Hugh Acheson debates: When did Southern cooking change?

Athens, Ga., chef Hugh Acheson is a busy guy: "Top Chef" judging, "Top Chef Masters" competing, author of "A New Turn in the South" and executive chef of Five & Ten. Oh, and there are those two James Beard Foundation nominations, one for chef and one for his book.

On top of all that, he has the reverence for Southern food of a devoted adoptee. He's not from the South (he's Canadian), so he appreciates it all the more.

Acheson came up with a fascinating idea this week on the Epicurious blog, Epi Log: He looks at two recipes from two S.C. community cookbooks, one from 1961 and one from 1971, to determine when Southern cooking shifted from food prepared by a people who knew their way around their kitchens to food that was sliding into convenience products.

Does he make his case? Read it and and tell me what you think:

Hugh Acheson's Southern cooking theory.