Ferris' 'Matzoh Ball Gumbo' Nominated for Beard Award

Posted on March 21, 2006

Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South, has been nominated for this year’s James Beard Foundation Book Award in the “Writings on Food” category. Ferris is one of three nominees for this year’s Beard Award.

James Beard is recognized as the father of American gastronomy, and the James Beard Foundation is synonymous with the highest standards of culinary excellence. The Beard Awards honor the finest cookbook authors, restaurants, chefs, food and beverage journalists, broadcasters, and restaurant and graphic designers.

Ferris is associate director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and assistant professor of American studies at UNC. She also is vice president of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Matzoh Ball Gumbo, published in October by UNC Press, has garnered honors from The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as one the most notable cookbooks of 2005. It also was featured in the January/February 2006 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

From the colonial era to the present, Ferris examines the expressive power of food throughout Southern Jewish history. She demonstrates how Southern Jews reinvented culinary traditions as they adjusted to living in a largely Christian region where forbidden foods such as pork, shrimp, oysters and crab are popular. This illustrated culinary tour of the Jewish South includes anecdotes, oral histories and more than 30 recipes.

The James Beard Award winners will be announced May 8 in New York.

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