actually for a long long time dr. elizabeth engelhart at the university of tyexas american studies department and i got together and were both SFA members and we wanted to do something similar for texas, so we approached the american studies department at UT, that did work out, we approached rice, we approached several universities... this is like 3 years ago and we just never quite got it all together.
what made it happen was that bryan caswell and jim gossen and some other folks, a lot of them from houston, became members of the southern foodways alliance. jim gossen was donating money to pay for orla histories of shrimpers and fisherman across the gulf coast but none of them were from texas, and he kinda felt like, gosh, i wish we were doing work like this in texas. and so we decided to try it again, i had been working with texas a&m i taught a couple bbq courses and they offered to put on an orgizational meeting. SFA started with 50 members, food lovers, chefs, food writers, in birmingham ala. at the offices of southern living, what finally made it happen was the affiliation with the university, it became very clear what they were doing. oral histories, documentary films. so we invited academics from (lots of schools)
it ended up back at the UT in their depaertment of community engagement. it fit perfectly in the folds of this organization that is trying to bring the universioty to benefits of the univ to everyday life. so we are affiliated, but the texas am extension service has offered services for holding symposiums on their campus. as they put it, they are the subject matter experts, and UT american studies provies the culture expoerts. and UH is suppluyijgn oral hisotrory and public history experts, so they are all working together.
this event is fundraising gala by goode comp restaurants to benefit foodways tx, which is an org collecting histories and making dic films, etc. we are delighted to have support and sponsorship. the first event we are going to hold is a symposium at UT galveston on gulf seafood culture Feb. 25-26, that will be like the SFA symposium with academic speakers and experts of various subjects come and talk and well have sokme famous community seafood events like oyster roasts, shrimp boils etc as our food events
