Southern food expert Jennifer Justus’s Nashville Eats is a culinary guide to Tennessee’s musical capital—featuring color photographs by Andrea Behrends.
If it seems like Nashville is everywhere these days—that’s because it is. GQ recently declared it “Nowville,” and it has become the music hotspot for both country and rock. But as hot as the music scene is, the food scene is even hotter.
In Nashville Eats , more than 100 mouthwatering recipes reveal why food lovers are headed South for Nashville’s hot chicken, buttermilk biscuits, pulled pork sandwiches, cornmeal-crusted catfish, chowchow, fried green tomatoes, and chess pie.
Author Jennifer Justus whips up the classics—such as pimento cheese and fried chicken—but also includes dishes with a twist on traditional Southern fare—such as Curried Black Chickpeas or Catfish Tacos. Other delicious recipes
Alongside the recipes, Jennifer shares her stories of Nashville—the people, music, history, and food that make it so special.
“ Nashville Eats perfectly captures the spirit of Music City. It’s an incredible collection of recipes that makes you want to spend as much time as possible in Nashville.” —Sean Brock, chef and author of Heritage
*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley*
Nashville Eats was a unique look into a legendary city's eating habits and recipes. Having extremely diversified recipes ranging from Holiday Eggnog to Make-Do Biscuits to Double H Roast Beef, this book will appeal to anyone who loves to cook and anyone who loves to eat.
I really liked the colors and pictures in this book they were bright, cheerful, and vivid. The writing style the author used was also great and easy-to-understand without being overly simplified. I loved the stories the stories Ms. Justus included about landmark restaurants and farms in the Nashville area and the people that run them. Many of the recipes were quite simple, and I'm looking forward to trying them (especially Phila's Make-Do Biscuits and Hello Dolly Cookie Bars). However, there were some recipes that looked quite complex for a beginning cook.
Overall a really fun book to read, I enjoyed the great-looking recipes, the Nashville Trivia, and the kitchen playlists included in each section. Nashville Eats gets 4/5 stars!
If you would have asked me a year ago about Nashville cooking, I wouldn't have known or cared much about it. But over this past summer, my family and I had a vacation in Nashville, and I absolutely fell in love with the place. From the music scene, to the bar scene, to the glorious food I shoved in my face, I hope to return many more times. I saw this book, and I had to have it. I wasn't disappointed.
The recipes in this book are divided by course: Scones Pones and Rolls, Starters and Salads, Birds, Meats, Fish, Veggies and Sides, Put-Ups, Sweets, and Drinks. What's really cool is that these sections include kitchen playlists. I have never seen a cookbook that came with music recommendations, and I love the Nashville touch it gives the collection. There's also a lot of personal connections and histories, giving the book a rustic, down-home charm.
The steps are written in paragraph format and are easy to follow. This book is FULL of pictures, and I absolutely love that. I hate cookbooks without pictures, so I really appreciated the volume of them in this book. It also made me more excited to cook, because good lord these dishes look amazing. I think this book is approachable to all skill levels. Some dishes are easier than others, but the steps are super clear and it's altogether not very intimidating for a beginner.
It's very hard for me to just pick a few recipes to highlight, because so much of this food sounds (and looks) amazing, but I must do what I must do. Some of the dishes that I'm most eager to try include Fried Hot Chicken on White Bread with Pickle*, Beef Brisket with Blue Cheese Grits, RC Cola Baked Ham, Watermelon Rind Pickles, Chess Pie, and a Float Named Sue.
*I will try very much in vain to make it as delicious as Prince's, but I know that I will hardcore fail.
This book is a must have for those who love southern comfort foods. I received a copy in exchange for my honest review. This review can also be found on my blog, Bitches n Prose.
As a household that has both vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters we need recipe books that can be adapted to family meals.. I grew up with southern parents and I jumped at the chance to review Nashville Eats! We’ve tried the jalapeño cornbread, light corn bread, buttermilk biscuits, shepherds pie, and sausage gravy. All were crowd pleasers! I simply subbed the sausage for vegetarian replacements and even the vegetarians were happy. The shepherds pie was amazing! I really appreciated all of the large, color photographs of the dishes in the book too!
I can’t wait to try some of the other recipes during the upcoming holiday season. Highly recommend if you enjoy southern food!
I received this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is one of these books I want to own in hardcover (it's now on the Amazon wishlist).. I absolutely loved it. It's full of wonderful anecdotes with music recommendations for each chapter. Some recipes I really want to try are - beaten biscuits, hot chicken, jalepeno cornbread, squash casserole, fried green tomatoes, bourbon sweet potatoes, pepper peach preserve, blackberry, honey, black pepper and Thyme jam (this sounds incredible!), watermelon rind pickle and sweet tea, honey. A really beautiful book! Highly recommend
Happened upon this book while looking for a Nashville Hot Chicken recipe and recognized the author's name from an article I had read in THE BITTER SOUTHERNER. I am delighted with the lucky find! It's a good cookbook for dishes I typically would not attempt and a great read about the food of Nashville and the people who created it.
