I Hear America Cooking: The Cooks, Regions and Recipes of American Regional Cuisine

by Betty Fussell

Focuses on six culinary frontiers from Alaska to Florida, with recipes and lore that represent each area's history, population, and ecology, from breakfasts to opulent dinnertime desserts

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, American, Cooking

560 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Betty Harper Fussell is an award-winning American writer and is the author of eleven books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history and memoir. Over the last 50 years, her essays on food, travel and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, popular magazines and newspapers as varied as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Vogue, Food & Wine, Metropolitan Home and Gastronomica. Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef, and she is now working on How to Cook a Coyote: A Manual of Survival in NYC.

Reviews

[Debbie Pearson cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

You must be a kind of history junkie to really get into the meat of this book. Betty tells the history of food from different regions in the country and how the foods available in those regions helped the recipes develop as well. There are some really great recipes throughout the book from each region. I will absolutely try some of them. She has kept true to the recipes with slight alterations for items that are obtainable today. I really enjoyed this book.

[Marian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great historical background on all types of American regional styles, vintage photos of each immigrant group making their stuff. Plus recipes for many items people just buy now instead of producing at home, sausages, pickles, cottage cheese, grits ( how to make hominy and grind them yourself etc.

[Gordon Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a meticulously researched history of the US, and through food no less. The recipes are terrific. Made the Pueblo roasted corn for my kids and it's a new favorite snack.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a wonderful cookbook for meals when you have plenty of time to cook or are cooking for company. There are some great regional recipes in here. That being said, there are multiple things that I would never cook, chitterlings anyone? I would definitely make the green chile enchiladas and the etoufee again.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and informative historical read, but less than practical as a cookbook because so many of the recipes require items not known in today's kitchens. What, for instance, is a water parsnip?