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A Love Affair With Southern Cooking: Recipes And Recollections
More than a cookbook, this is the story of how a little girl, born in the South of Yankee parents, fell in love with southern cooking at the age of five. And a bite of brown sugar pie was all it took.
"I shamelessly wangled supper invitations from my playmates," Anderson admits. "But I was on a voyage of discovery, and back then iron-skillet corn bread seemed more exotic than my mom's Boston brown bread and yellow squash pudding more appealing than mashed parsnips."
After college up north, Anderson worked in rural North Carolina as an assistant home demonstration agent, scarfing good country cooking seven days a week: crispy "battered" chicken, salt-rising bread, wild persimmon pudding, Jerusalem artichoke pickles, Japanese fruitcake. Later, as a New York City magazine editor, then a freelancer, Anderson covered the South, interviewing cooks and chefs, sampling local specialties, and scribbling notebooks full of recipes.
Now, at long last, Anderson shares her lifelong exploration of the South's culinary heritage and not only introduces the characters she met en route but also those men and women who helped shape America's most distinctive regional cuisine—people like Thomas Jefferson, Mary Randolph, George Washington Carver, Eugenia Duke, and Colonel Harlan Sanders.
Anderson gives us the backstories on such beloved Southern brands as Pepsi-Cola, Jack Daniel's, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, MoonPies, Maxwell House coffee, White Lily flour, and Tabasco sauce. She builds a time line of important southern food firsts—from Ponce de León's reconnaissance in the "Island of Florida" (1513) to the reactivation of George Washington's still at Mount Vernon (2007). For those who don't know a Chincoteague from a chinquapin, she adds a glossary of southern food terms and in a handy address book lists the best sources for stone-ground grits, country ham, sweet sorghum, boiled peanuts, and other hard-to-find southern foods.
Recipes? There are two hundred classic and contemporary, plain and fancy, familiar and unfamiliar, many appearing here for the first time. Each recipe carries a headnote—to introduce the cook whence it came, occasionally to share snippets of lore or back-stairs gossip, and often to explain such colorful recipe names as Pine Bark Stew, Chicken Bog, and Surry County Sonker.
Add them all up and what have you got? One lip-smackin' southern feast!
A Love Affair with Southern Cooking is the winner of the 2008 James Beard Foundation Book Award, in the Americana category.
"I shamelessly wangled supper invitations from my playmates," Anderson admits. "But I was on a voyage of discovery, and back then iron-skillet corn bread seemed more exotic than my mom's Boston brown bread and yellow squash pudding more appealing than mashed parsnips."
After college up north, Anderson worked in rural North Carolina as an assistant home demonstration agent, scarfing good country cooking seven days a week: crispy "battered" chicken, salt-rising bread, wild persimmon pudding, Jerusalem artichoke pickles, Japanese fruitcake. Later, as a New York City magazine editor, then a freelancer, Anderson covered the South, interviewing cooks and chefs, sampling local specialties, and scribbling notebooks full of recipes.
Now, at long last, Anderson shares her lifelong exploration of the South's culinary heritage and not only introduces the characters she met en route but also those men and women who helped shape America's most distinctive regional cuisine—people like Thomas Jefferson, Mary Randolph, George Washington Carver, Eugenia Duke, and Colonel Harlan Sanders.
Anderson gives us the backstories on such beloved Southern brands as Pepsi-Cola, Jack Daniel's, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, MoonPies, Maxwell House coffee, White Lily flour, and Tabasco sauce. She builds a time line of important southern food firsts—from Ponce de León's reconnaissance in the "Island of Florida" (1513) to the reactivation of George Washington's still at Mount Vernon (2007). For those who don't know a Chincoteague from a chinquapin, she adds a glossary of southern food terms and in a handy address book lists the best sources for stone-ground grits, country ham, sweet sorghum, boiled peanuts, and other hard-to-find southern foods.
Recipes? There are two hundred classic and contemporary, plain and fancy, familiar and unfamiliar, many appearing here for the first time. Each recipe carries a headnote—to introduce the cook whence it came, occasionally to share snippets of lore or back-stairs gossip, and often to explain such colorful recipe names as Pine Bark Stew, Chicken Bog, and Surry County Sonker.
Add them all up and what have you got? One lip-smackin' southern feast!
A Love Affair with Southern Cooking is the winner of the 2008 James Beard Foundation Book Award, in the Americana category.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published October 16, 2007
47 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 8, 2017
First, skip the Kindle and get the real book version. The typography and layout and references are all in the book. You can not get the "feel" of the book on a 6 inch screen. Pick up a used copy, you'll be glad you did.
