Yvonne R. Lockwood

‘The fish caught the mn’: Celebrating food and place

In a small town in the Thumb of Michigan “the fish caught the man”. The town is Bay Port, Michigan, once an important commercial fishing port from which fish was shipped all over the Midwest. The man was Henry Engelhard. Communities develop attachments with their local food and not uncommonly use it as a focal point to attract visitors. In the 1970s the Chamber of Commerce wanted to make Bay Port a tourist destination, and rather than using the proposed idea of an Alpine Village theme as the attraction, Henry suggested using the towns local resource: fish. The resulting development of the Fish Sandwich Festival, the connection of food to place, the relevance to the fish sandwich to the community and its meaning and significance to Henrys family provide a case study of the invention of a foodways tradition, the institutionalization of tourism, and heritage politics.

Culinary Tourism (review)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book that caused great consternation on both sides of the MasonDixon line. Other major abolitionist voices, such as those of former slaves Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, are not heard at all. Nor is anything heard from those Southerners who were not members of the clergy. The clergy might have been the most frequent defenders of slavery, but they were hardly the only ones discussing its ethical effects. The inclusion of the viewpoints of such individuals as diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut (who not only provided a firsthand view of the political world of the Confederacy but also criticized the decisions of Southern leaders) and prolific antislavery writer Angelina Grimké (who based her critique on the experience of growing up in a slaveholding family) would provide Daly’s book with a valuable dimension it currently lacks. Still, the material that is included in When Slavery Was Called Freedom definitely provides new and useful information for those interested in the religious attitudes of the Confederate South. The fact that the book might have had a broader scope does not detract from the quality of the argument it already contains.