Georgia Magazine - January 2010 - (Page 34)

Georgia’s ‘Key Ingredients’ Family and communities connected by food BY LAURA BERRIOS veryone has a story to tell about food, and perhaps that’s the secret behind the engaging Smithsonian exhibit, Key Ingredients: America by Food. The national traveling exhibition is winding down its two-year stay in Georgia with a final stop at the Haralson County Historical Society in Buchanan Jan. 2 through Feb. 14. Key Ingredients uses enlarged sepia prints, bold colors and artifacts to explore America’s food culture, history and traditions. It includes interesting facts like how the first cookbooks were household manuals that included directions for making soap. You can trace regional favorites to the immigrants who settled there. Or, try on a Wisconsin cheese head hat, just for fun. “The fun thing about food is that everybody has stories and traditions. It’s so Sweets are celebrated in the Key Ingredients exhibit, much a part of family histo- including this coconut cake from Marianne Thomas’ ries,” says Ann McCleary, restaurant, Sterling’s Southern Café in St. Marys. director for the Center of Public History and associate profes- Ingredients exhibit. Bringing the exhibit to Georgia sor at the University of West Georgia has been three-year project of the in Carrollton. “The exhibit uses food as a lens Georgia Humanities Council. Rural communities were invited to apply to look at our culture,” she notes. The touring exhibit itself for Key as hosts, a task that would require Ingredients speaks to food as an communitywide efforts in planning “American” experience, but has little events and activities to complement information specific to Georgia. the food display. Georgia had 35 That’s where McCleary has filled in applicants, more than any other host the gap. She and two graduate stu- state, says Arden Williams, GHC prodents collected oral histories of gram officer and statewide coordinaGeorgia’s own food traditions by tor for the exhibit. Because of such interviewing more than 100 peo- high local interest, Georgia was ple across the state. The informa- allowed to keep the display for two tion was published as “Food, years instead of one, Williams says. Key Ingredients also made stops Family, and Community: A Collection of Georgia Memories,” in Vienna, LaFayette, Ellijay, Hapeand is available free at the Key ville, Thomson, Dahlonega, Kingsland, Tifton, Vidalia, Waynesboro and Indian Springs/Flovilla. Each community on the tour planned a dizzying array of events all centered on their own food culture and traditions. There were cook-offs among amateur chefs and demonstrations by professional ones. There were coloring and essay contests for students. Family recipes and food memories were recorded and published. Antique aprons—some Many “food” memories are formed when families and communities come made from flour sacks—were hung together to eat, such as this 1939 Thanksgiving dinner in Thomson, above, and on display in Indian Springs, while dinner on the grounds, right. 34 www.georgiamagazine.org GA DEPT. OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMEN T HICKMAN; RROLLTON COURTESY LOUISATER FOR PUBLIC HISTORY, UWG, CA ARCHIVED AT CEN COURTESY CENTER FOR PUBLIC HISTORY, UWG, CARROLLTON GEORGIA MAGAZINE http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - January 2010

Georgia Magazine - January 2010
Contents
Viewpoint
Picture This?
Georgia News
Calendar
Currents
Coming to a Set Near You
The Joy of the Journey
Around Georgia
My Georgia
Georgia Gardens
Georgia Cooks
Cookbook of the Month
Snapshot

Georgia Magazine - January 2010