Documenting, studying, and celebrating the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.
Oral History Project Index
SFA Founders
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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
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Interviews by SFA Members and Friends.
Project sponsored by Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q.
Those traditions that I learned about
through my grandmother’s farm and being at my grandparents’
farm table... I think that those are the things that I feel, as a chef
and a Southern chef, somewhat obligated to preserve, to talk about, and
find out the best most wonderful salient things and to pass those on.
~Frank Stitt
This was a natural relationship for us. I mean this is not something—it’s not a contrived situation. It’s just, this is our life.
~Pardis Stitt
A native of Alabama, Frank Stitt has, with his wife Pardis, birthed four restaurants – Highlands Bar
and Grill, Chez Fonfon, Bottega, and Bottega Café – in one
Birmingham neighborhood, making the Southside of that town one of the
region’s dining destinations.
Early in life, he left the South. Tufts University in Boson came first.
Then the University of California at Berkeley where, inspired by his reading
of Richard Olney and Elizabeth David, he sought a kitchen job. Eventually
he found his way to Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse. And from there to
a position, in France, working as Richard Olney’s assistant.
But the pull of the South proved great. In 1982, he retuned to his native
Alabama. A quartet of restaurants followed. Recently, he wrote Frank
Stitt’s Southern Table: Recipes and Gracious Traditions from Highlands
Bar and Grill, an homage to Southern cookery, filtered though his
various peregrinations. Therein you will find recipes for roast venison
with cabbage, spoonbread, and bourbon; soft-shell crab with brown butter
and bacon vinaigrette; and skirt steak with watermelon and red onion relish.
In 2006, Stitt received the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award from
the Southern Foodways Alliance.
SUBJECT: Frank & Pardis Stitt, SFA Founders
DATE: December 30, 2004
LOCATION: Highlands Bar and Grill – Birmingham, AL
INTERVIEWER: Jake York, SFA Member
*TRANSCRIPT: To download a full transcript of this interview in PDF form, please click here.
