Omnivore - Southern food and culture publications you should probably be reading

If you aren’t reading these two beautifully designed deep dives into Southern food and culture, you’re doing it wrong.

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  • Andrew Thomas Lee



An Atlanta eater can dream, right? Perhaps of a publication that gets to heart of what it is to be a Southerner and an eater. Maybe of beautifully designed, thoughtful deep dives into the cocktail crafters, purveyors, and incredible humans that make this place what it is.

And, as it turns out, those little daydreams have been answered. Here are not one, but two pieces of required reading that serve as brilliant counterpoints to the Twitter minutia of the everyday: Brother and Bitter Southerner. If you aren’t reading these on the regular, you are doing it all wrong.

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Brother Journal
Through thoughtful reporting and gritty, realistic photography, this full-color booklet-sized food journal tackles one subject per issue, fixing its gaze on a particular purveyor. The truly impressive trio of chef Ryan Smith, photographer Andrew Thomas Lee, and designer Alvin Diec want to bring you the stories of people making good, honest food the right way - and they won’t avert their eyes if it gets messy. (Full disclosure: CL Culture Editor Wyatt Williams penned the first issue of Brother.)

“When you go to a restaurant, you might think about where the food came from or what the chef did to prepare it - but you’re not thinking about who produces the ingredients and how much work it took just to get to the restaurant. We hope we can shed some light on that,” Lee says.

When Smith approached Lee with the idea of creating a food journal that took on one subject at the time, he was immediately in. They both thought of Diec in terms of design and hit on the idea of having a different writer for each issue, so the style was ever-changing. Usually they agree on a topic, then the three of them spend the weekend on the farm with the writer. The next couple of months are spent putting design, photo, and words together.

The first two issues took on chickens, featuring farmer Brandon Chonko, and oysters, featuring Charleston’s bivalve impresario Clammer Dave. The third issue, to be released in May/June, will reportedly “have something to do with cows.” You can pick up an issue at both Octane locations and on the Brother website.

Bitter Southerner
Yes, yes - we know that this publication, which features one long-form feature about the South per week, is about far more than drinks or food. But its inspiration was taken from cocktails - specifically the idea of hunting down the area’s finest barkeeps and telling their stories, since no one else seemed to be doing them justice.

“There will always be threads of cocktails and music running through The Bitter Southerner, because we’re just big geeks about those things. But we saw early on that we could and should expand the palette a bit,” said founder Chuck Reece in a note.

One of the most amazing things that’s happened is that people started reaching out with their stories and contributions, like New Orleans photographer Rick Olivier, who kicked off the April issue with a piece about a shoebox full of Polaroids he found in his garage from 1979, all of Southern folks standing in front of their azaleas. There’s still a hefty dose of brilliant writing and reporting around our beloved traditions of imbibing and eating in the mix. Take for example, their cocktail series or incredible look at the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Bitter Southerner’s purpose is noble: “We wanted to create a publication that showed other people the South that we saw - in other words, a place that’s very, very cool in many, many ways even though our region has some awful things in our history. John T. Edge told me one time that before you can brag about your good shit, you have to own your bad shit. So I think we’re trying to do both,” Reece says.

The stories are long-form but easily hold your attention. Reece speaks of the strong collaboration between writer and designer as what helps each piece capture the imagination - what makes them want to read a 5,000-word piece online week after week.