Bio & Photos

John T. Edge is a contributing editor at Gourmet. He writes a monthly column, “United Tastes,” for the New York Times. He is a contributing editor at Garden & Gun. He is a longtime columnist for the Oxford American.

His work for Saveur and other magazines has been featured in six editions of the Best Food Writing compilation. He has been nominated for four James Beard Foundation Awards, including the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. In 2009, he was inducted into Beard's Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America.

Edge holds a master’s degree in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. (He wrote his thesis on potlikker.) Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. The SFA has completed more than 450 oral histories and 20 films, focusing on the likes of fried chicken cooks, row crop farmers, oystermen, and bartenders.

He has a number of books to his credit, including the James Beard Award-nominated cookbook, A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South.

Putnam published his four book series on iconic American eats: Fried Chicken: An American Story; Apple Pie: An American Story; Hamburgers & Fries: An American Story; and Donuts: An American Passion.

Algonquin Books published, in 2007, a revised and expanded edition of Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South.

Edge is editor of the foodways volume of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. And he is general editor of the book series, Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing.

He is at work on a new project, for Workman, a cookbook that catalogues modern American street and truck food.

Edge has served as culinary curator for the weekend edition of NPR’s All Things Considered, and he has been featured on dozens of television shows, from CBS Sunday Morning to Iron Chef.

He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his son, Jess, and his wife, Blair Hobbs, teacher, and painter. His website is www.johntedge.com. Her website is www.blairhobbs.com.