SoFAB

“The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.” ­
—Maya Angelou  

If Ms. Angelou’s comforting meal was set down before you, no doubt, even blindfolded, you’d know you were in the South. That’s because food here is more than nourishment, which you can get in some form almost anywhere. Food is geography and sense of place. Heritage. History. Anthropology. It’s our identity, our family, our legacy.  And, yes, often our solace after a rough day. 

You don’t even have to be Southern to know Southern when you taste it. Fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried catfish. Butter beans and black-eyed peas. Sweet tea. Cracklin’s, chitterlings, collards. Jambalaya, shrimp étouffée, gumbo. Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy. Ham steak with red-eye gravy. Hell, gravy! She-crab soup, oyster bisque, burgoo. Shoofly pie, beignets, bourbon balls, red velvet cake, king cake, scripture cake. Pralines. 

The food of the South is distinct yet diverse. The Cajun and Creole cooking of Louisiana, the German- and Mexican-influenced flavors of Texas, Carolina barbecue, Mississippi Delta tamales … it all aims to please. All across the South, from Texas to Maryland and everywhere in between, family recipes and family memories sweet as fig preserves are intertwined, inherited, and treasured. 

The enthusiasm for food was fully evident when the ribbon was cut September 29 at the new home of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB). A standing-room-only crowd of food and service industry folks, socialites, business leaders, public officials, students, and scholars came together to witness the occasion. Though the museum is far from complete, with perhaps only half of its collections on display, the crowd was excited that the museum was open at last.

Left: Founder and director of SoFAB Liz Williams beams on the day the food  museum reopened in its new home.

Formerly in the Riverwalk mall in New Orleans, SoFAB closed in March of 2013, taking a hiatus for about eighteen months while its new home was readied. The new location: the former Dryades Street Market, an historic structure on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard just minutes from the French Quarter. SoFAB is a key part of the boulevard’s renaissance; once a thriving shopping district, it had fallen to crime and disrepair for decades. Now restaurants, coffee bars, galleries, and shops, along with cultural gathering spots like the Ashé Center and Zeitgeist Theater, are popping up in its stately buildings and creating a revitalized corridor with a great view of downtown. New Orleans musician Irvin Mayfield, who attended the ceremony, will soon be opening a new jazz venue across the street from SoFAB.

The new SoFAB is tourist attraction, cultural center, scholarly resource, and community partner. Much larger than its former location, SoFAB now has sixteen thousand square feet, with about ten thousand of it dedicated to exhibits. There’s an auditorium kitchen, christened on opening day by noted chef and author Jeremiah Tower, that will be used for classes, demos, and special events.

Currently on display is the Gallery of the South: States of Taste exhibit highlighting foodstuffs and traditions of the fifteen Southern states and District of Columbia; various types of food-producing machinery; the large antique bar salvaged from Bruning’s, an iconic New Orleans seafood restaurant destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; and restaurant signs from around the South. There’s also a gift-shop area with culinary books, merchandise, and cocktail accoutrements like absinthe spoons and cocktail shakers.

Liz Williams, the founder, director, and driving force behind SoFAB, said new collections and installations will be rolled out each month for the next year, including, this month, the Trail of Smoke barbecue exhibit and the Museum of the American Cocktail (MOTAC), which also was previously housed at the Riverwalk location. The MOTAC exhibits highlight New Orleans’ history as the creator of the cocktail through displays of absinthe paraphernalia and bitters bottles, advertising, ephemera, and antique barware. 

SoFAB’s much-anticipated in-house restaurant, Purloo, will open later this fall. Chef Ryan Hughes, known for his mastery of Southern cooking, heads the thirty-five-seat dining space that will give visitors a chance to experience the many flavors of the South. “We’re constructing the kitchen to be integral to the museum,” the chef said in opening ceremony remarks. “Smells and tastes. You can see everything going on in the kitchen.” The restaurant takes its name from the iconic shrimp and rice dish of the Gullah people of South Carolina.