If you are interested in Southern cooking, you will not find a better more researched resource. If you like history and stories and lots of details with your recipes like I do, you will love this book. The author has done a scholarly approach to the history of Southern food. You will find everything from details about collard greens to facts about iconic Southern restaurants like Savannah's Miss Wilkes Boarding House. There are stories about family members to stories of Presidents. Iconic foods like, Little Debbie Snack Cakes, Moon Pies, RC Cola, Krispy Kreme, etc have interesting histories and they are included. Lots of unique recipes you will not find in print (or on the internet), along with staples like Chicken Pot Pie and Banana Pudding.
Interesting historical timeline runs through the entire book with short facts of Southern cooking. This is a great book!
If you are interested in Southern cooking, you will not find a better more researched resource. If you like history and stories and lots of details with your recipes like I do, you will love this book. The author has done a scholarly approach to the history of Southern food. You will find everything from details about collard greens to facts about iconic Southern restaurants like Savannah's Miss Wilkes Boarding House. There are stories about family members to stories of Presidents. Iconic foods like, Little Debbie Snack Cakes, Moon Pies, RC Cola, Krispy Kreme, etc have interesting histories and they are included. Lots of unique recipes you will not find in print (or on the internet), along with staples like Chicken Pot Pie and Banana Pudding.
Interesting historical timeline runs through the entire book with short facts of Southern cooking. This is a great book!
February 3, 2020
This book is wonderful! I love that I am Texan, but I have always wished that Texas was as southern as the Carolinas, Virginia, etc. because the cooking and dining is such a part of the fabric of the southern life.
March 17, 2021
I love the stories to go along with the cooking.
June 19, 2018
This is certainly one of those cookbooks you read from cover to cover. Much more than recipes; history of foods, products, businesses AND recipes. I enjoyed all the quotes scattered among the pages. Loved it!!
July 23, 2025
True to my food experience (and expectations
!) at family gatherings in Shenandoah Valley, VA.
!) at family gatherings in Shenandoah Valley, VA.
March 14, 2008
I grabbed this book because I was looking for something to get me acquainted with southern food, as I leave for a trip to Savannah in a week. The recipes are straight-forward, though they contain some ingredients I'm not particularly friendly with (such as lard!) but I love the diverse recipes for okra (or gumbo as they say in the south). I plan on making the cast iron skillet corn bread tomorrow. The side stories about Bourbon, Cocoa-cola, Krispie Cream (which I was unaware were southern, but they are the most devilish of the donut world so makes sense)and others are all intriguing, makes me very excited for my trip.
June 2, 2010
I had hoped this would have more story- somewhere along the lines of Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life, which is one of my favorite books. This is much more of a cookbook. It is a nice one, though. It would be a great gift for a cookbook-lover.
July 29, 2010
This book is a must-have. The author is extremely experienced and very generous with sharing a lifetime of information gathered throughout the south. I can tell how much care was put into it. The information feels extremely accurate, and the author extremely trustworthy. Lots of stories and sidebars for southern food companies through the years as well. A treasure trove.
February 24, 2011
Lot's of good recipies, and, for a yankee, she does a decent job in recognizing the the South is not homogeneous. I was kind of hurt that she didn't recognize that western NC vinegar-based barbecue is simply the best on the planet. Also, no good white barbecue sauce recipies. Still, a good cookbook, and I use it often because it's easy to follow,... and my momma said to use it.
July 29, 2013
Anderson's volume holds a proud place on the shelf of cookbooks in my kitchen. I use her Georgia Pecan Balls recipe every Christmas. This will rival The Blue Willow cookbook as the bible of classic southern recipes. Had I been born in another decade, I might have been a colleague of Anderson's at the state agricultural college's extension agency. You will want your own copy of this one!
December 2, 2015
Southern cooking has gotten a really bad rep lately due to it being confused with the betty crocker type "Out of the box" cooking but I feel this book has kind of set it right. real southern cooking with real ingredients. her stories and antecdotes in between are a lot of fun too and paints a clar mental picture.
May 15, 2015
Ok, now I want to make biscuits. I challenge anyone to read this book and not want to make biscuits, and there are plenty of recipes to choose from too! Then we move on to pie. This is a dangerous book because you want to stop reading and rush to the kitchen to make stuff all the time!
January 8, 2008
I got this book for Christmas and love it. It is a mix of recipes that sound so good (and the brown sugar pie was, right, Vanessa?) and writing about Southern food traditions.
July 15, 2011
read my review on my food blog: http://www.potlikkery.com/2007/11/per...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews