In this weeks topic of foodways, we are focusing on foods role throughout history within different cultural groups. Different attitudes and practices concerning food help to provide insight into specific communities. When changes occur throughout a region or group of people, food practices can change alongside them. Foodways helps to highlight how food practices can emulate culture.
In Elizabeth Engelhardts book, A Mess of Greens, she approaches Southern culture from the perspective of foodways. The first chapter, which discusses moonshine, details the changing attitudes toward certain food/drinks, especially amidst the cultural changes faced during the Civil War. Engelhardt writes that following the war, the Souths foodways all needed renegotiation. She perfectly details foodways role in paralleling culture as she writes, Moonshine was perfectly positioned to reveal the tensions and anxieties driving early twentieth-century southern food activism. Understanding the role that food has in culture is crucial to fully understanding different groups of people. Although food may not always be considered as it is something we do everyday, without thinking too much about it, food plays a starring role in defining culture. Food and drink play an important role in our daily lives, so much so that some partook in the illegal activity of making moonshine. This chapter states motivations such as unfair taxes, economic desperation, or romantic longings for those choosing to continue moonshining. The motivations parallel with the cultural perspectives...
