The Potlikker Papers
A Food History of the Modern South
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Narrated by:
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John T. Edge
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By:
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John T. Edge
About this listen
A people's history of Southern food that reveals how the region came to be at the forefront of American culinary culture and how issues of race have shaped Southern cuisine over the last six decades.
The Potlikker Papers tells the story of food and politics in the South over the last half century. Beginning with the pivotal role of cooks in the Civil Rights movement, noted authority John T. Edge narrates the South's journey from racist backwater to a hotbed of American immigration. In so doing, he traces how the food of the poorest Southerners has become the signature trend of modern American haute cuisine. This is a people's history of the modern South told through the lens of food.
Food was a battleground in the civil rights movement. Access to food and ownership of culinary tradition was a central part of the long march to racial equality. The Potlikker Papers begins in 1955 as black cooks and maids fed and supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and it concludes in 2015 as a Newer South came to be, enriched by the arrival of immigrants from Lebanon to Vietnam to all points in between.
Along the way The Potlikker Papers tracks many different evolutions of Southern identity - first in the 1970s, from the back-to-the-land movement that began in the Tennessee hills to the rise of fast and convenience foods modeled on Southern staples. Edge narrates the gentrification that gained traction in North Carolina and Louisiana restaurants of the 1980s and the artisanal renaissance that reconnected farmers and cooks in the 1990s and in the 2000s. He profiles some of the most extraordinary and fascinating figures in Southern food, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Colonel Sanders, Edna Lewis, Paul Prudhomme, Craig Claiborne, Sean Brock, and many others.
Like many great provincial dishes around the world, potlikker is a salvage food. During the antebellum era, masters ate the greens from the pot and set aside the leftover potlikker broth for their slaves, unaware that the broth, not the greens, was nutrient-rich. After slavery, potlikker sustained the working poor, black and white. In the rapidly gentrifying South of today, potlikker has taken on new meanings as chefs have reclaimed the dish.
Over the last two generations, wrenching changes have transformed the South. The Potlikker Papers tells the story of that change - and reveals how Southern food has become a shared culinary language for the nation.
©2017 John T. Edge (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"John T. Edge, an accomplished food writer focusing on the South, narrates his audiobook in a discernible drawl.... His voice, literal and figurative, informs every page of this work. The discerning listener will embrace Edge's folksy style as he moves through 60 years of contemporary history." (AudioFile)
“Long one of the key voices in the discussion of Southern cuisine, Edge challenges the accepted narrative...[and] watch[es] the momentum build until the South comes into its own.” (New York Times Book Review)
“Edge is an ecumenist when it comes to such culinary crises, and that’s what makes him so wonderful a surveyor of the last 50 years of southern history.... Decade by decade, Edge shows that we aren’t just what we eat; we are where that food was grown, how it was cooked, who cooked it, and who all gets to eat it with us.” (The New Republic)
“To read 'Potlikker' is to understand modern Southern history at a deeper level than you're used to. Not just a history of Southern food; it also stands as a singularly important history of the South itself.” (The Bitter Southerner)
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Not entirely accurate title
- By Robert on 06-07-17
By: Jane Ziegelman, and others
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The Tastemakers
- Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue (Plus Baconomics, Superfoods, and Other Secrets from the World of Food Trends)
- By: David Sax
- Narrated by: David Sax
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In this eye-opening, witty work of reportage, David Sax uncovers the world of food trends: Where they come from, how they grow, and where they end up. Traveling from the South Carolina rice plot of America’s premier grain guru to Chicago’s gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world of influence, money, and activism that helps decide what goes on your plate.
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Informative - Engaging - Entertaining!
- By Rena on 09-01-14
By: David Sax
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Chop Suey
- A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States
- By: Andrew Coe
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States - by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey, Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.
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Wanted to like this
- By Irene on 02-13-21
By: Andrew Coe
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Ten Restaurants That Changed America
- By: Paul Freedman
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Ten Restaurants That Changed America reveals how the history of our restaurants reflects nothing less than the history of America itself. Whether charting the rise of our love affair with Chinese food through San Francisco's the Mandarin, evoking the richness of Italian food through Mamma Leone's, or chronicling French haute cuisine through Henri Soulé's Le Pavillon, Paul Freedman uses each restaurant to tell a story of race and class, immigration and assimilation.
