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Nashville, Tennessee

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Dining
March 16, 2006


Not So Fast

by Kay West

Slow Food Nashville celebrates the new season

The Slow Food movement was set into motion in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, an Italian who was concerned about the arrival of fast food in his homeland. It now counts more than 80,000 worldwide members, organized on a local basis in groups called convivia. Nashville’s own group, formed a couple years ago by Cindy Wall, sponsors Slow Food dinners that have developed a near-religious following, not surprising considering where they take place: Margot Café & Bar in East Nashville. The Slow Food Nashville spring dinner takes place on Monday, March 20, at 6:30 p.m. Margot McCormack and her staff will celebrate the new season with a dinner using baby lamb, morel mushrooms, asparagus, peas and artichokes. The cost is $40 per person, or $80 with added wine pairing. Reservations are a must; call 227-4668. For more information about Slow Food, visit www.slowfoodusa.org.

Edna Lewis: a woman of taste

When it comes to slow food, few did it more honestly and authentically than Edna Lewis, the granddaughter of a slave whose astounding career reached its zenith in 1999 when she was designated a Grand Dame by Les Dames d’Escoffier, an organization of female culinary professionals from around the world. Born in 1916 in a tiny farming community in Virginia founded by her grandfather, she moved to New York City in her early 30s to find work, first as a seamstress, then as a chef at a time when African American female chefs were nearly unheard of. Her 1976 book The Taste of Country Cooking is a classic, credited with sparking national interest in genuine Southern, country-style cooking.

Lewis retired in 1992 and moved to Atlanta, though she did not stop cooking or writing about food. She began a collaboration with young, white, gay chef Scott Peacock; the two shared an apartment, and together they wrote The Gift of Southern Cooking, published in 2003.

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Dame Edna Lewis passed away at home on Feb. 13; she was 89 years old. She left a distinguished and unique body of work, cookbooks that lovingly preserve place and culture in timeless fashion. With spring and summer bounty right around the corner, now is the time to mine her legacy, cook to the season and celebrate the South’s rich culinary culture.

Send food news to kwest@nashvillescene.com.

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