In this episode, we're in for a treat as we introduce to you Melissa Booth Hall, Centre. Melissa's role as the Managing Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and her podcast Gravy offer a unique lens on culture through the love of food. We'll dive into her work, her passion for cooking and her love of cookbooks, and we'll discover how her Tri Delta experiences and role as co-chair of the Ritual Committee have played a vital role in shaping her path.
Journey through the flavors and tales of the American South with a podcast episode that combines the richness of Southern culture, cuisine, and storytelling. Melissa Booth Hall, Centre, shares her experiences as a former public defender turned stay-at-home mom, her volunteer roles and her current role as Managing Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA)
Melissa helps us explore stereotypes as she highlights the diverse culinary traditions of the South, and through her podcast Gravy, provides a voice to both renowned chefs and everyday cooks.
Melissa shares her passion for home cooking while taking us on her journey through Tri Delta and weaving in her insights about our Ritual. Hear as Melissa explains how rituals and promises are fundamental elements in our lives, connecting the Greek system with the world of Southern cuisine, both rich in tradition and a sense of promise for the future. So, join us for a hearty serving of culture, storytelling and, of course, some mouthwatering Southern food tales, spiced with Melissa's unique experiences and insights.
Hello, Tri Deltas, and welcome to another episode of our podcast, Let's Talk Tri Delta. I am Mindy Tucker, and I have the joy and honor of serving as Tri Delta's chief strategy officer.
I also have this great privilege of getting to interview some of our most fantastic sisters and bringing you their stories right here on the podcast. Today is going to be fun and inspirational, and I get to introduce you to Melissa Hall, who joined Tri Delta at our Centre College chapter. She is the managing director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center of the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
That's a mouthful. They are dedicated to the documentation study and exploration of food ways in the South. We'll get into what all that means. And this today is a little bit of a role reversal for her because she co-hosts a podcast for that effort called Gravy, where she and her team look at culture through the lens of food. And I know we could probably talk for hours about food, but if that wasn't enough, she also co-chairs Tri Delta’s Ritual Committee.
So I am ready to delve into her work with SFA and her passion for cooking and cookbooks and food and Tri Delta and Ritual and all the things. And so Melissa, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much, Mindy. I'm delighted to be here.
So I want to take a little trip with you on your journey to where you are today. You actually started out as a public defender. I don't even think I knew that until we started getting ready for this podcast. And now your role with Southern Foodways Alliance, including all the work that you've done for Tri Delta over the years. How did you, what's the journey? How did you end up where you are today?
I think, I don't know. I'm not 100 % sure. glad about where I am, but like I couldn't, I don't even think I could map it. Yeah, so I, I went to law school because I wanted to be a public defender and I was a public defender for three years. And then my, my husband's job and his career path had us moving six times in nine years. And that those years were the years where we had our children and I ended up at home with young children for, I guess, about eight years. And when it was time when I was ready to go back into the world of paid work. By that time we lived in Mississippi. It probably won't surprise you to know Mississippi does not have a statewide public defender system. You, if you are an indigent person charged with a crime, you are just, you get whatever lawyer you get that day in court. And that was very different from the system I was a part of in Kentucky where,
where defenders and Commonwealth's attorney were on somewhat equal footing in felony and misdemeanor court and so I wasn't sure that I wanted to be a public defender in this system.
And I had a lifelong love of food, a passion for not only cooking, but reading great food writing this was sort of the height of food magazines. So, you know, there was Bon Appétit, and there was Savoir and there was, I'm going to some forgetting the, the big one that closed anyway, lots and lots of food magazines, lots of food on television. And I was consuming all of that media. I found myself here in Oxford, Mississippi, which was the, which is the home of the Southern Foodways Alliance and I very boldly actually through a try Tri Delta sister connected with the Southern Foodways Alliance and said, “I think I can do something for you.” And so I was a volunteer for the SFA for probably four years before this became a real job.
