The Plantation Cookbook

by Junior League of New Orleans, M. Dell Weller (Illustrator)

Provides more than 300 excellent recipes for classic New Orleans and South Louisiana cuisine. The directions are easy to follow and the variety of recipes will never leave you without choices of what to have for dinner - be it a family affair or a formal occasion. You can find the ingredients for most of the recipes regardless of where you live.

20th Anniversary Edition.

Genres: Cookbooks

223 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1972

Reviews

[Redsteve]

This is kind of a weird book: while it is technically a cookbook, about 1/3 of it is dedicated to Louisiana plantations in general, and details on many specific historic plantations around the state (although since the book was published in 1972, much of the visiting/tour information is sadly out of date). One can tell that this was written in the early seventies Deep South as the book sums up the conditions of slaves as "not pleasant", while describing the treatment of the Irish immigrants in the mid-19th Century as "a source of shame." Speaking as a person of Irish descent, I'm pretty sure the planters have more things to be ashamed of then the way they treated my ancestors. (cough) slavery (cough). The food history is good, although, as this book was written in the pre-Paul Prudhomme era, they list all southern Louisiana cooking as "creole", only referring to Cajun as the people themselves. Regardless, the dishes are excellent examples of regional cooking (and not the terrible recipes I expect from a mid-20th Century American cookbook).

[Lala Funderburg]

My "go to " for many great Louisiana dishes!