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American Cooking : Southern Style
Hardcover & 1 spiral bound book complete in boxed set. Time Life 1971 "First Edition". Both books are in pristine condition, like new. Box is lightly soiled with some corner rubs, else very fine. This boxed set comes from a private collection
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 1971
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July 10, 2011i want to pull quotes, but it's just too much of a muchness. how did i miss my chance to live in an 'apartamento' in rome with a roof garden of obscure herbs and wormwood, broken up by jaunts to research cookbooks whose scope is bounded only by my whims?
n.b. the racial politics are pretty rough, as you'd imagine for a book that approvingly mentions minstrelry (albeit as metaphor, but, still) in the second or third paragraph.
n.b. the racial politics are pretty rough, as you'd imagine for a book that approvingly mentions minstrelry (albeit as metaphor, but, still) in the second or third paragraph.
May 28, 2015
Great book, by Eugene Walter who was a wonderful author. The book is about Southern culture, not just food. There are also some great recipes!
November 18, 2021
This cookbook, written in the early 1970s by ex-patriot Eugene Walter, is a perfect example of the attitude and execution of white cultural superiority in mainstream media. It was published as part of Time-Life Books' Foods of the World Series and has enjoyed a nice reputation for authenticity over the years. Walter returned to the south from his home in Italy to research this book. Reading this book today, the racial diversity deficit is remarkable. For instance Walter writes "More than anything, Southerners are bound by a shared attitude," which he illustrates with an example of the original Mardi Gras in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, where the celebrants blackened their faces and galavanted around. Walter says "It is this role that the South elected to play after the war - lost cause minstrel, wearing a mask to hide the hurt of defeat." All that by page 10.
Of the multitude of work around the large plantation houses, Walter assures us that "there was a small army of servants," but when he describes Thomas Jefferson's gourmet table, the reader is left with the impression that Jefferson accomplished it all by his own hand and will. No mention of the enslaved people who actually did the cooking, serving, and cleaning.
Walter does allow for the African influence on Charleston, South Carolina's food, praising the "African cooks," but again, not acknowledging their enforced slavery status.
There is a chapter devoted to "soul food," but that emphasizes northern cooking.
In the end Walter does say of his return journey around the south "I had been made painfully aware of paradox: in a region of overwhelming natural riches, there was poverty unseemly in this country and this day and age," but will only admit to being "bored with all those old shibboleth and jingoistic prejudices that keep the human and natural resources from being realized." Then he returned to Rome, Italy.
There are plenty of other examples in the book of the clouded, narrow views of that era.
Again, I was struck by the fact that all this was planned and published by Time-Life, which illustrates the wide influence of the lost cause narrative.
Some of the recipes are interesting, especially for historical reference, but otherwise, we've all heard and read enough of this.
Of the multitude of work around the large plantation houses, Walter assures us that "there was a small army of servants," but when he describes Thomas Jefferson's gourmet table, the reader is left with the impression that Jefferson accomplished it all by his own hand and will. No mention of the enslaved people who actually did the cooking, serving, and cleaning.
Walter does allow for the African influence on Charleston, South Carolina's food, praising the "African cooks," but again, not acknowledging their enforced slavery status.
There is a chapter devoted to "soul food," but that emphasizes northern cooking.
In the end Walter does say of his return journey around the south "I had been made painfully aware of paradox: in a region of overwhelming natural riches, there was poverty unseemly in this country and this day and age," but will only admit to being "bored with all those old shibboleth and jingoistic prejudices that keep the human and natural resources from being realized." Then he returned to Rome, Italy.
There are plenty of other examples in the book of the clouded, narrow views of that era.
Again, I was struck by the fact that all this was planned and published by Time-Life, which illustrates the wide influence of the lost cause narrative.
Some of the recipes are interesting, especially for historical reference, but otherwise, we've all heard and read enough of this.
February 22, 2017
Would make a good primary source for 1971, but that's because it was very, very dated. Race, class, and gender all horribly out of date. The food--still delicious looking.
January 10, 2025
The recipes are interesting from the perspective of food history but man was it difficult to read page after page of Eugene Walter waxing nostalgic about the good old days of the South, particularly the entire chapter about the beauty of life on Virginia plantations. I'm a Southerner, born and bred, but I do not have any romantic notions about my region's history. You cannot separate Southern food culture from the enslaved people whose labor created it, and you certainly can't retcon plantation life into something that was beautiful. Just a big yikes all around.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews