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.

Southern Foodways Alliance Media Influence: A Case Study

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Since 1998, the Southern Foodways Alliance has won praise in myriad
publications. Food & Wine and Cooking Light, the New York Times and the Wall
Street Journal, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Charlotte Observer,
all have looked to the SFA as both fount and arbiter of Southern food and drink.

But there is another way to measure the SFA'S press influence. Succinctly put, our gatherings serve as story incubators, where editors assign articles and writers conjure ideas. Just two of the Gourmet profiles that owe their origin to SFA programming are Lolis Eric Elie's feature on Creole cooking doyenne Leah Chase of New Orleans, and John T Edge's feature on Ed Mitchell, barbecue entrepreneur of North Carolina.

But the best example of SFA influence can be seen in the April 2005 "Our Favorites" edition of Southern Living (download PDF). Edited by Donna Florio (an SFA member) the gatefold feature profiles a number of people and products that made their debuts on the SFA stage.

Among the highlights are South Carolina cook and writer Sallie Ann Robinson (page 68), Mississippi catfish farmers Ed and Edna Scott (pg. 74), Arkansas hot tamale man Joe St. Columbia (pg. 75), Tennessee ham curer Allan Benton (pg. 77), and Alabama plate lunch maven Martha Hawkins (pg. 81).

To understand the breadth and reach of the SFA is to know that these people and products came to the attention of Southern Living by way of SFA programming and stewardship. As Scott Jones, Foods Editor of Southern Living, says, "The SFA has introduced our editors to people and places and goods that are regional icons. In turn, we've been proud to showcase these Southern gems in the pages of our magazine and share a slice of their colorful (and often compelling) stories with our readers."

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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.