Food and drink create community. As food writer M.F.K. Fisher writes, “There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk.”

In this Good Food issue of Our Tennessee, we celebrate food and drink for the times when strangers gather around tables to break bread and drink wine, then leave as friends, with memories made.

We must eat and drink to survive. But, really, those basic needs are so much more than that. Our traditions and memories circle around food from oven-roasted turkeys at Thanksgiving to hot dogs and hamburgers on the Fourth of July and rest upon the friends and family who gather with us. We celebrate with special meals and mourn with comforting dishes. Yes, food and drink keep our bodies alive, but they also succor and nourish our souls.

Through the ages, there always have been a breed of humans cultivating the soil, bending over hearths and ovens, crushing grapes and distilling corn and rye. The University of Tennessee System and our alumni play many different roles in this food and beverage chain. This issue provides only the smallest sampling of those who work the fields, smoke the ham and flip the hamburgers.

Let us raise a glass to friends and family near and far, our memory makers.

We at Our Tennessee raise a special one in memory of Josh Kirkpatrick, who is included in “Middle of Somewhere” and died as a result of injuries sustained in an accident before the magazine went to press.