So, you know, I don't really know that it's a career path. It's a, you know, I think with any lifelong education you learn everything you can, where you are. You prepare yourself to do the thing that is in front of you. And then you hope against hope that the skills you're building will help you as you have to do the next thing. And for me so far, that's worked out. So public defender to stay at home mom, to SFA volunteer, to managing director and now co -director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. So it's been a journey.
I love that you got there through a Tri Delta, of course.
That work is always going on, always active. And then I love how it also just, it's like a, I think it was women, we have seasons where we get to do certain things in our life. And, you know, if you have kids or different things going on, you just have to make different choices in different seasons. And you have different opportunities in those seasons. And so it sounds like that's, it's not really a career path. It's more of a season path, I guess, for some of us.
Yes, and I will say, and, you know, I really kind of left out the Tri Delta piece there. I became a Tri Delta volunteer, I believe in the fall of 1998, 1998, maybe winter of 1999. And I think that the reality is my ability to volunteer my way into paying work, some of that was circumstance and quite frankly, privileged. But some of it was the skills I learned about volunteering through Tri Delta. I'm a catch as a volunteer, and that's all due to what I learned as a young Tri Delta volunteer.
I love that, I love that. So tell us a little bit about, for people that don't know Southern Foodways Alliance, what their mission is and what they're up to.
Sure, we are a cultural non-profit based here at the University of Mississippi. We document, study and explore the diverse foodways of the changing American South. To put that sort of that sort of high-minded mission statement language into plainer language, we tell the stories of the changing American South through the foods we eat. We collect oral histories, we're building an archive of that oral history collection, we make films, we publish a quarterly journal, and we produce a podcast called "Gravy." And in every one of those pieces of content, although they're very different, for very different audiences, there is a constant across all of them. And the constant is that we are telling the stories of the people across this region who may grow and serve great Southern food. And in general, we're telling the stories of people whose stories absent an SFA writer or producer or oral historian or filmmaker are stories that might not otherwise be told. So we're very proud of that work. We have about a thousand oral histories now in our archive. We have over 200 films. I think we're on maybe issue 80 something of our quarterly journal, and we now have about, I don't know, I think it's close to 300 episodes of the podcast. So it's a lot of work. It's a lot of content. And it's all designed to engage the listener into the living, breathing life of Southern food.
As I have delved into it a little bit, and I've listened to a couple of the podcasts, I love food and I love culture. You know, you really do, you really do learn more about people by learning more about their food. And I know that's, I don't have to tell you that, that's why you're doing this. Talk more about that.
Like what has that been like to take something that seems so frivolous, I don't want to say food’s frivolous, but sometimes, you know, we get into it a little bit, it feels frivolous, to take something like that to really learn about people. What's that like? Why do you think that is? What's that connection? What's that magic connection? Yeah. So, you know, one of the first things that we learned when we started sort of dipping our toe into the podcast world was, and you've seen this too, there's this, what folks will tell you is that podcasting is a really basically intimate experience because, you know, for most people, like they're putting a pair of headphones a set of headphones on and your voice is going like directly into their brain and you know when you think about it that way it's a little bit daunting and but I mean it's the same thing with food I mean there is really very little in our lives that is as elemental as perhaps dressing ourselves and feeding ourselves and because we do
it and we do it without thought most of the time you know I would say we're not always paying attention to the stories behind the food that nourishes us and you know the great thing about the South is many Southerners feel some kind of way about Southern food people outside of the region feel some kind of way about the food of this region and so you know it's an amazing opportunity to take the mundane and the forgotten and to make people think yeah and it's not just the South it's yeah where you go you find people telling stories about their food it goes back to that or this family member that family member.
What's your favorite story you unearthed as part of this work?
