Broccoli Rising and SoFAB
What food tastes like home to you?
Hello, fabulous ones,
I love the flavors of the world — a complex curry, a saffron-scented tagine, Asia’s perfect parcels — dim sum. But something about cornbread, greens, and beans makes my heart go ahhhhhh. They’re simple, sure, but they’re soulful, soothing, and to me, quintessentially southern. The question is, am I? The excellent ‘zine The Food Section cuts off its Florida coverage below the panhandle. Miami’s a long way down from there.
Miami might have qualified as the South a century ago when it was sleepy, small, and emerging from the swamp, but we’ve grown in size and diversity, with many of us coming from somewhere else. We’ve brought our foodways with us and earned our name as the gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. Diversity, equity, and inclusion have enriched and energized Miami. But are we Southern?
We are according to SoFAB. SoFAB is New Orleans’ Southern Food and Beverage Museum, founded in 2013 by Elizabeth Williams. Liz, sister Dame, food and beverage historian, author, and fun person created the museum to celebrate and preserve the regional foodways of each southern state. Proud to say Florida has its own little section, with a few artifacts from me.
Here I am with Liz at SoFAB last year. It was a dazzler of an afternoon, deserving a better photo. This is what we’ve got.
Get a taste of SoFAB at home with The SoFAB Cookbook, just released and filled with authentic recipes from each of the southern states, and yay, Florida makes the cut. As Liz writes, “Various waves of immigration have influenced Florida’s food,” making guava pastelitos, a gift from Cuba, as legitimately Floridian as Key lime pie. I’m telling you, diversity is delicious.
The SoFAB Cookbook isn’t Eater or Thrillist listing the best newt BBQ joint in Memphis— there’s be brawls over that — it’s about food prepared and shared in the home, wherever in the south home is. “We define southern food as food that is eaten in the South, whether it’s chicken masala or tamales or gumbo,” writes Liz. “Cuisine is social invention.” It’s also social history, identity, culture, bringing the things we value to the table. Pretty fab.
Broccoli Rising subscribers, you’re pretty fab too, wherever you call home.
Join Liz and me as we talk southern food, SoFAB and all things fab in an upcoming Broccoli Rising video. Link coming soon.
my cornbread
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts author and poet Crystal Wilkinson’s soup beans
Sos pwa, creamy, coconutty beans from Haiti
Grits and greens from Vegetable Kingdom king Bryant Terry
Greens the way we do ’em in Miami
Look for more of my Miami vegan recipes. Big Reveal coming soon.
Broccoli Confidential paid subscribers, I’m excited to share an exclusive! Scroll down at the bottom and grab a taste of the south from The SoFab Cookbook. Among the book’s mere handful of vegan recipes is chow-chow, the South’s classic pickle, preserving summer’s bounty of zucchini, corn and beans. We do something similar in Miami, with an amped up slaw-like relish called pikliz, Haiti’s Scotch bonnet-spiked relish. Enjoy both.
Join Ellen’s paid subscriber chat and tell me — what food tastes like home to you? Let’s talk, let’s eat.
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