(Seated left to right) Frank Stitt, Marvin Woods, host Gene Edwards and John T. Edge

In his highly praised cookbook, Frank Stitt tells the stories of his life. He remembers being at his mother’s table or being in the kitchen with people in France. “Those are all food memories that I think move me in an emotional way,” the chef says. “That’s something you need to express.” These stories are part of the acclaimed Frank Stitt’s "Southern Table: Recipes and Gracious Traditions from Highlands Bar and Grill," published in 2004 and already in it’s third printing. "Bon Appetit" has named him a culinary legend, and his Birmingham restaurant has been called one of the best in the nation.

Joining Stitt at the Writers roundtable are Marvin Woods and John T. Edge. Chef Woods owns and operates Restaurant M Woods in Miami, is host of Turner South’s "Home Plate," and is the author of two cookbooks. Writing, like television, he says, “is all about teaching. I really enjoy cooking, but I enjoy teaching as well.” He takes pride in his manageable recipes. “I strip back that mystique about going in the kitchen, making a really good meal, and not spending all day in the kitchen.”

Recipes and reflections fill Edge’s "A Gracious Plenty." The director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, Edge is a prolific writer currently in search of America’s iconic foods—fried chicken, apple pie, doughnuts, and hamburgers. He says that he developed his interest in food and culture at a barbecue joint where he grew up. “I was fascinated by the people that came there and the way that restaurant functioned as sort of a de facto clubhouse for the community.”

All three authors use food to tell stories of the south in all its diversity. “We’re talking about an inclusive south that includes black and white and recent immigrant, as well,” continues Edge. “We’re using food as a lens by which we understand the south.” He tells of his 2004 Foodways Symposium looked at the common bonds at the table and the shared creation of food. “We recognize our common humanity in that plate.”

“This is true American cuisine,” Marvin Woods adds. “I say you can’t talk about American cuisine until you talk about southern, because that’s where it started.” He credits reading the first African American cookbook, published in 1881 by Abby Fisher, as a source of his inspiration. The food he develops and the stories he tells all come from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and the southern part of the United States.

Frank Stitt tells of mixing the culinary traditions of both black and white in his restaurant. “I began to take greater pride in our southern ingredients,’ he says as he weaves the black traditional food of his restaurant family with his own small Alabama farm food. “And sometimes with me, I’m blending a little bit of Provence, the south of France, with the south of the United States.” Claiming that there is something special about southern soil, Stitt continues, “Our southern ingredients hadn’t really been celebrated like the French had been doing for generations.”

According to Woods, writing a cookbook “is a whole ‘nother language.” He speaks of having to be shown how to write for a magazine or a book. Stitt concurs as he tells of learning to follow a specified style. “There’s a real structure of how it’s going to be and what’s going to be capitalized and where the commas are going to go, and there is a big learning curve.” Woods continues, “When you’re writing a recipe for somebody to read and go and duplicate, it must be very detail oriented.”

Not only does everything have to be checked for grammatical accuracy and style, the recipes themselves must be tested. “You have to test recipes in a home environment,” continues Woods. “You can’t test them in a professional environment.” Stitt cooked, tested, and shot both in his restaurant and at home. “I’m like a mechanic that’s always fine tuning a vinaigrette,” he claims. Edge gives his wife much credit. “I would come home full of excitement and maybe with the gleanings of a recipe and my wife would interpret my shouts and stammers into a pie.”

From culinary school to acclaimed cookbooks to fantasies of their favorite southern meals, the these three authors bring divergent perspectives to the table and prove that, as James Beard once wrote, food can be a common ground. It’s real food for thought.