Willard Roth is a topnotch cook who grew up in a sprawling Iowa farm family. He has always loved food--growing it, preparing it, eating it. As a Mennonite church leader and journalist, he is as well-known for the dinners he prepares as he is for his sermons or editorials. The man has traveled North America and much of the world, always making notes about the great meals he's eaten. Then he's routinely gone home and fiddled around in the kitchen until he can make the dishes he's loved eating.

In this book are recipes inspired by the food made by his Mennonite mother and grandmothers. Other...