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The world lost an important teacher, poet and excellent, barbecue-loving soul this weekend in the form of Jake Adam York. He passed away at the age of 40 from the effects of a massive stroke, and we can't help but think about having heard him read his stunning work in person this past October at the Southern Foodways Alliance annual symposium in Oxford, Mississippi.
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Ahmed Ferwana has a cookout coming up, one that's been years in the making. The English teacher in Gaza City is excited because his friends will be cooking a fish they haven't been able to buy in years.

Ferwana says the taste of this fish when cooked on the grill with spices is indescribable. He added that this fish, its name is translated as locus, is also a favorite because it has fewer bones than others.

Ferwana has missed this fish because of restrictions imposed on Gaza's coastline. Citing security concerns, weapons smuggling and the desire to prevent attacks, Israel restricted Gaza's fishing to only three nautical miles from shore. That's meant a small supply of fish and high prices for years.
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Editor's note: The Southern Foodways Alliance delves deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. We've been sharing dispatches live from their 15th annual Symposium "Barbecue: An Exploration of Pitmaster, Places, Smoke, and Sauce" in Oxford, Mississippi, over the past few days. Dig in.

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North Carolina writer Randall Kenan delivers the opening keynote address at the 2012 SFA symposium, a literary meditation on the importance of the hog in Southern culture. Kenan is introduced by Ted Ownby of the University of Mississippi. It's saucy.

Previously - Alton Brown on the science of cooking whole hogs

The price of bacon is about to go up. Say it isn’t so!

Though the industry warning first came out of Europe, hog farmer Diana Prichard of Michigan’s Olive Hill Farm says that it’s true here in the U.S. too.
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