This new collection in the Southern Foodways Alliance's popular series serves up a fifty-three-course celebration of southern foods, southern cooking, and the people and traditions behind them. Editors Dale Volberg Reed and John Shelton Reed have combed magazines, newspapers, books, and journals to bring us a "best of" gathering that is certain to satisfy everyone from omnivorous chowhounds to the most discerning student of regional foodways.

After an opening celebration of the joys of spring in her natal Virginia by the redoubtable Edna Lewis, the Reeds organize their collection under...