Bøger i Savor the South Cookbooks serien

Recalling childhood visits to her grandmother's house in New Orleans, where she would feast on shrimp and okra gumbo, Dale Curry offers fifty recipes--for gumbos, jambalayas, and those little something extras known as lagniappe--that will put Louisiana taste and hospitality on your table. "e;Gumbo"e; calls to mind the diverse culinary traditions of Louisiana that, like gumbo itself, are simmered from elements of the many cultures circulating in the state. Drawing historically from French, African, Caribbean, Native American, Spanish, Italian, and other culinary sources, the Creole and Cajun cooking featured in Gumbo embraces the best of local shellfish, sausages, poultry, and game. The heart of Louisiana home cooking--and now showcased by of chefs across the South and beyond--gumbo, jambalaya, and lagniappe traditionally drew from the state's waterways and estuaries rich with crustaceans, swamps exploding with waterfowl and alligators, and forests full of game. From the land came rice and peppers, two leading ingredients in gumbo and jambalaya. Recipes include classic and traditional dishes, as well as specialties offered by star chefs Bart Bell, Leah Chase, Emeril Lagasse, Donald Link, and Tory McPhail. With Curry's easy-to-follow instructions at hand, home cooks will be ready to let the good times roll at every meal.

While many fish, from bream and crappie to bass, trout, and shad, are popular in the South, none of them has settled as thoroughly in southern culture as the humble, bewhiskered, bottom-dwelling catfish. For Memphis natives Paul and Angela Knipple, enjoying "e;that steamy sweet white meat encased in golden crisp cornmeal was just a part of our childhoods."e; In this Savor the South(R) cookbook, the Knipples share their family memories of catching and eating this favored southern food. Painting a portrait of catfish's culinary and natural history, along with its place in southern foodways and the Delta fishing industry, the Knipples also provide clear instructions for how to select, prepare, and cook the fish.Showcased are fifty-six recipes highlighting catfish's remarkable versatility--from such southern classics as Catfish Po'Boys and Catfish Gumbo to the global flavors of Catfish Banh Mi and Nigerian Catfish Stew. Worth the price of admission are the recipes for fried catfish five ways, along with recipes for all the traditional sides, including slaw, hushpuppies, and tartar sauce--all you'll need to cook a plate worthy of a real southern fish shack.

Recalling boyhood shrimping expeditions with his father and summoning up the aromas and flavors of a southern shrimp boil or shrimp fry, chef Jay Pierce brings America's favorite shellfish to center stage with fifty recipes for southern classics, contemporary dishes, and international delicacies. Pierce's lively introduction focuses on the South's fishing and culinary connections with shrimp, which are abundant in the estuaries and bays that line southern shores.Shrimp, he notes, are one of the last truly wild creatures that Americans consume in significant quantities. Pierce encourages today's cooks to support local shrimp fisheries in order to help ensure that future generations will continue to enjoy American-sourced shrimp in abundance, and he explains how to procure the freshest shrimp throughout the cycle of seasons. While shrimp is popular throughout the region for entertaining a backyard crowd, it is also a go-to ingredient for the special-occasion menu. Demystifying fancier dishes and offering everyday cooks step-by-step instructions for all stages of preparation, Pierce highlights just how deliciously versatile shrimp can be.

Crabs and oysters take center stage as Chef Bill Smith conveys his passion for preparing these sumptuous shellfish. Smith's sensibilities as a North Carolinian born and raised down east are vibrantly on display as he recalls the joy of growing up catching crabs and shucking oysters.

From the earliest days of European settlement in the South, as in many rural economies around the globe, cured pork became a main source of sustenance, and the cheaper, lower-on-the-hog cuts--notably, bacon--became some of the most important traditional southern foodstuffs. In this cookbook, Fred Thompson captures a humble ingredient's regional culinary history and outsized contributions to the table. Delicious, of course, straight out of the skillet, bacon is also special in its ability to lend a unique savory smokiness to an enormous range of other foods.Today, for regular eaters and high-flying southern chefs alike, bacon has achieved a culinary profile so popular as to approach baconmania. But Thompson sagely notes that bacon will survive the silliness. Describing the many kinds of bacon that are available, Thompson provides key choices for cooking and seasoning appropriately. The book's fifty-six recipes invariably highlight and maximize that beloved bacon factor, so appreciated throughout the South and beyond (by Thompson's count, fifty different styles of bacon exist worldwide). Dishes range from southern regional to international, from appetizers to main courses, and even to a very southern beverage. Also included are Thompson's do-it-yourself recipes for making bacon from fresh pork belly in five different styles.

