Southern Cuisine

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 The bowl most recently known as the Belk Bowl has a new identity. Belk announced in late 2019 that the game played that year in Charlotte would be the last to bear its name and corporate sponsorship. Southern Staple Duke's Mayonnaise has since taken up the mantle, and it was announced as the Duke's Mayo Bowl earlier this week. The game pits an ACC team against a team from either the SEC or Big Ten. The early season neutral site game in Charlotte will also bear the Duke's name.

Like Belk, Duke's is a brand born in the Carolinas (Greenville, SC to Belk's Monroe, NC) and inextricably linked to the South. Among the cultural divides between north and south is that of Hellman's vs. Duke's, which makes it a good fit for a both headquartered in Charlotte. Since the bowl began its contract pitting the ACC vs. the SEC in 2014, the matchup has always included a pair of southern schools; this will certainly change (College Park's regional ambiguity notwithstanding) when the SEC begins alternating with the Big Ten for their half of the bowl bid.

This is where my carpetbagger shows: I don't have a personal connection to Duke's. Still, I recognize its regional prominence, and think it makes a strong fit for the Charlotte bowl game.