Stories like this fill me up.

“When you love what you do, it always comes out in your food.”

This is the story of Georgia Gilmore and Martha Hawkins of Montgomery, Alabama, “…whose restaurant serves as a modern day incarnation of the Civil Rights Movement ideal of the beloved community.”

I love this. I love that these stories are being told and I love what it means for southern food movements.

I relate especially to the deep undertones of these cooks who offered what they could for a movement. They may have not been able to preach fire from their tongues, but could feed the bellies of the revolution.

Foodways are important, you see? It is about social change as much as it is the fat we use to fry our chicken.

I encourage you to watch this story and maybe see why southern foodways are so important to me and the history of our country.

It all starts with a cook in her home kitchen, feeding friends, family and the deep hungry bellies of the Civil Rights Movement.