Check out this blog post from Gourmet magazine about Southern cheesemakers. John T. Edge notes that typically, when Southerns have talked about cheese, "we have been more likely to talk pimento cheese ... But that was then. This is now."

He praises the cheese from two Southern operations: Sweetgrass Dairy, in Georgia (goat cheese pictured, left), and John Folse's Bittersweet Plantation, in Gonzales, Louisiana.

Closer to home, I found two notable cheesemakers in Alabama: Sweet Home Farm, in Baldwin County, has been singled out on Emeril's blog, on Cheesebyhand.com, and in the Stockman Grass Farmer magazine.

A Southern cheesemaker success story is Fromagerie Belle Chevre in Elkmont, Ala. The business and their award-winning goat cheeses have been written up in publications ranging from Food & Wine and Gourmet through Vogue and Business Week. Their cheeses can be found at upscale stores such as Whole Foods and Dean & Deluca, or through their web site.

It's much easier to find good cheese in Birmingham than it used to be. A number of restaurants now offer cheese plates, and V. Richard's, Tria Market and Whole Foods all have wonderful cheese counters. The selection at Whole Foods is larger, but if you go to V. Richard's or Tria you can sample the cheese you're interested in before you buy.  

Edge, the article says, "is a man on a mission, a mission to preserve and celebrate two of America's greatest cultural gems: the food and the food lore of the South." He has been called "the Faulkner of Southern food" and nominated for four James Beard awards.

In the interview, Edge talks about what he calls "honest food," how the roots of Southern food have been lost in translation as corporations try to package it, Kool-Aid pickles, how he finds the places he puts in his book, and how integration ties up with food.

"Except for sex, eating is the most intimate activity we regularly engage in with others," Edge tells Salon's Adam Roberts. "The fight of the citizens of the South to exclude blacks from churches and schools -- well, the subtext of that was: "If we let you sit down next to us at the restaurant, the next thing we know you'll be diddling our wives."

I just discovered a fantastic section on southernfoodways.com about Greeks in Birmingham. If you've lived in Birmingham long, you'll know that the Greek immigrants to Birmingham have been a major part of the city's restaurant scene since the early 1900s. It's a few years old, but there are transcripts of interviews with Gus Kourtoulakis of Pete's Famous Hot Dogs, Jimmy Koikos of The Bright Star, George Sarris of The Fish Market, John Calamas (who owned the now-closed Yanni's and before that a small restaurant on Valleydale), George Sissa of Niki's Downtown, Pete and Betty Hontzas of Niki's West, Theo Hontzas of The Smoke House, and more. Check it out at http://www.southernfoodways.com/oral_history/greek/index.shtml.