“Compared with dinners that unspool like novels, the best sandwiches, eaten on the fly, are short stories, swift and smart and telling,” writes John T. Edge, a mentor in UGA’s Low-Residency MFA in Narrative Nonfiction program. “Good sandwiches make good memories.”

And Edge knows something about memories, and how to craft them into compelling narratives.

Author of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South – which was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Publisher‘s Weekly, and a host of others – John T. Edge served as a columnist for the Oxford American for over twenty years, wrote the “United Tastes” column for the New York Times for three, and was elected to the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame in 2019. And since 2018, he has hosted the television show TrueSouth, which airs on the SEC Network, ESPN, and Hulu, and “that explores the small towns, back roads, family restaurants, and unsung heroes who make the South such a dynamic place.”

John’s latest work comes as a contributing editor at Garden and Gun, where he continues to explore food, drink, and just what the South tastes like. This edition’s article, Ten Must-Try Southern Sandwiches and Where to Get Them features stacks “from Arkansas to Florida, in cities and small towns, they deliver smoky pleasures from our past and gesture to our shallot mayo–slathered future.” A little closer to home, he previously featured a new market café in Athens, in Birdies: A New College-Town Tastemaker in Athens, Georgia.

And, just this week, John was the featured guest on Southern Living’s Biscuits and Jam Podcast, where editor-in-chief Sid Evans sits down with Southern icons to hear stories of how they grew up, what inspired them, and how they’ve been shaped by Southern culture. 

Growing up in Clinton, Georgia, 12 miles from Macon, John T. Edge is certainly more than qualified to speak on the subject. “I’m in awe of the power of Southerners to respond to the place that brung them up and then make something beautiful to face down adversity.” And while his childhood may have been complicated, as he tells host Sid Evans, his home was always full of curiosity for the good Southern food that raised him. That curiosity is something he has channeled into his work, as a writer, tv host, and a mentor.

To hear more, listen to John’s episode of Biscuits & Jam.

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