OXFORD, Miss. — Writer John T. Edge has spent much of his career telling stories about a changing American South filtered through the lens of food and culture . He's published cookbooks and food histories, and he's been a contributor to the New York Times , the now-shuttered magazine, Gourmet, the Food Network, and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered . He also hosts the TV program True South .

Edge, the former director of the Southern Foodways Alliance , has explored a wide range of topics — including the Mississippi hot tamale trail, Atlanta's multicultural Buford Highway, the history of fried chicken, and the unsung cooks who fed civil rights activists.

Now he has turned the lens on his own family's troubled history in a new memoir called House of Smoke: A Southern

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