“I love the idea that we are going to let people eat and drink and walk around the museum,” Williams said. “It just makes sense. If you are looking at the Sazerac exhibit but have never tasted a Sazerac cocktail, you can experience it right here.” That, and the fact that SOFAB is the country’s only non-corporate food museum, makes it unique.

A LOT ON ITS PLATE

The SoFAB Museum is a non-profit organization tucked under the umbrella of the SoFAB Institute. It relies on donations, membership, admissions, grants, space rentals and events, and the kindness of a host of volunteers, interns, and true believers in the importance of the study of Southern foodways. Williams and her small-but-enthusiastic band accomplish more than many larger and better-funded institutions and juggle a wide variety of projects.

The institute is the parent organization for a number of entities, including MOTAC, but also the SoFAB Center for Food Law, Policy & Culture; SoFAB Media, which produces videos and publications; and the SoFAB Culinary Library and Archive.

The library is located about a block from the museum, and, though it is a non-circulating library, its thirteen thousand or so cookbooks, menus, and culinary papers are available to anyone as a resource for research. Many of the materials have been donated by individuals and families across the South and beyond; the entire collection of noted New Orleans cookbook author and TV celebrity Frank Davis was given to the library by WWL-TV. The library also administers the Menu Project, collecting, cataloguing, and digitizing menus.

“We are treating the books as artifacts, artifacts of time and place,” said Williams. “At first the focus was only on Southern. But then we realized there wasn’t anyone else doing this. Now the scope is broader. We have foreign language books, books about the history of the spice trade, about the politics of food, menus and postcards, private papers … It’s not just a cookbook library; it is a culinary library. There is very much an archival component.”

hile waiting for the museum space to be completed, Williams started the Culinary Heritage Register, which she describes as similar to the National Register for Historic Places, but with a culinary emphasis. Food-related businesses open for at least sixty years can apply to be included; Louisiana institutions represented to date are Antoine’s Restaurant, Aunt Sally’s Pralines, and the French Market.

Other institute projects include the Culinary Legacies interview series; Nitty Grits, an online culinary dictionary; the Memory Wall project, which encourages visitors to send in their food memories to be used on the SoFAB website, in the museum, and in publications; and Kids Menu programming, classes, and summer camp for young foodies. SoFAB Institute also hosts lectures and demonstrations around the country as part of its mission to promote discovery, understanding, and the culture of the world’s food and drink as interpreted through the traditions of the South.

THE SOFABULOUS LIZ

Williams has created an organization reflecting her interests and own divergent skill sets. A New Orleans native, she is an attorney (including a stint as a JAG officer), author, and fundraiser and was instrumental in the opening of the Ogden and National World War II museums in New Orleans. 

“I realized I liked putting a museum together,” she said. She also, however, had always been interested in food. “I loved how central food was to culture, and I was fascinated by that part of it. Food is important. Food is central to everything.”

In her book, New Orleans: A Food Biography, (AltaMira Press, 2013), she examines her own roots (Sicilian, Louisiana French, and “Alabama cracker”) and looks at the hugely divergent, early influences on the food of the city: African, Italian, Native American, German, French, Spanish, and more recently Latino and Vietnamese. Even as a young woman, she learned to see food as an issue, a complicated one, in addition to being the source of pleasure and satisfaction. 

When Williams conceived of SoFAB, in 2004, she sought to create an organization that pulled together all of the ingredients into one big, delicious, thought-provoking gumbo. With the establishment of the SoFAB Institute, and the reopening of the SoFAB Museum, she’s accomplishing that—and welcoming everyone to her table. 

Details. Details. Details. 

Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB)
1504 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard
New Orleans, La. 
(504) 569-0405 • southernfood.org  

Open 11 am–5:30 pm

Thursday–Monday.

Admission $10 adults; $5 students, seniors, and military. Memberships begin at $35 for food-industry workers; $55 for individuals; and $85 for friends and family. 

Museum of the American Cocktail
(Housed in SoFAB Museum)
cocktailmuseum.org 

SoFAB Institute
sofabinstitute.org

SoFAB Culinary Library and Archive
1609 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard
New Orleans, La. 
(504) 569-0405

Open 11 am–5 pm, Monday—Friday and by appointment.