Documenting, studying, and celebrating the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.
Oral History Project Index
SFA Founders
- Home
INTERVIEWS
Ann Abadie
Kaye Adams
Jim Auchmutey
Marilou Awiakta
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Ella Brennan
Ann Brewer
Karen Cathey
Leah Chase
Al Clayton
Mary Ann Clayton
Shirley Corriher
Norma Jean Darden
Crescent Dragonwagon
Nathalie Dupree
John T. Edge
John Egerton
Lolis Eric Elie
Donna Florio
John Folse
Terry Ford
Psyche Williams-Forson
Damon Lee Fowler
Vertamae Grosvenor
Jessica B. Harris
Cynthia Hizer
Portia James
Martha Johnston
Sally Belk King
Sarah Labensky
Edna Lewis
Rudy Lombard
Ronni Lundy
Louis Osteen
Marlene Osteen
Timothy W. Patridge
Paul Prudhomme
Joe Randall
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders
Richard Schweid
Ned Shank
Kathy Starr
Frank Stitt
Pardis Stitt
Marion Sullivan
Van Sykes
John Martin Taylor
Toni Tipton-Martin
Jeanne Voltz
Charles Reagan Wilson
---
Interviews by SFA Members and Friends.
Project sponsored by Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q.
More recipes, I think, are created in
the Deep South than anyplace in the world over a cup of coffee over
a kitchen table... It's a feeling of warmth and friendship.
We don't do that today.
~Marie Rudisill
Born in Alabama, Marie Rudisill is the author of eight books, including Sook’s Cookbook and Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook. She was aunt to novelist Truman Capote and helped to raise him. He lived with her, both in Monroeville, Alabama, and New York City. Rudisill currently resides in Florida.
The book Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook led to a Tonight Show invitation in December 2000. During her first visit, Rudisill taught Jay Leno and Mel Gibson to bake fruitcakes. She now appears regularly on the show, dispensing advice and holding forth as The Fruitcake Lady.
Rudisill was an early and insistent champion of Southern foodways. She is a stickler for details, a font of knowledge about heritage foods, and a voice of generations past. In 2001, the Southern Foodways Alliance celebrated her contributions by awarding her the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award.
Marie Rudisill passed away on November 3, 2006.
SUBJECT: Marie Rudisill, SFA Founder
DATE: November 2005
LOCATION: Ms. Rudisill’s Florida home
INTERVIEWER: John T. Edge, SFA Founding Director
*TRANSCRIPT: To download a full transcript of this interview in PDF form, please click here.
