October 25, 2005

LIVINGSTON, Ala.—Joyce Cauthen, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and member of the Alabama Humanities Foundation (AHF) speakers bureau, presents, “Family Traditions in the Kitchen and Around the Dinner Table,” Tuesday, November 1 at 6 p.m. at the Calloway Schoolhouse on the University of West Alabama campus.

Food traditions are among the most enduring forms of folklore.  Because the preparation and eating of food is central to our family life, our richest customs, sayings, and stories are created and passed on at the dinner table -- be it at home or McDonald’s.

In this interactive program, Cauthen will discuss food folklore and its importance as a means of preserving family, community, and regional identity, and she will give examples of dining traditions that she has collected across the state in previous AHF presentations.  She will ask the audience to take part in a conversation about foods that are traditional to their families because of geography and ethnicity; foods they associate with particular family members; unique names for foods coined by children; traditional table graces; superstitions associated with eating and cleaning up after meals; and more.  As folklore is not just about the past, the program will explore newer traditions involving foods.  This presentation is part of the Alabama Humanities Foundation 2005-2006 Speaker in the House program.

Joyce Cauthen has degrees in English from Texas Christian University (B.A.), and Purdue University (M.A.).  She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and is a founding member of the Birmingham Cultural Heritage Foundation.  Cauthen has researched and written about Alabama folklore extensively and has presented her finding in books, articles, speeches, and at festivals across the state.  She is the author of With Fiddle and Well-Rosined Bow: Old-Time Fiddling in Alabama, published in 1989 by the University of Alabama Press.  She also produced five recordings of traditional music of Alabama, including Possum Up a Gum Stump: Home, Commercial, and Field Recordings of Alabama Fiddlers.  Most recently, she edited Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymnbook: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition, and produced the accompanying CD.

The Alabama Humanities Foundation is a nonprofit organization funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (of which the AHF is the state affiliate), as well as by corporate and individual donors.  The Foundation is dedicated to the promotion and celebration of the humanities throughout the state of Alabama and, to that end, conducts its own statewide programs and awards grants, on a competitive basis, to nonprofit organizations for humanities projects.  For more information on Speaker in the House or other AHF programs, please call 205-558-3980.  For more information about this program, please call Dr. Tina Naremore Jones at 205-652-3752.