The first volume in what will be an annual collection, Cornbread Nation gathers the best of recent Southern food writing. In fifty 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...

Southern barbecue and barbecue traditions are the primary focus of Cornbread Nation 2, our second collection of the best of Southern food writing. "Barbecue is the closest thing we have in the United States to Europe's wines or cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbecue changes," writes John Shelton Reed. Indeed, no other dish is served a dozen different ways just between Memphis and Birmingham.

In tribute to what Vince Staten calls "the slowest of the slow foods," contributors discuss the politics, sociology, and virtual religion of barbecue in the South, where...

The stories, poems, and essays gathered in Cornbread Nation 3: Foods of the Mountain South were born along the winding roads of Appalachia, in the vales of the Ozarks, and in the flatlands beyond, where mountain people traveled in the hillbilly diaspora. Here, wisdom is gleaned in coal-mining camps, at roadside vegetable stands, at dinners on church grounds, and on shady front porches.

In these tantalizing pieces, leather britches are set to dry in a classic rite, the sweetness of corn approaches the divine, a bean without strings brooks no flavor, and the arrival of autumn...