Southern Food- Jungyeon Alice Lee

I think that Southern food is so unique that people from outside the South would be willing to try the difference in Southern food. As seen in this video clip and article http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/03/02/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6259635.shtml,
President Obama is one of the people that want to enjoy such a different taste of southern food. On his trip to Savannah, he stops by at a restaurant renowned for its down-home Southern food to enjoy the ‘uniqueness’. Considering his high cholesterol, he thinks that some of the southern food that he tries might be bad for his health but seem to feel that the temptation of the food fried chicken, BBQ pulled port, cream corn, and so on  is too strong for him.


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Seeing this video reminded me of some points made in our class regarding the stereotype-making process. Media might strengthen southern stereotype through covering events making the South more ‘unique’ even in terms of food. In a respect, the event covered might have been intentionally made up by President Obama. Politicians like him possibly think that showing their interest in the representative southern food might appeal to southerners because food is likely a good symbol of the South. On the southerners’ side, this kind of stereotype making will not be bad. It might attract more people from other areas to the South and make their pride in their homeland stronger.