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John T. Edge, the Southern food writer and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, appeared on Nightline over the weekend with a provocative segment about how barbecue and soul food can heal racial rifts. His theory is that people of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds converge at restaurants, when they might not otherwise meet. There were moments in this video that raised a few questions for me, namely, the part where Edge starts gushing about the best food in the South over b-roll showing supergreasy fried chicken. Considering our country's socioeconomic problems surrounding diet, obesity, and diabetes, it felt off to glamorize unhealthy food without questioning its impact.
That said, Edge is great on camera, and I loved seeing the split, whole pigs fired in concrete pits at Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Q in Hemingway, South Carolina, using wood felled by the owners' own hands.
"There were moments in this video that raised a few questions for me, namely, the part where Edge starts gushing about the best food in the South over b-roll showing supergreasy fried chicken. Considering our country's socioeconomic problems surrounding diet, obesity, and diabetes, it felt off to glamorize unhealthy food without questioning its impact."
Funny. Nobody makes these types of...+READ
"There were moments in this video that raised a few questions for me, namely, the part where Edge starts gushing about the best food in the South over b-roll showing supergreasy fried chicken. Considering our country's socioeconomic problems surrounding diet, obesity, and diabetes, it felt off to glamorize unhealthy food without questioning its impact."
Funny. Nobody makes these types of observations about white American's passion for desserts of all kinds; but show an African American enjoying a piece of fried chicken or smoked pork and watch how fast the tongues on the neo liberals wag.
The sad fact is that we all overeat and we overeat foods that are too rich. Look through your cookbooks or foodie magazines and try to find recipes with 30% or fewer calories from fat. Next to impossible. Then go to your favorite (non soul-food) restaurant and ask if they prepare any dishes with 30% or less calories from fat. Absolutely impossible, particularly in three and four star restaurants.
The truth is that fat tastes good and food is a source of pleasure as much as a source of energy and nutrients. Unless you have the magical mushroom that allows us *all* to escape that reality as well as the mutual realities of overconsumption of food and less activity please refrain from such thinly veiled racism. And, really, do look at your recipes more carefully--30% fat is the max dietitians recommend in a healthy diet. Do you measure up?-COLLAPSE
If food can bring Israelis and Palestinians together, certainly it can bring blacks and whites together.
http://www.westbankstory.com/