Background

Background

Loosely modeled after the Southern Foodways Alliance (see links section below) and its Cornbread Nation publications out of Oxford, Mississippi, Sabores aims to bring together people like you who celebrate and work to preserve our local foods and foodways traditions.

The Sabores Sin Fronteras concept emerged out of a Winter 2008 retreat sponsored by the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona. The Southwest Center and its new “BorderLore Project” (documenting and celebrating a wide variety of folklore traditions in the region) will serve as the official home of Sabores. But the Alliance will not have a single hub. Rather, it will function through several workgroups, each dedicated to one of the following activities: 1) collaborative cross-border field studies and documentation; 2) culinary practices and agri-tourism; 3) publications (print, web, audio, video, etc.); and 4) events (symposia; food-related dance, music, and literary performances; festivals; hands-on workshops; etc.).

Much like the inspiring founders of the Southern Foodways Alliance, we believe that food and “time at the table” are inherently fun and festive and can open doors to shared experience and reconciliation.