It is hard to pick but I will say, so one of the first jobs I did one of the first volunteer roles I had for the Southern Foodways Alliance was I actually wrote a book about pimento cheese way back in 2003 and the material from the book was when there were still newspapers at this point. And so we put out a call in regional newspapers and said, "Send us your favorite pimento cheese story." And then, I'm sorry, "Send us your favorite pimento cheese recipe and then tell us a story about how this recipe played out in your life." And we thought we might get 100. We got 350, because it turns out people felt really passionately about pimento cheese.
Yes, yes. (both laugh)
But in that group of stories, one of my favorites is this woman. And like, honestly, don't think she realizes how funny the story was. So she tells the story about how she loves pimento cheese because on Saturdays, her mom would go into town to do the family's food shopping and do whatever, run all of the errands. And that was the day that she and her siblings were left in their father's care. And so their dad would every Saturday make pimento cheese and feed them pimento cheese for lunch. And so that is her memory, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
And then you read the recipe. Mindy, this pimento cheese had three tablespoons of bourbon in it. (both laugh) It's like, "Oh, God, this dadwas drugging children every Saturday."
And like, everybody's happy about the story. Everybody loves Dad's pimento cheese. Everybody loves this memory of, I'm guessing, like a hazy, boozy Saturday with Dad. I just like, I love—
Taking naps after lunch, right?
Yeah, exactly. Everybody had a nap. I'm sure Mom was like, "They never nap for me. They nap for Dad." So.
Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. There's probably a lot more of those stories out there than we all read.
I love it. So, I hear there is a big announcement coming. Something about American Public Television Studio.
Yeah. Yes, it's actually it's here. So, we, like I said, we've been making Gravy podcasts for a long time, and we were sort of the little engine that could because we were out there navigating the big bad podcast world without a network. And American Public Television has a podcast network called APT Podcast Studios. And as of August 14 of this year,
Gravy is now a part of a network. And you know this because you're involved with the podcast networks are really important to podcasts. There are at any given moment about 2 million podcasts out there in the world. And what a network does is sort of gather up like stories and, and, you know, allows you to tap into a listener in a different way. You know, if you like this, you might also like that. And we've been looking for it for a long time and it's here. We're really excited.
I love it. Good. Congratulations.
Thank you. Everybody can find it and listen. That's right. That's right.
So, when it comes to cookbooks, I, I'm in a new place where I'm sort of frustrated that I love a good cookbook and to sit down and look at it, but I also keep finding all this stuff online. What is the status of the cookbook these days with everything being available online and are there still great cookbooks out there are people still putting them out like how does this all work now?
Yeah, so there are still great cookbooks out there. And I would say, I mean, I'm kind of like you, I'm a both hands girl. I, you know, if somebody wanted to do a deep dive into my Google history, they would see that about 3 :30 every workday, I'm often doing a Google search that looks something like chicken, brown rice, one bell pepper. And just saying, because like that's what I can remember is at home in my refrigerator.
So I do that too.
And that, you know, that's just a reality. That's what I like to call the dinner dismay reality. But there is still, even in this digital world, where recipes are readily available, there is still a great deal of room for a good cookbook. Because what a cookbook does, what a well -written, well -researched cookbook does is it essentially tells a story of the author and what has shaped the author and what motivates that cook. And I will also say, well -written cookbooks, I think are very much like having a little friend with you in the kitchen. Because it is somebody whose recipes you trust and whose story you understand. You know, it can be like talking with a friend. And I think that's probably at the end of the day, the big advantage to cookbooks over what's available on the internet. You know, cookbooks are tested. Cookbooks are copy edited. Cookbooks have a lot going for them if you wanna reliably cook a certain way.
So I've got, you know, at any given time, two or three cookbooks that I'm working through. One of my favorites right now is actually a book written by a chef local to Oxford called “I Am From Here.” The author of the cookbook, Vishwesh Bhatt, grew up in Gujarat, India, but has lived in the American South since he was 18. He is actively finding the connections between his Indian childhood and his American South adulthood through food. The recipes are amazing and they're well thought out and they're tested and they will help you if you are a person who wants to learn Indian cooking but maybe doesn't want to go all in on a new set of spices or a new pantry. This is a great entry point because much of what Vish uses to produce his food are ingredients that folks in the American South recognize readily.