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Worthwhile listen, cringe-worthy pronunciations
- By Tag Christof on 09-01-20
By: Paul Freedman
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Drive-Thru Dreams
- A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom
- By: Adam Chandler
- Narrated by: Adam Chandler
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Most any honest person can own up to harboring at least one fast-food guilty pleasure. In Drive-Thru Dreams, Adam Chandler explores the inseparable link between fast food and American life for the past century. The dark underbelly of the industry’s largest players has long been scrutinized and gutted, characterized as impersonal, greedy, corporate, and worse. But, in unexpected ways, fast food is also deeply personal and emblematic of a larger-than-life image of America.
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Road Trip Audio!
- By Anonazon on 06-28-19
By: Adam Chandler
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The President’s Kitchen Cabinet
- The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas
- By: Adrian Miller
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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James Beard award - winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history.
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Disappointed
- By TS on 08-17-21
By: Adrian Miller
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Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll
- How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits and Wanderers Created a New American Profession
- By: Andrew Friedman
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Chefs, Drugs and Rock & Roll transports listeners back in time to witness the remarkable evolution of the American restaurant chef in the 1970s and 1980s. Andrew Friedman goes inside Chez Panisse and other Bay Area restaurants to show how the politically charged backdrop of Berkeley helped spark this new profession; into the historically underrated community of Los Angeles chefs, including a young Wolfgang Puck; and into the clash of cultures between established French chefs in New York City and the American game changers.
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the reader makes the audiobook - unfortunately
- By Lawrie Thicke on 04-20-19
By: Andrew Friedman
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Rice, Noodle, Fish
- Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture (Roads & Kingdoms Presents, Book 1)
- By: Matt Goulding
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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An innovative new take on the travel guide, Rice, Noodle, Fish decodes Japan's extraordinary food culture through a mix of in-depth narrative and insider advice. In this 5,000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, cocreator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.
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Starts strong tapers off
- By Craig Bryan on 01-02-21
By: Matt Goulding
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Ferran
- The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food
- By: Colman Andrews
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In his lively, unprecedented close-up portrait of Ferran Adrià, award-winning food writer Colman Andrews traces this groundbreaking chef’s rise from resort hotel dishwasher to culinary deity, and the evolution of El Bulli from a German-owned beach bar into the establishment voted annually by an international jury to be “the world’s best restaurant”.
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recasting needed
- By Marco I on 09-09-18
By: Colman Andrews
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Out of Line
- A Life of Playing with Fire
- By: Barbara Lynch
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Out of Line describes Lynch's remarkable process of self-invention, including her encounters with colorful characters of the food world, and vividly evokes the magic of creation in the kitchen. It is also a love letter to South Boston and its vanishing culture, governed by Irish Catholic mothers and its own code of honor. Through her story, Lynch explores how the past - both what we strive to escape from and what we remain true to - can strengthen and expand who we are.
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Hardheaded, arrogant, profane.
- By Minneapolis listener on 10-26-22
By: Barbara Lynch
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South Toward Home
- Adventures and Misadventures in My Native Land
- By: Julia Reed, Jon Meecham - foreword
- Narrated by: Julia Reed, Dan Bittner - introduction
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In thinking about her native land, Julia Reed quotes another Southern writer, Willie Morris, who said, “It’s the juxtapositions that get you down here.” These juxtapositions are, for Julia Reed, the soul of the South and in her warmhearted and funny new audiobook, South Toward Home, she chronicles her adventures through the highs and the lows of Southern life - the Delta hot tamale festival, a masked ball, a rollicking party in a boat on a sand bar, scary Christian billboards, and the southern affection for the lowly possum.
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Julia Reed IS the SOUTH
- By toni on 05-23-20
By: Julia Reed, and others
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Super Sushi Ramen Express
- One Family's Journey Through the Belly of Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Japan is arguably the preeminent food nation on earth, a Mecca for the world's greatest chefs, with more Michelin stars than any other country. The Japanese go to extraordinary lengths and expense to eat food that is marked both by its exquisite preparation and exotic content. Their creativity, dedication, and courage in the face of dishes such as cod sperm and octopus ice cream is only now beginning to be fully appreciated in the sushi and ramen-saturated West.
