Bubba, the Vietnamese Southern cook from Houston

According to John T. Edge, local boy made good, Bubba is evidence of what makes the South great. French restaurants in New York are manned by extremely talented Mexican cooks, so why can't a Cajun restaurant in Houston have an experimental Vietnamese cook at the helm...named Bubba?

John spoke last night at Mercer as part of a visit to the Southern Foodways class at Mercer. He decided to speak about a 20 some-year-old cook book called White Trash Cooking. Many received a copy of this book as a joke, but John used it as a scholarly work documenting a period of time for a group of people. He explored White Trash Cooking like your English professor would discuss Hamlet. It was an unexpected point-of-view on a book that was rejected by publishers repeatedly. Once it was printed, it became highly reguarded. Some worried the title was offensive. Others realized its power to shock and affect change. John even spoke at length about the shocking, honest nature of the photography in the book and how it might have referenced the work of James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. The book is filled with traditional, Southern recipes. The kind of recipes you'd expect in the local Baptist church cookbook. The kind of recipes that worry not about calories or cholesterol, but instead concentrate on creating maximum flavor from things discarded by people of greater means. My favorite part of the story was the lawsuit threatened by the Junior League of Charleston because they felt the Opossum recipe was stolen from their cookbook.

I have been a fan of John's writings for some time. He has written for numerous magazines, written a few books, and even appeared as a guest judge on Iron Chef. He is also the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. Check out the links to see all John is doing. Last night was a great opportunity to merge my love of food and photography.