Food for Thought: Southern Jewish Food Cultures

913 Washington Street,Vicksburg MS 39183

26 March, 2022

Description

Southern Jewish Food Cultures: A Conversation with Marcie Cohen Ferris and Lesley Silver A conversation with Marcie Ferris, Professor Emeritus and Foodways author from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Lesley Silver, owner of the Attic Gallery. This event is part of the Food For Thought: Catfish Row Museum Lab and Pop-Up Exhibition. Through grant funding from the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, the museum will present a series of hands-on workshops, curatorial events and programs centered around local foodways. Through public programs and workshops, the museum will develop content and collect artifacts for the Catfish Row Museum. In the museum’s lab space, visitors can scan, copy and donate documents, such as letters, recipes and historic photographs, as well as record oral history interviews. In the exhibition space, community members can observe and provide feedback on how their artifacts and stories will be used in exhibits. This programming will present rich stories of crossing barriers and borders, of lives intertwined with food, as food and place are linked through the diversity of income and ethnicity in the South. LEARN MORE About the speaker: Lesley Silver was born in Philadelphia, PA,in 1942. Because her mother was an artist, art became an important part of her life from an early age. When she was a young child, her family moved to Birmingham, AL, and, after her marriage, she moved to Vicksburg in the early 1960s. She has owned and operated the Attic Gallery in downtown Vicksburg for 50 years. From a few original graphics in a dusty attic, she has created a destination for art lovers, collectors, and artists from all over. The Attic is easily the oldest art gallery in Mississippi, and Lesley has helped many local and regional artists find a market for their work. For those efforts she was awarded Mississippi Arts Commission Governor's Award in 2014. On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Attic Gallery, Mayor George Flaggs presented her with the Key to the City. Lesley is an accomplished artist, working mainly in collage and assemblage. Marcie Cohen Ferris is an emeritus professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she serves as an editor for Southern Cultures, a quarterly journal of the history and cultures of the U.S. South. Ferris is the author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region, (UNC Press, 2014), Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (UNC Press, 2005; nominated for a James Beard Award, 2006), and co-editor of Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (Brandeis, 2006). In 2018, Ferris received the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance. Her forthcoming book with UNC Press (Spring 2022), Edible North Carolina: A Journey Across a State of Flavor, explores the vibrant contemporary food movement in the Tar Heel State.