While fried chicken may be the South's iconic dish, when it comes to southern foodways, there are a lot of ways to love America's most popular fowl. Preparations range from Country Captain to Carolina Chicken Bog to Chicken and Parslied Dumplings and more. Here, Cynthia Graubart celebrates the bird in all its glory, southern style and beyond. This little cookbook packs all the know-how that cooks need to make irresistible chicken dishes for everyday and special occasions, from shopping and selecting to cutting up, frying, braising, roasting, and much more. Ranging in style from traditional southern to contemporary to international, fifty-three recipes are organized to help easily match the cut of chicken to the perfect recipe. Be assured that Graubart includes instructions for making the best fried chicken ever--seven different ways. Graubart also brings together the chicken's culinary history with the popular culture and lore that surrounds chicken cookery in the South. She notes that the special Sunday Sabbath dinner was often built around a chicken--in fact, prior to the 1940s, chicken was sometimes more expensive than beef or pork. Today, the southern states lead the country in annual poultry production, and Kentucky Fried Chicken features throughout the American landscape. But you won't need take-out when you have Chicken in your kitchen.

Greens--collard, turnip, mustard, and more--are a defining staple of southern food culture. Seemingly always a part of the southern plate, these cruciferous vegetables have been crucial in the nourishing of generations of southerners. Having already been celebrated in operatic terms--composer Price Walden's "e;Leaves of Green"e; includes this lyrical note: "e;From age to age the South has hollered / The praises of the toothsome collard--greens now get their leafy culinary due in Thomas Head's Savor the South(R) cookbook. Head provides a fascinating culinary and natural history of greens in the South, as well as an overview of the many varieties of edible greens that are popular in the region. Including practical information about cultivation, selection, and preparation, Head also shows how greens are embraced around the world for their taste and healthfulness. The fifty-three recipes run from classic southern "e;potlikker"e; styles to new southern and global favorites. From Basic Southern Greens to Turnip Green Tarts to Greens Punjabi-Style, cooks will find plenty of inspiration to go green.

Without corn, Tema Flanagan writes, the South would cease to taste like the South. Her treasury of fifty-one recipes demonstrates deliciously just how important the remarkable Zea mays is to southern culture and cuisine. Corn's recipes emphasize seasonality. High summer calls for fresh corn eaten on the cob or shaved into salads, sautes, and soups. When fall and winter come, it is time to make cornmeal biscuits, muffins, cobblers, and hotcakes, along with silky spoonbread and sausage-studded cornbread stuffing. And the heaviest hitters, cornbread and grits, are mainstays all year round.Flanagan also surveys corn's culinary history--its place in Native American culture, its traditional role on the southerner's table, and the new and exciting ways it is enjoyed in southern kitchens today. Appreciating how this oversized grass is capable of providing sustenance in an astonishing array of forms, Flanagan organizes the book to reflect corn's versatility. Sections feature corn in its full glory: fresh on and off the cob, dried and ground, nixtamalized (soaked in an alkaline solution and hulled to make hominy) and popped, and mashed and fermented. From Sweet Corn and Poblano Chowder to Southern Skillet Cornbread, from Fresh Corn Tortillas to Classic Cheese Grits, and from Molasses Caramel Corn with Candied Bacon, Peanuts, and Sesame to New Orleans Bourbon Milk Punch, the dishes range from classic southern to contemporary to globally influenced.