That's cool. My greatest challenge is my child sending me the TikTok video. Can we make this? There's no recipe. There's just put someone throwing stuff in a bowl and making it.
Both of my sons are young adults now and they're both really good cooks and they cook almost entirely by YouTube and I don't understand it.
I can't live like that. We'll get there. We'll get there. I want to shift gears to talk about Tri Delta a bit now. You have had many roles in the organization. And are very long serving and very valued volunteer, so thank you for saying yes every time you're asked we appreciate it. But, your current role is co-chairing the Ritual Committee.
Nothing like being tasked with one of the most special treasures. Yeah. What,is that role like? What’s your current charge what has the committee been working on that you would share with our listeners.
Sure. So ritual at its heart, whether it's Tri Delta’s or any, you know, in any other Greek letter organization is really two things. It's a rite of passage, and it's a promise. And, you know, what we find over and over again is trying to figure out how to get our members to center their lives as members have tried out to on that promise, rather than on the external things that sort of tend to push them around. That's the challenge over and over again, all these years, all these volunteer roles. Let's get back to the promise. And I think, you know, that that's going to mean that basically, I mean, I'll time out at some point, but Tri Delta is always going to need a Ritual chair. Because like that, that challenge of making ritual relevant is, I think, going to be the eternal challenge, not just for our organization, but for all of the Greek letter organizations who want to survive and thrive.
I think the biggest thing, the thing that we've just finished working on, which we're, we're pretty happy with is figuring out for Tri Delta an alumnae-led Initiation ceremony, and we've we've sort of closed the books on that. And I think our next bit of focus will be on figuring out how to make a Circle Degree, which is Tri Delta's last degree of Initiation, more relevant to the modern member and more easily performable.
So that's, you know, and that's really, I mean, kind of all of our work comes down to this is, you know, we, we, when I first came onto the Ritual Committee, we did a sort where we looked at sort of every part of the Ritual and every piece of Ritual equipment. And we asked three questions:
Is it essential to tell the story and underscore the promise? Is it a nice thing to have? Or could we do without it?
And I think that, that, you know, that sort, which was sort of helpful in clearing our heads is actually a sort that could be useful in a lot of contexts. So that, I mean, I keep, I just keep coming back to that, like, you know, that those are three, three questions that have, I don't know, moved the committee's agenda along. Since I've been a part of Ritual. And it makes sense there's things change all the time. And changing, it's not that we're changing the core of who we are or what Sarah Ida Shaw set out for us, but becoming more relevant, I think is crucial as we welcome new, you know, we're at 300 and something thousand members over time, like things are bound to change from one to 300 ,000.
And, you know, I mean, and the thing about it is, and you know this, but I, you know, at the end of the day, however much times change, however much the world changes, however much our sort of modality for delivering and receiving information changes, all of that stuff is, you know, it is important. It is our life. We have to like, we have to work through the how, but at the heart of Tri Delta, what we have is both ancient and I would argue, perhaps eternal, truth, self-sacrifice and friendship.
Yeah.
You know, those things are as important and as motivating and as essential today as they were in 1888 and as they were in 1788.I mean, there's just no, you know, that central core is never going to change. It's never going to be shifted.
Yep. You are right. I wonder, sort of an offshoot of the Ritual work, how does Tri Delta's Ritual play out in your life? How do you, how do you see, I think this is always a great question. Somebody on our team, MAC, our senior director of special initiatives, Dr. MAC, is always talking about like making it real and making it relevant. How does it play out for you in your life? How do you go in about your day, sort of think about those things? I think it's always fun to hear people talk about this, especially somebody as close to the Ritual as you are.
