Call for Chapters for Edited Volume
The American South in Ten Recipes
Edited by Christopher L. Ballengee
The Southern United States is home to many diverse communities, some historically linked to the legacies of colonization and slavery and others emerging more recently thanks to migration from other parts of the country and from abroad. The essays collected in this volume use food as an entryway to understanding the individuality and interconnectedness of these communities. Each chapter will focus on a single recipe as emblematic of a particular culture, region, or tradition such that the collection of essays comes to characterize the dynamic histories, cultures, and innovations of the American South.
While the volume is intended to highlight the intertwined legacies of European colonization, African enslavement, and displacement of native peoples, essays need not center on the past per se. Rather, authors are encouraged to think about how the past comes to bear on the present. For example, instead of contextualizing a particular recipe within the pre-colonial era, an essay appropriate for the volume might center on an analysis of how the dish is regarded in the present among a diverse population. Essays that center on relatively new arrivals to the South are indeed welcome, especially those that discuss how characteristic “foreign” foods have been localized, perhaps through the use of local ingredients or the popularization of a dish outside of the ethnic community that brought it to the region.
In all cases, each essay should center on a single recipe as a point of departure to discuss anything relevant to the cultures–past, present, and future–of the American South. To be clear, this volume is not meant to be a cookbook. Essays should not be a set of instructions for preparing the recipe. However, authors may, though not necessarily so, discuss the importance of the food’s preparation, the sources of the recipe’s ingredients, other dishes often served in complement to the recipe, etc. The hope is that the collection will highlight the myriad ways in which the foods of the American South map the mix of cultures in the region.
The editor invites proposals for chapters in the range of 5000-7000 words from scholars of culinary history and others from any other discipline whose work intersects with food and culture. The proposal should include:
- an abstract of about 200-400 words that clearly indicates a how the author intends to use a specific recipe to discuss one or more cultures/communities of the American South
- a copy of the recipe (no more than two double spaced pages); please indicate the source of the receipe along with a list of ingredients and brief directions regarding preparation
- a current C.V.
Deadlines:
- for chapter proposals: April 1, 2023
- for full chapter submission: September 1, 2023
Send proposals to the editor by email at christopherballengee@gmail.com
Editor: Dr. Christopher L. Ballengee (Catholic University of Lublin)