Francis Lam > Quotes

“Generally speaking, much of a culture's food production has historically been the province of its women, and has taken place within the home. Alcohol, however, is an important exception, as its production and consumption have, in many cultures, remained the jurisdiction of men. This was especially true in the gendered Old South, where plantation gentlemen used whiskey to construct a homosocial environment apart from women and children, and common Southern men used it to liven any meal or social gathering. Bourbon, more than other staples in the southern culinary tradition, thus offers a singular insight into white Southern masculinity.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Something is simmering wildly throughout the American South. Every time I look around, I see bold new expressions of Southern cuisine waving a proud flag. Every time I look around, I see bold new expressions of Southern cuisine waving a proud flag. And this expression of food has captured people’s attention, because it is the story not only of Southern cuisine, but also of America’s identity. In my short time as a professional chef, I have seen the spotlight pass over every cuisine, from French to Italian to Japanese to Spanish, from nouvelle to comfort to molecular. However, what is happening now in the American South is not part of a trend: It is a culinary movement that is looking inward, not outward, for its inspiration. Every innovation that moves it forward also pulls along with it a memory of something in the past. As Faulkner famously said: "The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Southerners have been doing "farm to table"—mostly by necessity—since long before the phrase was taken up by every foodie in the land.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Where shrimp and ham are thrown into vegetable preparations as afterthoughts, even a northern transplant familiar with obscurities like cushaw (a crookneck squash grown to obscene lengths and shapes) is bound to lose her way in the produce department. I first learned to eat from a midwestern plate upon which eggplant, shrimp, and ham never, ever touched. It was the 1970s. Vegetables were little punishments, prepared to look and taste like themselves and served in amounts guaranteed to make children strong.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“From Chilton County peaches to Vidalia onions, perhaps no area of the country is more attuned to the regional provenance of its food than the South.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Robert Moss, “The Post-Husk Era,” in Cornbread Nation 7:

"’Why all the fuss about Southern American cooking?" Jeffrey Steingarten asked in a recent glowing profile of [Sean] Brock and Husk in Vogue. "It is simply the finest that America has ever produced.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“We agreed that the ideal Classic Southern American Coconut Layer Cake has six or more cakey layers and six or more gooey layers; that the cakey parts should be tender and fine grained; and that the upper third of each layer should be nearly as moist as pudding. Nearly every element should have a wonderful coconut taste (preferably without the help of coconut extract). The icing should be white, creamy, fluffy, neither runny nor sticky nor stiff.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“New Orleanians show their vegetables more consistent love. The ultimate in vegetal affection is called smothering down here, as in smothered strong beans.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Southerners who put sugar in cornbread are impostors or criminals or both. Which does not mean I am a purist. I love "Mexican cornbread," which, much like our tamales, does not come from anywhere near Mexico, but from a cookbook called Bayou Cuisine put together by Indianola’s Episcopal churchwomen.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“Southern American Coconut Layer Cake is indeed the Queen of Cakes.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“The existence of the Delta tamale itself proves what I have long known, that Southern food is the Great Leveler. Hot tamales are loved by rich and poor, black and white, and they are usually accessible at roadside stands, cafes, and restaurants.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“When I moved [from Texas] to New York at the age of thirty-one, there was no such thing as queso. The concept did not translate at all. … When I got together with other Texas transplants, we mythologized queso.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“There is a reason, after all, that Mark Twain sent a lengthy bill of fare home ahead of him after he’d spent so much time in Europe. Among the things he’d missed the most were: "Virginia bacon, broiler; peach cobbler, Southern style; butter beans; sweet potatoes; green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper; succotash; soft-shell crabs." … And then there’s the exchange between Katherine Anne Porter and William Faulkner that occurred at a swanky French restaurant that was probably Maxim’s. They had dined well and enjoyed a fair amount of Burgundy and port, but at the end of the meal Faulkner’s eyes glazed over a bit and he said, "Back home the butter beans are in, the speckled ones," to which a visibly moved Porter could only respond, "Blackberries." Now, I’ve repeated this exchange in print at least once before, but I don’t care. No matter who we are or where we’ve been, we are all, apparently, ‘leveled’ by the same thing: our love of our sometimes lowly, always luscious cuisine—our love, in short, of Home.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“If Southern cuisine acts as a leveler by reducing the differences between race and class, the culture itself reduces the differences between—or the distinctness of—other cuisines introduced in our midst.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing

“While rye grew well in Pennsylvania and Maryland, corn grew like wildfire in Kentucky. Settlers could plant it quickly, even haphazardly, and its yield was robust and bountiful. Kentucky farmers ate their corn, drank their corn, and fed it to their animals. They also quickly learned that the fastest way to turn their excess harvest into extra cash was to distill it, as liquid traveled better than grain across the mountains that hedged in Kentucky's Bluegrass region.”
― Francis Lam, Cornbread Nation 7: The Best of Southern Food Writing