Grab a snack to accompany this email because this week we are exploring resources celebrating food .  Aïda Rogers joins us this week to offer three delicious book recommendations. Plus, learn more about a new traveling exhibit that celebrates iconic foods from communities around South Carolina.

The Last Rice River Podcast Jamie Koelker is a career director, shooter and editor of documentary projects in history, anthropology and conservation. His latest documentary project, Combahee: The Last Rice River, has been paused by the pandemic . Koelker thought it was an ideal time to mine the extended interviews from the last five years with authors and historians who reveal deeper stories of the politicians, the planters, the soldiers and the slaves along the Combahee. The Last Rice River podcast provides fundamental context for where we are in America in the summer of 2020. Stan Woodward Lifeworks Collection of Culture and Folklife Documentaries Since 1975, Stan Woodward has produced Southern culture and folklife documentaries featuring traditions deeply rooted in the agrarian South. From the Chicken Bog of the Pee Dee Region to Carolina Hash , Stan Woodward's documentaries feature the finest cooking traditions South Carolina has to offer. Stan Woodward is a member of the SC Humanities Speakers Bureau, and SC Humanities supported several of his documentaries over the years, as well as their archival on Folkstreams.net. Children's Books & Teacher's Resources The South Carolina State Library's Read Eat Grow initiative encourages education, health literacy and food-related programming in public libraries. Check out their list of children's books on health literacy, farming and nutrition education ! Richland Library Cookbooks and Menus Collection Did you know the Richland Library Local and Family History Center has a Cookbooks and Menus Digital Collection featuring a selection of historic cookbooks and menus from the early 1900s to the 2000s in Columbia and Richland County? Explore Piggly Wiggly's Favorite Lowcountry Recipes ("A Collection of Prize Winning Recipes from Piggly Wiggly's Low Country Recipes Television Show") or test out the famous cornstick recipe from the Fountain Room in Tapp's Department Store. If you are wondering "what's cooking up at City Hall," we recommend perusing the League of Women Voters of South Carolina "Time for Action" cookbook.  Image : Color postcard. Published by Jimmy Price Studios, Columbia SC. [ Printed on back] Drake's Restaurant, Columbia SC Best food on Highway One, north of Columbia. A specialty Restaurant serving good clean food. So duck in at Drake's and enjoy a delicious meal. Digital Humanities Resources Digital Humanities Directory

Book Drop with Aida Rogers

South Carolina is rich in food and in writers, and when you combine the two, you get some great cookbooks. Or food books. Or writers with a food problem. Here are three to savor:

Gullah Cuisine: By Land and by Sea So much more than a cookbook, Gullah Cuisine is a cultural celebration in 212 pages. Here we have not only the delectable recipes from famed chef Charlotte Jenkins, but also the unmistakable art of Jonathan Green, the words of noted writer and oral historian William Baldwin, and the photos of Pulitzer-nominated Mic Smith. Cooks will appreciate the recipes from Jenkins’ much-lauded, now-closed restaurant, from which this book takes its name. Others will love her stories and the vintage photos of a world now gone. What a treasure. Evening Post Books did us all a favor when they published this one.

Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas Published by Novello Festival Press and edited by Amy Rogers (no relation to me, only admiration), this collection includes stories and recipes by various writers from both Carolinas. I love Josephine Humphreys’ careful method for preparing blue crabs and Ron Rash’s tale of how a banana truck wreck prompted a series of banana pudding feasts. My favorite is Dot Jackson’s recollection of fried bread, heavenly fare for Depression-era hoboes and ladies in fine hotels. What’s best is editor Rogers’ sprinkling of culinary and literary tidbits throughout, her inclusion of various cultures, and her wonderful introduction that spells out why food is so important, in ways large and small.

The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life Having said once (or more) that he thought all fish looked like the fish sticks his non-cook mother regularly served, Pat Conroy became a ravisher of and reveler in good food. He also loved the people who made a mark on him as he grew from Beaufort youth to internationally known novelist. Here he matches the stories from his past with appropriate recipes, ranging from gourmet to lowcountry. This book is entertaining in all the ways Conroy was – funny, heartbreaking, unexpected. Doubleday (Nan A. Talese imprint), 2004.

Aïda Rogers is a happy eater and sorry cook who lives in Columbia and McClellanville. Editor of the USC Press anthology series State of the Heart: South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love , she also is co-author, with Tim Driggers, of the statewide restaurant book Stop Where the Parking Lot’s Full . Food is always a topic she assigns in her writing/editing course at the South Carolina Honors College. She has an ice cream problem.

Learn More About the Exhibit The Food We Celebrate Developed by  the South Carolina State Museum  and SC Humanities,  South Carolina: The Food We Celebrate  is a new traveling exhibit that celebrates iconic foods from communities around South Carolina. The State Museum and South Carolina Humanities collaborated with 22 organizations across the Palmetto State to develop the content for the exhibit, highlighting 20 different iconic foodways such as BBQ, chicken bog, peaches and more. The exhibit will be on display at the Gaffney Visitor Center from June through July. Later this year the exhibit will be on display at the Village Museum in McClellanville, the Heyward House Museum in Bluffton, and the Coastal Discovery Center on Hilton Head Island.

South Carolina Humanities https://schumanities.org/

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