Virtual Table Stretches Around the World
Absolute thrill. That’s the feeling “Deep South Dining” co-hosts had when just 200 folks pulled chairs up to their Facebook page and public group, “Cooking and Coping: Gathering Around the Virtual Table.”
That seems almost quaint now, many months and thousands of members later, as that virtual table has added enough leaves to stretch around the world. The current count topped 3,100 at year’s end.
Carol Puckett and Malcolm White host Mississippi Public Broadcasting Think Radio’s Monday morning “Deep South Dining,” with food-centric chat, interviews and calls from listeners. They’ve continued, remotely, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But, they wanted a way to stay in touch with their listeners, and keep a place to interact beyond the one-hour weekly radio show.
“We decided a Facebook page would be fun to do,” Puckett says, so they reached out to LeAnne Gault, her pal since they both worked for Viking and a decade-plus social media pro, for help creating it.
“I just knew that food brought people together,” says Gault of Jackson, now working with EdgeTheory. “Food was what I always shared on social media. It’s the easiest way of telling the story of your life. … I cook to unwind. That’s how I cope. That’s why we called it ‘Cooking and Coping.’
“I didn’t know how much help it was really going to give the radio show, but I felt like people were really going to clamor for it.”
Clamor they did, cooking and connecting in a coronavirus workaround that’s forged relationships, fueled kitchen inspiration and fed ideas right back into “Deep South Dining.”
“You build it and, honestly, it’s like the parade,” says White, whose Mal’s St. Paddy’s Parade (now Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade), started as a ragtag, rush-hour outing that grew into a major event that draws tens of thousands. “Some things just take off.”
In no time flat, friends’ invitations spread the page’s reach. Now, “We have someone in Taiwan, we have someone in Spain,” Puckett says. “We had someone this summer who was living on an island off the coast in Japan, in a marine resource station. We’re reaching a lot of people.”
The group offered a way to virtually connect with others, but the depth of those connections is surprising, Puckett says. “Day after day or week after week, you see people post what they’re doing in their kitchen, and you begin knowing a lot about their life. You get used to seeing their table and their kitchen and style of food they cook, and then the comments go back and forth, so you develop a relationship with that person.”
For people who might ordinarily be a casual “Deep South Dining” listener, “Cooking and Coping” connects them to a larger community that’s more accessible and immediate than the once-weekly radio show (also a podcast), White says. People can ask questions, answer questions, post recipes and attach links. “It’s like an encyclopedia of people interested in Southern food and cooking and sharing. … It’s added a new dimension to the show.
“It’s really enriched the whole thing.”
Listenership is up, too. The “Deep South Dining” podcast has been downloaded 43,000 times since January 2020, with 64 percent of its total audience coming since March 1. In the last four months of 2020, the podcast audience grew by almost 50 percent each week, says MPB Director of Communications Shanderia Minor. Listeners can subscribe to the podcast at deepsouthdining.mpbonline.org and/or tune in to the program at 9 a.m. Mondays on MPB Think Radio.
In the Facebook group’s generous exchange of tips, techniques and enticing photos, many have embraced new challenges and cooked outside their comfort zones. Someone may post a dish that looks so tasty, others ask for the recipe and within three days, 15 more will cook the same thing.
“I think the boundaries between us have just folded,” Puckett says. “It’s possible to be in the kitchen with people all over the world.”
Dutch baby pancakes were a big hit for about a month, introducing many to the puffed German breakfast treat. Dressing held sway as a conversation topic as the holidays approached. Puckett recalls a favorite post by Bob Yarbrough, formerly of Jackson and now in Charlottesville, Virginia, that spurred many to make their own braised brisket with bourbon peach glaze. Julian Blunt of Biloxi “has raised sandwiches and sandwich photography to an art form,” she says.
“There are certain people, that I would say are the real leaders, just because people are so attracted to what they do,” Puckett adds, such as April McGreger, originally from Vardaman and now in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “People will message her all the time on the Facebook page and ask how to fix something they’ve messed up.” A boost in pastry confidence and improved meat cooking skills are just a few of Puckett’s own takeaways. After seeing so many artfully arranged creations in posts, “It’s also helped me with plating.”
Yarbrough, “heavily hunkered down” in Charlottesville since mid-March, says “a whole virtual world of safe contact through food opened up for me” through “Cooking and Coping,” He found comfort in its community of members also challenged by the times and retreating into food. “What I learned from the site, and continue to gather, is more the coping part than the food part — just the sense of what meals mean to people.”
“It came together at a good time,” Gault says, with people trapped at home but craving connection. “I think it filled that void, and I do think it will survive after all is said and done and inoculated away.”
Predictions are, too, that the virtual table will morph into an actual one, and members will gather for real, sharing all the deliciousness the page has documented and inspired.
“I don’t feel like it’s going to be short-lived, with all of us chomping at the bit, ready to meet each other,” Gault says, picturing “some giant groaning table” surrounded by smiling faces.
“Once you build a community, they don’t just go away,” White says. “I think we’ll see this community sticking together and continuing to communicate into the future.
“Who doesn’t like a better recipe for a biscuit?”