Nice collection of brief stories accompanied by great pics and recipes. Not so many that I would actually try to make myself, but some are reminiscent of my childhood in Nashville and highlight a lot of the surrounding communities that make up the Nashville Metro area.
Wonderful storytelling that sets the scene and parlays cooking history into modern recipes. The recipes are straightforward, the photos clear and luscious. The only negative is the plethora of variants of Nashville hot chicken recipes. Great if that’s your yen, a waste of space if it’s not.
I’ll be honest - I didn’t expect much from this book. I bought it because I loved the photography, and I wanted a cookbook from Nashville. However, it was a fantastic read. Every recipe has a phenomenal story, lovingly told. I was so impressed to see a traditional Kurdish recipe in there, representing Nashville’s enormous Kurdish population. This is a great book
Ever since I read about Princes hot chicken in the Cornbread Nation series of southern food writings, I have nursed a yen for the back streets of Nashville where the food reflects the multi stranded history of the city and new places arrive and depart like the wind.
Jennifer Justus has written more than a boring ole list of restaurants which would swiftly date anyway. Instead we have valued advice from a local, as if she was our real life guide to the city and a local who is happy to share her secrets rather than do that tedious thing of keeping the best to herself in a kind of a foodie oneup-womanship.
The book is conveniently divided up by cusine types and geographical neighbourhoods, making it a useful take along resource. There's 'landmarks'. 'foodie favourites' and plenty of personal experiences to keep the writing fresh, long after some of the joints have closed, which they are wont to do. There's lists of food trucks and festivals, places to eat and listen to music and advice on places to go that lie outside the city limits and a useful guide to drinks.
The drinks section isn't an also ran either which can happen too often with some food writers. Jen keeps us well informed with advice on craft cocktails and where the best are to be found, there's info on craft breweries and distilleries, dive bars, honky tonks (a must!) and other watering holes that might otherwise go unnoticed in such a busy place.
Finally, there's a recipe section from Nashville's coolest cooks which includes Por Favors famous chicken tortilla soup among offerings from Laura Wilson, Margot McCormack, Hal Holden-Bache and Tandy Wilson so if you can't get there just yet, all is not lost.
Pack this handy 6X6 sized tome in your back pocket and book that flight. This is all you will need alongside an internet link to check opening times.
I received an ARC of this book and have no affiliation with its author or publisher.
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Nashville Eats by Jennifer Justus is a fun-tastic cookbook for lovers of all things Southern. Not only does this cookbook offer up recipes for classic Southern cooking, there is a playlist for each chapter of the book. Additionally, there is a slice-of-life write up about a local chef/restauranteur at the start of each chapter.
I love biscuits and gravy, so y’all won’t be surprised that the Sawmill Sausage Gravy recipe is my favorite from Nashville Eats. Hank William’s granddaughter offered up her gravy recipe for this cookbook. Each and every recipe looks divine, but here are a few that I found particularly interesting:
Nibbles: Pimiento Cheese (a Southern staple) Poultry: Fried Chicken and Dumplings Beef: Brisket with Blue Cheese Grits Pork: RC Cola Baked Ham Fish: Pan-fried Catfish Vegetables: Tomato Pie, Corn and Zucchini Skillet and Fried Green Tomatoes Condiments: Blackberry, Honey, Black Pepper and Thyme Jam (Doesn’t that sound interesting!?! I love the idea of serving it with cheese as an appetizer or as a glaze for chicken or salmon) Desserts: Chess Pie, Banana Pudding, Coconut Cake….just to name a few of the yummy Southern classics included in Nashville Eats. Drinks: Everything from bourbon cocktails to Papaw (peanuts and Coca Cola) to the ubiquitous Sweet Tea. The commentary of local whiskey and bourbon distilleries was very interesting.
By the end of this book, you’ll be craving a home cooked meal, or you will have gained a few pounds testing all the yummy recipes in this down-home cookbook.
I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest opinion, from NetGalley.
To be honest, I find it quite hard to review this book properly as unfortunately it does not download well in its pdf format. This meant that wording was jumbled between pages and some recipes were hard to read. That coupled with most of the pictures being blanked out spoilt the experience for me. I was very much looking forward to this book as I love Nashville and I love food and cookery books! Living in the UK, books like this are often able to transport me back to a place I have visited and eaten in. Reading the well written anecdotal text did exactly that and I look forward to trying some of the recipes but would very much like to see more of the pictures. The few that do display seemed well shot but I would need to see more to give a proper verdict on the aesthetics of the book. Personally, a cookbook has to invite me in with pictures and the text is very often secondary to that as I find that I will 'read' the book probably only once but revisit it many times to cook from. I love the cover. I did enjoy reading about the history of the basic dishes and how they have evolved and of course enjoyed the references to various musicians. In all, I think this is a well thought out book and one that I would like to own. In the UK, I am not sure how popular it would be as I imagine it will only really appeal to those who have either travelled to the States or have an attachment to Nashville.
