Edna Lewis: At The Table With an American Original with Sarah Franklin
Edna Lewis (1916–2006) wrote some of America's most resonant, lyrical, and significant cookbooks, including the now-classic The Taste of Country Cooking. Lewis cooked and wrote as a means to explore her memories of childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, a community first founded by black families freed from slavery. Her reputation as a trailblazer in the revival of regional cooking and as a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement continues to grow. Sara Franklin, the book’s editor, discusses Lewis’s impact and how she brought together so many different perspectives on Lewis’s life and work. Franklin is a writer and food studies scholar teaching at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She has a PhD in food studies from NYU. This talk will also feature a small tasting by James Beard-award winning chef Barry Maiden, who counts Edna Lewis among one of his culinary inspirations.