Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing
Author: John Egerton
The first volume in what will be an annual collection, Cornbread Nation gathers the best of recent Southern food writing. In fifty-one entries—original features and selections previously published in magazines and journals—contributors celebrate the people, places, traditions, and tastes of the American South.
In these pages, Nikki Giovanni expresses her admiration for the legendary Edna Lewis, James Villas remembers his friend Craig Claiborne, Rick Bragg thinks back on Thanksgivings at home, Robert Morgan describes the rituals of canning time, and Fred Chappell offers a contrarian's view of iced tea. "Collectively," writes John Egerton, these pieces "buttress our conviction that nothing else the South has to offer to the nation and the world—with the possible exception of its music—is more eternally satisfying, heartwarming, reconciling, and memorable than its food." With the publication of Cornbread Nation, we acknowledge with gratitude the abiding centrality of food in the ongoing life of the South.
Contributors include: Colman Andrews, Jim Auchmutey, Roy Blount Jr., Gene Bourg, Rick Bragg, Fred Chappell, Lolis Eric Elie, Damon Lee Fowler, Nikki Giovanni, Jessica Harris, Karen Hess, Jack Hitt, Ted & Matthew Lee, Ronni Lundy, Robert Morgan, James Villas, and Robb Walsh.
This enjoyable collection of essays, short stories, articles, and poems combines some of the best recent writing on Southern food. . . . The book beautifully describes how food has shaped Southern, as well as American, culture. . . . CORNBREAD NATION 1 will appeal to everyone who has ever experienced a love affair with Southern food.
Library Journal
After literature (William Faulkner) and music (Elvis Presley), the South's greatest contribution to American culture has been its food: Smithfield ham, grits, gumbo, pecan pie, bourbon, and other delectables. "Our dishes and beverages express our faith, our good humor, our binding ties, our eternal joys and sorrows, our readiness for whatever awaits us," writes editor Egerton (Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History). In conjunction with the Southern Foodways Alliance, this first volume in a planned annual anthology gathers 50 previously published articles, essays, scholarly papers, and poems that celebrate the diverse foods and culinary traditions of the South. Food writer James Villas fondly remembers Craig Claiborne. Humorist Roy Blount shares his collection of Southern food songs ("Fried Chicken and Gasoline" is a fave), while Fred Chappell offers a contrarian's view on iced tea. One of the best pieces is journalist Jack Hitt's "A Confederacy of Sauces" about a fraternal feud involving barbecue, the Civil War, and race. Not all the selections are of the same high quality a few read like a Southern Living puff piece but this is still a tasty collection. Don't read it on an empty stomach. For regional cookery and Southern studies collections. Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Egerton assembles more than four dozen previously published pieces by writers such as Nikki Giovanni and Roy Blount Jr., offering the same serendipitous delights as time spent on a front porch of a summer evening enjoying good food and good talk. This is the first volume in what is to be an annual series, and, divided into sections of People, Times, Things, Places, and Southern Foodways, it's a beguiling mix of food lore, encounters with memorable characters, and, of course, the place itself, from swampy bayous to the rolling hills of Appalachia. The selections stem from Town and Country, Food & Wine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere, but they all reflect an abiding affection for things southern, especially the food-from boiled peanuts to Scuppernogs (a native muscadine grape) and, of course, barbecue. It is a subject that evokes passionate debate about, say, the virtues of a mustard-based versus a tomato-based sauce, or even bitter family feuds. In "A Confederacy of Sauces," Jack Hitt relates how in South Carolina, a politically liberal brother has taken advantage of a boycott of his reactionary brother's mustard-based barbecue sauce to put his own version in stores. The writers introduce characters like nonagenarian Moonshiner Coe Dupuis; Leah Chase, the cook at the famous New Orleans restaurant, Dooky Chase; and Dori Sanders, a peach farmer and writer. They visit farms where watermelons are grown, they stalk wild hogs, and they eat dinner in a Texas prison, where the incarcerated chef has a reputation as a great cook. There are tributes to southern food writers like Craig Claiborne and Eugene Walter, as well as memories of canning, family reunions, and Thanksgivings atwhich, alongside the turkey, there's macaroni and cheese-"a vegetable in the South." Others debate the merits of iced tea, which in this region is always sweetened; and explore the origin of vegetables like okra and sweet potatoes, as well as the influence of African-American traditions on white cooking, particularly in the way greens are cooked. A delicious feast, as well as a thoughtful celebration of regional culture.
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Farmer's Wife Baking Cookbook: More Than 300 Blue Ribbon Recipes
Author: Lela Nargi
Long before the Internet and high-speed travel connected us all, The Farmer’s Wife magazine gave hard-working rural women a place to find—and share—advice about everything from raising chickens to running a farm kitchen. One of the magazine’s most popular offerings was advice on baking, providing farm family recipes for making everything from basic bread to much-loved holiday desserts.
The elaborate cakes and company pies, the dainties and muffins for club luncheons, the rich breads for a warming breakfast or a lunch-bucket sandwich, the profusion of pies for threshing parties, the specialties like Cornish Pasties and Danish Krandse—all are here, inviting readers everywhere to recreate the fragrant kitchens and delectable tastes of farm days gone by. Adapted for the needs of the modern kitchen, these classic recipes preserve the flavor of a life dedicated to feeding not just the family, but the nation. They offer readers nostalgia and the chance to bake in a tradition unmatched since the 1930s.
Here’s a sampling of the recipes you’ll find inside:
· Scotch Shortbread
· Mrs. Laird’s Coveted Nut-Caramel Cake
· Gingerbread Banana Shortcake
· Shoe-Fly “Cake”
· Raisin Meringue Pie
· Gooseberry Tart
· Southern Apple Dumplings
· Hot Cross Buns
· Gashe
· Fig Whole Wheat Bread
· Mammy’s Corn Bread
· Parkin
· Popovers
· Tasty Ham Pie
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