Marcie Cohen Ferris is an emeritus professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she serves as an editor for Southern Cultures, a quarterly journal of the history and cultures of the U.S. South. Ferris is the author of The Edible South:  The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region (UNC Press, 2014), Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (UNC Press, 2005; nominated for a James Beard Award, 2006), and co-editor of Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (Brandeis, 2006). Ferris’ scholarship addresses issues of regional identity, culture, history, and place. Her teaching examines the history of the Jewish South, American Food Studies, American Jewish women’s history, and the histories and cultures of the American South.