Fruit collects a dozen of the South's bountiful locally sourced fruits in a cook's basket of fifty-four luscious dishes, savory and sweet. Demand for these edible jewels is growing among those keen to feast on the South's natural pleasures, whether gathered in the wild or cultivated with care. Indigenous fruits here include blackberries, mayhaws, muscadine and scuppernong grapes, pawpaws, persimmons, and strawberries. From old-school Grape Hull Pie to Mayhaw JellyGlazed Shrimp, McDermott's recipes for these less common fruits are of remarkable interest--and incredibly tasty. The non-native fruits in the volume were eagerly adopted long ago by southern cooks, and they include damson plums, figs, peaches, cantaloupes, quince, and watermelons. McDermott gives them a delicious twist in recipes such as Fresh Fig Pie and Thai-Inspired Watermelon-Pineapple Salad.McDermott also illuminates how the South--from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Lowcountry, from the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coast--encompasses diverse subregional culinary traditions when it comes to fruit. Her recipes, including a favorite piecrust, provide a treasury of ways to relish southern fruits at their ephemeral peak and to preserve them for enjoyment throughout the year.

While the hindquarters of swine have been preserved in salt the world over for thousands of years, there are only a few places on earth where ham is as celebrated or integral to the cuisine as it is in the American South. To begin to understand the place that this iconic food holds in the hearts of southerners, Damon Lee Fowler writes, one has only to step into the historic smokehouse of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and take a deep breath. More than a century after the last hams were hung to smoke in that chamber, the aroma of salt, smoke, and air-dried pork still permeates the rough masonry walls and clay floor, filling the air with its earthy perfume. Even after centuries of culinary transformations throughout the South, that fragrance lingers in kitchens throughout the region. Ham's 55 recipes bring home the love in just about every waybrine- or dry-cured, smoked or not, boiled, baked, glazed, honey-baked and spiral cut, thin-sliced and piled into biscuits and sandwiches, fried up with eggs, with grits, with redeye gravy, added for savor to soups, casseroles, poultry, seafood, and, yes, the vegetable pot. Fowler also includes recipes inspired by Chinese, French, Italian, and Spanish dishes, and provides a guide to basic terminology and cooking methods.

Among the staple foods most welcomed on southern tablesand on tables around the worldrice is without question the most versatile. As Michael W. Twitty observes, depending on regional tastes, rice may be enjoyed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; as main dish, side dish, and snack; in dishes savory and sweet. Filling and delicious, rice comes in numerous botanical varieties and offers a vast range of scents, tastes, and textures depending on how it is cooked. In some dishes, it is crunchingly crispy; in others, soothingly smooth; in still others, somewhere right in between. Commingled or paired with other foods, rice is indispensable to the foodways of the South. As Twitty's fifty-one recipes deliciously demonstrate, rice stars in Creole, Acadian, soul food, Low Country, and Gulf Coast kitchens, as well as in the kitchens of cooks from around the world who are now at home in the South. Exploring rice's culinary history and African diasporic identity, Twitty shows how to make the southern classics as well as international disheseverything from Savannah Rice Waffles to Ghanaian Crab Stew. As Twitty gratefully sums up, "e;Rice connects me to every other person, southern and global, who is nourished by rice's traditions and customs."e;

Replete with helpful tips and advice for finding the best quality buttermilk available, Buttermilk explores the rich possibilities of this beloved ingredient and offers remarkably wide-ranging recipes. Debbie Moose provides readers fifty recipes--most of which are uniquely southern, with some decidedly cosmopolitan additions--from Fiery Fried Chicken to Lavender Ice Cream to Mango-Spice Lassi. For each recipe, Moose includes background information, snappy anecdotes, and preparation tips.

Whether you swear by peaches from Georgia or from South Carolina, there's no doubt that the fruit is sacred to southerners. From the moment the first mouthwatering Elberta variety was grafted in the 1870s, the peach has been an icon of summertime and a powerful symbol of the South's bounty. Peaches showcases the sweet richness of this signature fruit. Native Atlantan and award-winning food writer Kelly Alexander explores the fruit's history, offers advice for selecting, storing, and cooking, and reflects on the place of peaches in southern identity. Peaches includes forty-five recipes ranging from classic desserts to internationally inspired preparations.