I think for me, I mean, if you know, I think that the reality is like, you know, in the same way that they're seasons of life, like, you can't be all the things all the time. I think for me, self-sacrifice is the one that kind of moves me along in life. I, you know, I mentioned I learned to be a volunteer for Tri Delta. A part of that learning experience was understanding that there are things in life that have tremendous value and that add to your life in almost immeasurable ways that don't have compensation attached to them. And so, you know, for me, you know, my love language is, you know, cooking a big meal for other people to eat. It is crocheting something that I'm going to give away. It is in my work life here as the co-director for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I mean, the bulk of my time is spent helping our talented staff figure out how to succeed in their jobs. So, you know, there is not a lot, how should I say this, the most essential part of me is in figuring out how to be of service.
And, you know, and Tri Delta is not the only organization I volunteer for. I'm a part of the Crochet Guild of America, I'm on the board of an organization called Project Threadways. I serve on the session in my church. So I think, you know, for me, that's self sacrifice. Being a service to others.
Yeah, Tri Delta ideal. Yeah, I mean, I don't know I quite frankly there are times when I would like to be more self-absorbed so. No, I'm just going to put that out.
So I have one final question I'm going to bring all of this together, TriDelta and Southern Foodways. Tri Delta is definitely on a DEIAB journey. And we believe if we know better we can do better and we're always learning but really learning in a way that helps us understand our members and create an experience that serves all of the women in Tri Delta. You get to see, I think, do I be through a different light in your work. Do you think food has the power to break down barriers and facilitate meaningful conversations as we all work through these issues?
I think it does. And I think it does because what food offers us as Southerners is common ground. You know, put a pan of cornbread on a table, put a well-made biscuit on the table with a group of Southerners and chances are many people at that table have eaten this. And in our more modern parlance, put a stack of corn tortillas on the table. Everyone at the table is going to, every Southerner at the table, is going to have a, likely going to have a story to tell about what's in front of them. And through those stories, we can begin to have conversations about all the things that divide us in the South. You know, we can through something as simple and basic as a pan of cornbread, begin to have conversations about gender and about socioeconomic divides and about class and about race. And I think for, you know, the reality of Southern Foodways Alliance is we were founded in part to pay down the debt of pleasure that this region owed to the enslaved men and women who laid the groundwork for one of the world's great cuisines.
And, you know, I would say for both, in both the SFA context and the Tri Delta context, you know, I think a first step is getting everyone at the table. And I think the second step is reconciliation. And I think the challenge with reconciliation is to truly reconcile there has to first be truth-telling. And the truth-telling can be uncomfortable for, you know, in Southern food and in Tri Delta. And I think, you know, I think we've got to get over that and get over ourselves and then begin to do the work together.
Thank you. Love this conversation. Could have had it for another hour because there's so much in all these topics that are so fun to talk about and so meaningful. So thank you. First of all, where can people find Southern Foodways Alliance online on Instagram? Where are you?
So we are, you can find us at southernfoodways .org. and everything we do is available through that website. We are also on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, still sort of. I mean, is anybody still really on Twitter? Whatever that is now. Exactly, we're there and then you can find Gravy the podcast at any place you will listen to podcasts. Just type in Gravy and there we are.
Well, you are a treasure. Thank you for joining us today. We so appreciate your perspective and experience and all the work you do for Tri Delta.
Thanks and same to you.
Well, thank you. Thanks to Melissa, loved sharing her story with everybody today. I know everybody will agree there's a lot there and so much interesting, interesting stuff that she gets to do every day and gets to talk about.
If you want to learn more about the work Tri Delta is doing around diversity, equity, inclusion, access and belonging, you can find that at Tri Delta .org under Our Story. If you like this podcast, give us a thumbs up. We love those five star ratings. Even though we love the three stars in the crescent, we will take your five star rating. Thanks for joining us today. Until next time, Delta Love.