South

What Is Southern?

Tanner Latham — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:19:00 +0000

I believe that okra symbolizes the ever-evolving definition of the South. It is Southern to the core, but as a non-native plant, okra had to become Southern. In my search for an answer to the question, "What is Southern?" I talk to my grandmother about her fried okra, the Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the former editor-in-chief of Southern Living magazine, and a Korean-born pop singer-turned-chef who fries okra in tempura batter at her Southern barbecue joint in Atlanta.

Southern Hospitality And What It Means To Be Hospitable

Charlotte Talks — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +0000

We like to say that here in the South, our Southern Hospitality is the height of good manners and welcoming others, but what does it really mean to be hospitable? In these angry, sometimes suspicious times, and in a political climate when people from opposite sides are not encouraged to work together or agree on anything at all, is there no longer room for hospitality in our daily lives?

Yes, We Have Livermush

Tamra Wilson — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +0000

The Livermush Belt. You in the Piedmont know what I’m talking about…that string of counties from Cleveland to Guildford, where you can order a livermush sandwich on any given day.

Poor man’s paté they call it, a meat substance so indigenous to North Carolina that Tar Heel ex-pats have been known to to smuggle it out in coolers to far reaches of the country.

I first encountered the stuff when I moved here in the 1970s. I’d grown up with cornmeal mush in the Cornbelt, but livermush? I eyed the khaki-gray block suspiciously in the grocery store cooler.

Number Of Poor Americans Stabilizes At 53-Year High

Michael Tomsic — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:21:52 +0000

The number of people living in poverty across the country has stabilized. But it remains at a more than 50-year high, according to Census data released Wednesday. The data also show the South has the highest level of poverty of any region.