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Category: Food Studies

February 21, 2024

Food As a Weapon: An excerpt from “Food Power Politics”

This week for Black History Month, we’re sharing an excerpt from the introduction of Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement by Bobby J. Smith II which was the first book in our Black Food Justice Series. “[Smith] shows how the struggles of the region’s Black communities laid the groundwork for the modern food justice… Continue Reading Food As a Weapon: An excerpt from “Food Power Politics”

Categories African American Studies/Food Studies/Southern Studies
November 22, 2023

Must-Have Savor the South Cookbooks for the Holiday Season

Did you know that all of our Savor the South cookbooks are now available in paperback format? Written by well-known cooks and food lovers and filled with personality, culinary history, and recipes, you’ll want to have all of these cookbooks on your shelf—especially during the holiday season. If you see a cookbook that interests you order now to take advantage… Continue Reading Must-Have Savor the South Cookbooks for the Holiday Season

Categories Cooking / Food/Food Studies
September 19, 2023

New Books This Week

Happy New Books Tuesday! We have three exciting new books publishing today. Browse our newest releases or take a look at everything new this month on our Hot Off the Press. Plus, if you want updates in your inbox every month on new titles and what’s happening at UNC Press, you can sign up for our monthly eNews here. Wild, Tamed,… Continue Reading New Books This Week

Categories Food Studies/Latin American & Caribbean Studies/Military History/UNC Press News
September 15, 2023

Celebrate Apple Season with Upcoming Events for “Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived”

Are you looking for the perfect fall event to add to your calendar? Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South by Diane Flynt, with photography by Angie Mosier and a Foreword by Sean Brock (published under our Ferris & Ferris imprint) offers a new history of the apple and how it changed the South and the nation. This… Continue Reading Celebrate Apple Season with Upcoming Events for “Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived”

Categories Food Studies/Southern
December 20, 2022

Making Fruitcake: From its Origins to My Oven

The following is a guest blog post by Rebecca Sharpless, author of Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South, which is available now everywhere books are sold.  This year, I decided to make a fruitcake. Only a few people confess to actually liking fruitcake. Its density and the frequent use of a bitter fruit called citron… Continue Reading Making Fruitcake: From its Origins to My Oven

Categories Cooking / Food/Food Studies
June 29, 2022

Grain and Fire

Rebecca Sharpless’s Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South is on sale this week wherever ebooks and books are sold. Sharpless weaves a brilliant chronicle, vast in perspective and entertaining in detail, revealing how three global food traditions—Indigenous American, European, and African—collided with and merged in the economies, cultures, and foodways of the South to create… Continue Reading Grain and Fire

Categories Food Studies/Southern
June 13, 2022

Adrian Miller Wins Second Beard Foundation Award for “Black Smoke”

Congratulations are in order for Adrian Miller, aka Soul Food Scholar, for winning the 2022 James Beard Foundation Media Award for Reference, History, and Scholarship for Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue Miller previously won a Beard Award in 2014 for Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. About… Continue Reading Adrian Miller Wins Second Beard Foundation Award for “Black Smoke”

Categories Food Studies
May 3, 2022

An Edible North Carolina History

Available today wherever ebooks and books are sold, Edible North Carolina: A Journey across a State of Flavor edited by Marcie Cohen Ferris shows how culinary excellence, entrepreneurship, and the struggle for racial justice converge in shaping food equity, not only for North Carolinians, but for all Americans. Starting with Vivian Howard, star of PBS’s A Chef’s Life, who wrote the… Continue Reading An Edible North Carolina History

Categories Food Studies/North Carolina/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
June 19, 2021

Juneteenth, Our Newest National Holiday: A Recipe for Celebration

Happy Juneteenth! This recipe from Adrian Miller’s 2014 Beard Foundation Award winning Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time also appears in Southern Holidays: a Savor the South Cookbook by Debbie Moose, whose headnote from that book follows. Adrian Miller’s book Soul Food is a detailed and fascinating exploration of the history and… Continue Reading Juneteenth, Our Newest National Holiday: A Recipe for Celebration

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Food Studies
May 14, 2021

In The Smoke With Marie Jean: A Barbecue Woman Who Built a Freedom Fund

Happy National Barbecue Month! We’re here with a guest blog post from Adrian Miller, author of Ferris and Ferris book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. In this post, Adrian gives us some insight into the life of a black woman pitmaster from nineteenth-century Arkansas named Marie Jean. Don’t miss Adrian’s next virtual event this Sunday,… Continue Reading In The Smoke With Marie Jean: A Barbecue Woman Who Built a Freedom Fund

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American Studies/Cooking / Food/Food Studies/Guest Bloggers
April 27, 2021

Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

We are thrilled that today marks the official on sale date for UNC Press’s third book authored by James Beard Award winner Adrian Miller, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. Black Smoke is the fourth book published in the Ferris & Ferris Imprint for high-profile, general-interest books about the American South. You can preview Black Smoke… Continue Reading Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Food Studies/Native American History/UNC Press News
March 1, 2021

Happy Book Birthday to Michael Twitty’s “Rice”

As I sit in my office at UNC Press on a rare day’s visit to the premises, given our collective pandemic caution, I gaze—lovingly, it’s fair to say—at the Savor the South cookbook collection sitting on my bookshelf. Twenty-four cookbooks, twenty-four southern foods and food traditions. And on March 1, with the publication of Michael Twitty’s Rice: A Savor the… Continue Reading Happy Book Birthday to Michael Twitty’s “Rice”

Categories African American Studies/Food Studies
February 15, 2021

African American Presidential Cooks in Antebellum America

In light of Black History Month’s annual coinciding with Presidents Day, the following excerpt relevant to that reality is taken from The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas by Adrian Miller. “You know, the White House is really modeled after a plantation big house.” Chef… Continue Reading African American Presidential Cooks in Antebellum America

Categories African American Studies/Food Studies
February 5, 2021

“A beautiful ode to a grande dame of Southern cuisine.”—Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original, Now in Paperback

Guest blog post by Sarah B. Franklin, editor of Edna Lewis: At the Table with An American Original Edna Lewis: At the Table with An American Original is a collection of 20 essays by chefs, food writers, and scholars that examine and celebrate the life, legacy, and boundary-breaking politics of chef and cookbook author, Edna Lewis, considered the Grand Dame… Continue Reading “A beautiful ode to a grande dame of Southern cuisine.”—Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original, Now in Paperback

Categories African American Studies/Food Studies/Women's Studies