the film, “and I’m not exaggerating…the crowd was electrified! I’m basing that on the reaction of the folks I was sitting around, and on the thundering applause that followed this fine film. It was a sweet, sweet moment.”

Project Descriptions

NOTE: A selection of SFA Films are available for download and purchase in the right-hand column. Others are available for online viewing via streaming video.

Ruth Fertel Keepers of the Flame

Each year, the SFA – with strong financial support from the Fertel Foundation – commissions a film that honors one of our region's keepers of the culinary flame – a man or woman we deem an unsung hero or heroine.

• Rolling Tamales on MLK
by Joe York and Micah Ginn, a portrait of Elizabeth Scott, a tamale maker in Greenville, Mississippi. Scott and her husband learned to make tamales after developing a taste for them in Texas, and today six of her nine children—as well as some grandchildren—are carrying on the tradition at their Martin Luther King Boulevard tamale stand.

• Saving Seeds
by Joe York and Matt Bruder, a portrait of Bill Best, an heirloom bean and tomato farmer of Berea, Kentucky.

• On Flavor
by Joe York, a portrait of Ed Scott, the first African American Catfish farmer in the Mississippi Delta.

• Welcome Table
by Joe York, a portrait of Martha Hawkins of Montgomery, Alabama, whose restaurant serves as a modern day incarnation of the Civil Rights Movement ideal of the beloved community.

• Marsaw
by Joe York, a portrait of Martin Sawyer, bartender at the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel in New Orleans. Mr. Sawyer, a veteran of more than six decades of tending bar, witnessed the flood of 1927 and survived Hurricane Katrina.

• Working the Miles
by Joe York, a tribute to the men and women of 13 Mile Oyster Company, honoring Tommy Ward who like his father before him, has served as a guardian of the Apalachicola Bay.

Barbecue Films

In 2006, we began producing a series of barbecue documentaries. In concert with Union Square Hospitality Group, the folks who stage the annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York City and run restaurants like Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke, we will produce two each year.

• Something Better Than Barbecue
by Joe York, a look at Chuck Ferrell of Chuck’s Bar-B-Q in Opelika, Alabama. Ferrell is a born again Christian who uses his heavenly barbecue as a tool for conversion. He keeps a stock of personalized religious tracts by the register came to wield a pitchfork for a living.

• Dial S for Sausage
by Joe York, a portrait of the Bracewells and their family business, Southside Market and BBQ, a butcher shop turned restaurant in Elgin, Texas.

• BBGBBQ
by Joe York, a history of Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ in Decatur, Alabama complimented by a glimpse of the barbecue culture of north Alabama.

Southern Shorts

In August 2006, the SFA sponsored a Day Camp in Nashville, Tennessee. Campers celebrated Nashville’s Meat n Three tradition, immersed themselves in the East Nashville Tomato Festival, and adopted hot chicken as the favored endorphin delivery device. The SFA produced two films to honor Nashville culinary icons: E.W. Mayo and Andre Prince Jeffries.

• The Rise of Southern Cheese
by Joe York and Matthew Graves, is a look at artisinal cheese producers in the South. It chronicles three makers of fine Southern cheeses: Belle Chevre in Alabama, Sweet Grass Dairy in Georgia, and Bonnie Blue Farm in Tennessee.

• Fried Pies
by Joe York, a portrait of entrepreneur, E.W. Mayo, the proprietor of Mayo’s Mahalia Jackson Fried Chicken and Fried Pies.

• Hot Chicken
by Joe York, an examination of a peculiar Nashville culinary phenomenon, hot chicken and a tribute to Andre Prince Jeffries, the woman whose recipe and restaurant are without parallel.

 

Links to SFA Films

On Flavor

Saving Seeds

Welcome Table

BBGBBQ

Dial S for Sausage

Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.

Completing Your Film Library

Interested in adding an SFA film to your DVD library? Copies of MARSAW and Working the Miles are available to the public in exchange for a $20 dollar donation to the SFA. Whole Hog is available for a $25 dollar donation.

Order now.

Join the SFA

Help the Southern Foodways Alliance celebrate, preserve, promote, and nurture the traditional and developing food culture of the American South.

Join us.

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