As a long-time resident of Nashville, I was so excited to experience this cookbook, and it is certainly true to the heart of Nashville's Southern food tradition. Nashville and I were a great pair, and I ate divinely through the city. So many of my memories of Nashville are imbedded in restaurants and great eats shared with friends. When I had to opportunity to take a sneak peek at this cookbook, I jumped on it, eager to bake and cook up the memories of my former home. From biscuits to hot chicken, pecan pie to ice cream soda floats, this book is an edible ode to Nashville and the great food artisans that work and play there.
The recipes and profiles of local restaurant owners were a perfect representation of the city. The approachable recipes make bringing Nashville to your kitchen easy for cooks and bakers at any level. I executed several recipes and found them absolutely perfect!
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I received this book from NetGalley for this review. The opinions on this book and its contents are my own. I only work with companies and endorse products that I have positive personal experience with and enjoy.
Nashville Eats: Hot Chicken, Buttermilk Biscuits, and 100 More Southern Recipes from Music City by Jennifer Justus is a FUN cookbook chockful of great recipes! Plus the author shares wonderful stories of Nashville, the people, music, history, along with the food! All of this in a cookbook with recipes that sound so good it'll make you slap your mama (VERY good). I can't wait to try the Beaten Biscuits, Redeye Gravy (for hubby), Country Ham Salad,The Nashville Burger, Venison Chili, Grant's Nashville Pan-Fried Catfish, Tomato Pie, and the Strawberry Jam recipes! There are so many YUMMY sounding recipes included in this book it is hard to decide what to try first.
I enjoyed the pictures and trivia she has included as well, it is NOT just a cookbook, but so much more. A must have for all who love cooking, Nashville, or country music. As for me, I'm fixin' to go try out one of these fabulous recipes!
I received an ARC (advanced readers copy) from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Look for this on the shelves on October 6, 2015
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley/ABRAMS/Stewart, Tabori & Chang/ Cooking, Food & Wine for an honest review. "Nashville Eats" by Jennifer Justus is more than a cookbook. This cookbook includes history of some of Nashville foods both past and present along with the amazing pictures make it a great book to own. The author did a great job of showing how the people of Nashville in the past and present are still giving back to their community. The introduction draws you in and you want to read more not just scan through the book. I loved the stories at the beginning of each section. The kitchen playlist through out the book were enjoyable to read too. There are more than 100 recipes from biscuits, hot chicken, blackberry cobbler to brisket with grits and much more. The recipes look easy to prepare and delicious. I really loved this book!
What a fabulous cookbook. Ms. Justus covers the culinary culture and history of Nashville, along with familiar Southern recipes (I am originally from Western North Carolina and many of these recipes are common to that area of the South, as well), traditional Nashville recipes and new dishes that include the new ethnically diverse city. And since this is a book about Nashville, country music, and the history of country music and Nashville cuisine are also a big feature of this book.
Fascinating stories (what else do you expect from a Southerner!) as well as very doable recipes with clear instructions and readily available ingredients. Ms. Justus does a wonderful job of making her readers very hungry! And the food photography is superb as well.
Everyone has heard about southern hospitality and down home cooking which is exactly what interested me in this cookbook. Jennifer Justus has included in “Nashville Eats” many stories and snippets of food history within the chapters making her recipes more appealing. Not every recipes has a photo attached but is explained well. The ingredients are not specialty ones, but ones you can find in any kitchen. There is a wide variety of recipes held within ranging from dinner suggestions to picnics. If you ever find yourself going to a potluck and in need of a dish, there are several in this book that would be great options. The desserts are amazing looking and I can’t wait to try some of these great looking pies and cakes. “Nashville Eats” is so much more than just a book containing southern recipes it is a book that contains the people of Nashville and what makes them special.
Who reads the copy in a cookbook? Usually you look at the pretty pictures and read the recipes. Sometimes we try the recipes.
I read the copy, looked at the pictures and read the recipes. I will try some of them and will visit some of the places mentioned next time I am in Nashville.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review"
YUM! We've already made the biscuits and they turned out AMAZING!
This book is so fun and the layout is great! The recipes are easy to follow and authentic! Love this book! The pictures are done really well and the colors are so enticing!
New favorite cookbook! Love Jennifer's intros to each chapter, and the suggested playlists! As always, Andrea Behrends photos are amazing. I want to make everything in this book and I want to meet all of these people!