My culinary journey through the Jewish South began in my hometown of Blytheville, Arkansas, a community that defined both my Judaism and my love for food. I am often asked, "How did you get interested in food?" The answer lies in my childhood in Blytheville, where I was surrounded by food worlds reflecting the diverse Jewish and Gentile worlds that comprise the South.

There was the Dixie Pig, where you could order barbecue chopped, shredded, plate-style, or a "white pig sandwich with cheese," possibly one of the most nonkosher combinations in the world. In the summer we drove to Wicker's Barbecue in Hornersville, Missouri, where sprinklers gently watered the tin roof to keep customers cool. When waitresses cleared tables, they poured leftover iced tea onto the sawdust-covered floor. The meal ended with warm peach cobbler served in a paper cup and eaten with a plastic spoon.

There were also meat 'n' three cafes with white and black proprietors where my father and I ate when we drove to visit his construction sites in rural Arkansas. Once I ordered a tuna fish sandwich. "You can't order tuna fish here," Dad growled. "Get the special." He was right.

Anna Dildine's drive-in on Main Street served the best catfish, the Kream Kastle featured cherry vanilla Cokes, and the Sonic was known for its Frito Pies. Middle- and upper-class whites belonged to the Blytheville Country Club, where women golfers lunched on chicken salad-stuffed tomatoes and deviled eggs and couples gathered on Saturday nights to enjoy seafood Newburg and broiled steaks. There were black-owned "soul food" restaurants like the Dew Drop Inn on Ash Street, which paralleled the white Main Street in Blytheville, but we never ate there. Their world was divided from ours by the legacy of Jim Crow. ...

When I ate in the homes of Gentile friends, I discovered foods never served in our home. Their meals featured homemade biscuits, sausage, flour gravies, pork chops, barbecued ribs, field peas, fresh tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, fruit pies, and homemade candy. Many of my friends had grandparents in the country who tended vegetable gardens and who brought homegrown tomatoes and zucchini to their in-town relatives. My father's secretary, May Dixon, lived across the street from our home and was an excellent cook. Aunt May kept a canister on her stove top labeled "drippings" and used bacon fat to flavor her pole beans. She made dishes like chicken cacciatore and baked beautiful chocolate layer cakes for my sister, Jamie, and me on our birthdays. At the home of my friend Denise Dias Broussard, whose family moved to Blytheville from Lafayette, Louisiana, I discovered thick gumbos and the Catholic tradition of midnight Mass on Christmas Eve followed by hot chocolate, homemade fudge, and divinity.

(From "Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South" by Marcie Cohen Ferris. Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2005. For more information visit www.uncpress.unc.edu.)

Researcher Brooke Cain searches journals and other sources for talk about the South. She can be reached at (919) 829-4579 or bcain@newsobserver.com.