Five chefs with roots in Asia and the Middle East are changing Southern food. Today, they talk about how Southern food changed them.

A little extra time and money will yield the best hummus you’ve ever had.

As cooked in the Plains, Georgia, kitchen of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in 2006.

At two venerable Alabama barbecue institutions — Archibald’s in Northport and Lannie’s in Selma — the seasoning isn’t in the rub. It’s in the wood.

*With a stanza on pronunciations. **And a recipe!

Hoppin’ John, they call him. Now, five decades deep into his career as a historian of Southern food, John Martin Taylor delivers a career-capping memoir that teaches us to make the most of what we’ve got. On our tables and in our souls.

But really, it’s an Apple Nut Torte

To honor our Italian ancestors and friends, let’s call it gamberetti con polenta.

Some folks can’t cook the traditional Southern Christmas dinner. So one year, one of them tried spaghetti. Everyone loved it, including the cats.

In the Ross household, a turkey on the Thanksgiving table was never enough. Oysters were required.

In Spring Creek, Florida, three young oyster farming operations demonstrate the modern response to the decline of traditional oyster harvesting along the Panhandle.

Two New Orleans restaurants trace their origins directly to the famed Cajun dining spot, K-Paul’s: Brigtsen’s and Gabrielle now carry the late chef’s torch.