Race and Repast: Foodscapes in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature examines the literary foodscapes of the American South—from Jim Crow–era kitchens where White and Black Southerners reacted against racial mores, to the public dining spaces where Southerners probed the limits of racial identity, to the lunch counters that became touchstones of the Black Freedom movement. Mining literary texts by iconic authors like Ernest Gaines and Walker Percy to demonstrate that “food reflects and refracts power,” Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis wields food studies as a revelatory lens through which to view a radically segregated society that was often on the cusp of violence. Niewiadomska-Flis also provides a rich and succinct introduction to scholarship in Southern studies and food studies, making Race and Repast a compelling read that offers countless insights to experts as well as readers exploring these areas of research for the first time.

Urszula Niewiadomska-Flis is associate professor of literary studies, with a specialization in American studies, at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, Poland. Her scholarly interests include representations of foodways in literature and film; ethnic and immigrant literatures of the United States; and American television series. She is the author of The Southern Mystique: Food, Gender, and Houses in Southern Fiction and Films.