For fifteen years, food writer Belinda Ellis traveled around the country for the White Lily(R) flour company, teaching people to make biscuits and listening to their stories. "I learned that deep in the soul of a biscuit, there's more than the flour, fat, and milk. A hot biscuit embodies a memory of place and family," she writes. Ellis's heartfelt tribute to the biscuit celebrates the many possible flavors and uses for this classic southern bread. The first recipe in the book is a master recipe with step-by-step photographs showing how to make the perfect biscuit.
In an evocative and...

Did you know that bourbon must be made in America and aged for at least two years in new American oak barrels that are charred on the inside? In this spirited little cookbook, Kathleen Purvis explores the history, mythology, and culinary star power of this quintessential southern liquor. On the scene in Kentucky, home to most bourbon makers, she reports on the science and love behind the liquor's long, careful production. Featuring both classic and cutting-edge cocktails, the cookbook ranges well beyond beverages to present bourbon as a distinct ingredient in appetizers, entrees, side dishes,...

Andrea Weigl defines the year by her canning sessions. In the winter, she makes bright yellow Jerusalem Artichoke Relish from her backyard crop. In the spring, she conjures up sweet red Strawberry Preserves. In the summer, it's savory Yellow Squash Pickles and peaches, pickled, brandied, or as a thick butter. And in the fall, she folds her Fig Preserves into a cake famous on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Today's revival of pickling and preserving, which became widely popular in the South only after the Civil War, when sugar was easier to obtain, is part of the booming interest in...

Passionate okra lovers crave this bright green, heat-loving vegetable, whether fried, grilled, steamed, roasted, boiled, broiled, pickled, raw, whole, sliced, or julienned. With Okra, Virginia Willis provides "the key that unlocks the door of okra desire" to okra addicts and newcomers to the pod alike.

Topping eight feet, with gorgeous butter-yellow flowers that ripen into the plant's signature seed-filled pods, okra has a long association with foodways in the American South. But as Willis shows, okra is also an important ingredient in cuisines across Africa, Asia, and Latin...

Debbie Moose's Southern Holidays is a cook's celebration of the richly diverse holiday traditions of today's South. Covering big traditional holidays such as Christmas and Mardi Gras, this must-have addition to the Savor the South(R) cookbook collection also branches out into regional and cultural holidays that honor newer southern traditions, including recipes from real cooks hailing from a range of ethnic traditions and histories. The cooks' stories accompanying the recipes show how holiday foods not only hold cherished personal family memories but also often have roots in a common...

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...

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. "Gumbo" 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...

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...

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...

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 Jelly-Glazed Shrimp, McDermott's recipes for these less common fruits are of remarkable interest--and incredibly tasty. The...