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Title: The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great Southern Cooks by Edna Lewis, Scott Peacock, Christopher Hirsheimer ISBN: 0375400354 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the best
Comment: I cannot express how excited I am to have this wonderful cookbook. Having grown up in the north with southern roots, we had "southern" dishes when we visited my grandma who had grown up on the farm. But things being how they are I never really got into southern cooking thinking it was a diet consisting mainly of fried dishes and cornbread. They're both wonderful things but not to eat every day.
I guess I would have to say, like the reviewer from NY, that I fell for the hype. However, I couldn't be happier. Granted, there isn't a recipe for lard. But if you're reading this review right now, you could go onto an internet search engine and find out how to render lard. Additionally, any grocery store worth its salt will provide pork fat to customers. I can pick it up for free at my local butcher. And I think anyone in any reasonably-sized city would be able to contact a butcher and figure something out.
The stories that Miss Lewis and Mister Peacock share at the beginning of each chapter and at the beginning of each recipe drew me in, and I couldn't put it down. Dishes that have been successes in our house so far--Breakfast Shrimp for Supper, Creamy Grits, Bay-studded Pork Shoulder, Butter Beans in Cream with country ham and chives, Baked Eggplant with Peanuts, and the cornbread. I haven't tried any of the desserts yet, but am plannin on doing it soon.
The index is also quite useful. You'll see, for instance, that they list substitutes for pork stock on a page among recipes that utilize it. Perhaps it should have been included nearer to the pork stock recipe, but if one has questions, the reader is directed to the correct page when he or she flips to where we were taught to look in elementary school when we had questions--the index.
This wonderful book has gotten me excited about cooking in a whole new way. There are simple dishes. There are more involved dishes. But not one that I have tried has been a loser. I can't wait to try the tomato aspic, Country Captain, and lamb shanks braised with green tomatoes.
Get cookin'!
Rating: 4
Summary: High-Maintenance Southern Cuisine
Comment: This book has received the kind of reverential reviews that haven't been seen since Moses handed down tablets from Mount Sinai--and those didn't even have recipes! So with recommendations from the press in mind, I happily and blindly purchased this book.
The editorial comments in Saveur treat the book's editor as an infallible icon of publishing, but I see a lot of irritating problems in the book's production. Photos are haphazard, photo identification nonexistent. Is that Lane Cake on page 260? There are many repeated photographs throughout the book--two of Tea Cakes, two of Cornbread, just shot from different angles. This isn't a huge sin, but it isn't the way to show a publisher's confidence in a high-profile book.
Overall, this isn't Southern Cooking, but rarified Southern Cuisine. Many recipes require expensive or hard-to-find ingredients. Here's an example or two: The culinary pleasures of lard are extolled, but you won't find a recipe for homemade lard here. Why not? This is a serious flaw. The authors talk about good lard as if you can get it around the corner. In my neighborhood market, I have a difficult time even getting fatback to render into lard for the few recipes I have that require it. If they want to reach a new readership, they should not assume that everyone is a seasoned cook who knows how to make lard. Not to be rude, but if the authors spent more time outside of the South, perhaps they would have a better idea of what ingredients are truly available to their readers.
Pork Stock, an ingredient of many recipes, they ask you to simmer up 2 pounds of smoked pork shoulder (similar to expensive Smithfield ham). While they suggest using cheaper packaged ham bits, that grocery item is really only available in the south. There is a "Substitutes for Pork Stock" box on page 153. What this important information is doing over one hundred pages away from the Pork Stock recipe is a mystery, but it shows that someone was asleep at the wheel. (Or that, like many cookbooks these days, the Art Director is king, and that design considerations overrode simple common sense of what goes where.) Not that I relished the idea of turning pricey meat into stock, I went to the only website in the mail-order section for smoked meat, only to find that the link was incorrect and the new site only had hams.
Like many other chefs, they have fallen in love with the concept of brining, which adds eight hours of prep time to a simple dish like curried Country Captain. I am one home cook that questions the validity of bringing--I have been making fried chicken and roast chicken for years without brining and without serving dry food, and I find that it give all food a similar salty flavor.
All this is 'jes fine and dandy if you approach the book with realistic expectations--I fell for the hype. If you need yet another recipe for buttermilk biscuits (I learned about using soft wheat flour and homemade baking powder years ago, probably from one of Miss Lewis' other books), cheese straws, fried okra, and the like, then this is your glass of iced tea. While there is a certain amount of déjà vu, perhaps unavoidable in a Southern cookbook, I admit that I can't wait to make the Chocolate Cake, Braised Short Ribs and Thyme-Scented Loin of Pork with Muscadine Grapes and Port. Miss Lewis and Mister Peacock are clearly extraordinary cooks that deserve our respect, but they also deserve some editorial support.
Rating: 5
Summary: What A Gift This Book Is!
Comment: Just when it seemed there was nothing else to be said about southern cooking, Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock print this outrageously wonderful book. All your favorite Southern recipes and then some are here-- from pimento cheese to pigs' feet to pecan pie to pound cake. This book is far more than a collection of recipes, however. There are tips on everything from the best cornmeal to use for different cornbreads to the use of peanut oil versus homemade lard. Most importantly, this book is the story of a friendship that transcends generations and race and distance.
The color photographs by Christopher Hirsheimer are exquisite. Many of them approach art--particularly the photos of fruits and vegetables-- and should be enlarged and framed. This cookbook opens with the famous Scarlett O'Hara line: "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again." She would if she read this cookbook.
A great book to give to both those who cook and those who don't or to anyone interested in the rich heritage of Southern cooking.
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