Matzah ball gumbo, gasper goo gefilte fish, and Big Momma's kreplach: Exploring Southern Jewish foodways

Since the earliest arrival of Sephardic Jews in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, southern Jews have blended their regional identity as Jews and as Southerners through the foods they eat, the holidays they celebrate, and the products they buy. My dissertation examines this unique world, focusing on Jewish families in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina from the colonial era to the present. Through the study of their foodways, I show how southern Jews bridged southern and Jewish culture at the dining table, retained Jewish identity, embraced the South, and crafted a distinctive regional expression of Jewish life.The foodways of Jewish southerners reflect a distinctive regional expression of American Jewish life that is characterized by six primary relationships: (1) Their religious observance and ethnic identity centers on an entire region rather than on a specific community, city, or even state; (2) African-Americans are accepted as "Jewish" cooks and caterers after Jewish women teach them their ethnic traditions; (3) "Creative" interpretation of Jewish ritual and law is tolerated; (4) A high rate of synagogue affiliation and participation in Jewish organizations occurs throughout the region; (5) Non-religious cultural activities are invested with religious meaning; and (6) Loyalty to the South and its culture is demonstrated in ethnic identity and religious life.Chapter One discusses the cultural value of food in American society and offers an overview of ideas, issues, and problems that shapes the study of the Jewish South. Chapter Two examines foodways of Low Country Jews who define their Jewish identity in businesses that include restaurants, grocery stores, catering firms, butcher shops, bakeries, fish markets, liquor stores, summer camps, and resorts. Chapter Three focuses on the foodways among Jews in New Orleans and in outlying areas along the Lower Mississippi River, including Natchez, Mississippi. Chapter Four focuses on the foodways of Jews in Atlanta. Chapter Five discusses foodways of Jews in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta. Chapter Six explores foodways of Memphis Jews.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The George Washington University, 2003.School code: 0075