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Interesting material that's well-narrated
- By John S. on 11-09-16
By: Michael Booth
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The Big Oyster
- History on the Half Shell
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Before New York City was the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. Now award-winning author Mark Kurlansky tells the remarkable story of New York by following the trajectory of one of its most fascinating inhabitants, the oyster, whose influence on the great metropolis remains unparalleled.
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history of the oyster in America
- By Andy on 01-01-20
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Eight Flavors
- The Untold Story of American Cuisine
- By: Sarah Lohman
- Narrated by: Sarah Lohman
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The United States boasts a culturally and ethnically diverse population which makes for a continually changing culinary landscape. But a young historical gastronomist named Sarah Lohman discovered that American food is united by eight flavors: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. In Eight Flavors, Lohman sets out to explore how these influential ingredients made their way to the American table.
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Great read... Terrible accents
- By S. Macklin on 12-14-18
By: Sarah Lohman
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Provence, 1970
- M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste
- By: Luke Barr
- Narrated by: John Rubinstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Provence, 1970 is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck, and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste, and the limits of snobbery.
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Superb Narration, Engrossing Tale
- By Robert R. on 10-22-13
By: Luke Barr
What listeners say about The Potlikker Papers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joe & Christa
- 10-14-23
Extremely Interesting and Informative
John T. Edge does a brilliant job breaking down one of the most problematic aspects of American history and presents it in a unique and incredibly interesting way. Highly recommend.
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- Clare
- 06-19-20
Long book but worth every second !
So informative! John is a fantastic historian, narrator and someone I’d have coffee with to learn even more than this book offers.
There is so much more to be learned. Thanks for this introduction to culture that is the foundation to so much of our country’s food culture.
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- Tanner
- 03-07-20
Fascinating History Lesson
Overall, I loved this book. I could listen to him talk all day. So much information about food history that I had never heard nor thought about. Only dislike from me was, at times, it seemed to drag on for a little too long, and several parts felt a little flat.
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- sam
- 12-23-22
outstanding
I've been a lover of John T Edge for years and this is my second listen to this book. It is even better the second time through. The only downside of this book is how hungry it makes me!
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- Lisa Siradas
- 11-18-22
Best of the South!
I Ioved this walk through Southern Cuisine history. highly recommend that you pick it up!
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- M. Sears
- 08-02-23
Loved it
I loved this one. A solid history on southern food and the people who made it. Scratches that Bourdain itch.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-23-18
Honest and Remindful
This is an honest and highly insightful read, in recognizing the origins of Southern cuisine. Potlikker Papers points out painful yet accurate reality of our history, but also changing and demonstrated hope in changing behaviors of today.
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- Mary Hurston Zuelke
- 02-08-18
Brilliant
This book should be included in every US history class—not only informative, but also incredibly interesting. You will want to listen to it twice if not three times. Brilliant.
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- Jennifer Byers
- 05-10-22
A book that is about so much more than food
Through a mouth-watering exploration of Southern food, Edge offers a heap of education in an entertaining package. Creating a colorful, cozy quilt of stories, he pieces together history, race, class, gender, civil rights, environmentalism and more - stitching them together with hope. As an expat from TN who left in hopes of finding more open minded and open hearted people, I do carry shame about my ancestry and their actions. John made me laugh, he made me want to reclaim more of my heritage, and he made me hungry. I can’t stop telling folks about this book. I’m so glad I found it.
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- PD
- 06-12-17
Best book of the year!
What did you love best about The Potlikker Papers?
All of it! A clear explanation of the history, thorough description of the characters involved and the wisdom to show how the current scene has blossomed
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Potlikker Papers?
I have been compulsively telling my friends all about Georgia Gilmore-- very grateful to learn about such an amazing woman.
Have you listened to any of John T. Edge’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
This is my first if there are more I will track them down.
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3 people found this helpful