Will Travel for Food

So here's the skinny about the Southern Foodways Alliance. It was founded in 1997 and is a part of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss. Its mission is "to celebrate, preserve and promote the diverse food cultures of the American South." Its members include "cookbook authors and anthropologists, culinary historians and good home cooks, chefs, organic gardeners and barbecue pitmasters, food journalists and inquisitive eaters, native-born Southerners and outlanders, too." For information about the membership, call 662/232-5994; write to Southern Foodways Alliance, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677; or visit the Web site at www.southernfoodways.com.

Some books published recently by members of the Southern Foodways Alliance:

John T. Edge, Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South, Hill Street Press, 352 pp., $24.95

Ronni Lundy, Butter Beans to Blackberries : Recipes From the Southern Garden, North Point Press, 347 pp., $30

Richard Pillsbury, No Foreign Food: The American Diet in Time and Place, Westview Press, 272 pp., $23 (paper)

Nathalie Dupree, Nathalie Dupree's Comfortable Entertaining: At Home With Ease and Grace, Viking Press, 307 pp., $29.95

Jessica Harris, Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gift to New World Cooking, Fireside Books, 208 pp., $12 (paper)

Lolis Eric Elie, Smokestack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 224 pp., $35 (out of print)

Shirley Corriher, CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking, Morrow, 524 pp., $28.50

Joseph Dabney, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, and Scuppernong Wine: Southern Appalachian Cooking (1999 James Beard Cookbook of the Year), Cumberland House, 493 pp., $19.95 (paper)

Monique Wells, Food for the Soul: A Texas Expatriate Nurtures Her Culinary Roots in Paris, Elton-Wolf Publishing, 193 pp., $44.95