Students and area residents got a crash-course in Southern food culture Thursday as the Reece Museum sponsored a free public lecture by Fred Sauceman, entitled “Eating Below the Grits Line: Or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Ham?”
According to Lisa Erwin, Reece Museum secretary, this is the second time Sauceman has presented his lecture at ETSU.
“He presented once in December,” she said. “Sauceman is the executive assistant to the president for University Relations. He also compiled a cookbook called Home and Away: A University Brings Food to the Table – Recipes and Remembrances from East Tennessee State University.”
Sauceman focused his lecture on foods that define the South, especially grits.
He explained that there is a grits line, actually plotted by a Georgia State cultural anthropologist.
“Above that line, you’re out of the South, for all practical purposes, and you’re going to get home fries or hash browns,” he said.
Further, he mentioned a number of Southern eateries where Appalachian dishes took center stage on the menu.
Those attending the lecture were introduced to such Southern cooks as Thelma Litton of Harrodsburg, Ky., praised by Sauceman to be one of the “real heroes of Southern cookery.”
Litton ran a catering business for nearly 50 years.
“From her shotgun house, one room wide and four deep, this 4-feet, 8-inch lady fed the town. She used to stay up all night before Thanksgiving roasting turkeys for her customers, and she averaged about 100 orders for hams in December,” Sauceman said.
Sauceman also took time during his program to raise viewers’ awareness about the Southern ritual of tailgating, as practiced at the University of Mississippi. An institutional publication there described the Saturday ritual as an “art form.”
When recalling his experiences while tailgating at Ole Miss, Sauceman said, “People bring their best silver and china and create elaborate table displays with fresh flower arrangements.”
Other topics covered by Sauceman included a look at a restaurant in New Orleans dubbed the “country ham capital of the world” and a peek at the debate over the origins of Brunswick stew.
Further, he educated viewers on Comeback Sauce, a “strange blend of remoulade sauce and Thousand Island dressing, usually served in squeeze bottles and created by [Mississippi’s] Greek restaurant owners.”
In addition to his cookbook, published in the fall of 2000, Sauceman serves on the editorial board of the inaugural edition of Cornbread Nation, the first annual compendium to focus on Southern foods. The University of North Carolina Press will publish the manuscript in 2002.
Call 439-4392 to learn about other upcoming programs sponsored by the Reece Museum.

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