A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson

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 Leon'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.

Other cookbooks by this author

• 1001 Secrets of Great Cooks
• The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century
• Art of American Indian Cooking: Over 150 Delicious, Authentic And Traditional Dishes From Five North American Regions.
• The Art of American Indian Cooking
• The Art of American Indian Cooking
• Dinners In A Dish Or A Dash: Delicious Meals That Anyone Can Prepare
• The Doubleday cookbook: Complete contemporary cooking
• The Doubleday Cookbook
• Falling Off the Bone
• Falling Off the Bone
• Falling Off the Bone
• Falling Off the Bone
• Falling Off the Bone
• The Family Circle Cookbook
• The Food of Portugal
• The Food of Portugal
• Food of Portugal
• From a Southern Oven: The Savories, The Sweets
• From a Southern Oven: The Savories, the Sweets
• From a Southern Oven: The Savories, the Sweets
• From a Southern Oven: The Savories, the Sweets
• From a Southern Oven: The Savories, the Sweets
• The Good Morning America Cut The Calories Cookbook: 120 Delicious Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Recipes From Our Viewers with Additional Recipes By Sara Moulton And Emeril Lagass
• The Grass Roots Cookbook
• The Grass Roots Cookbook
• The Grass Roots Cookbook
• Half a Can of Tomato Paste and Other Culinary Dilemmas: A Cookbook
• Half a Can of Tomato Paste and Other Culinary Dilemmas
• Jean Anderson's New Processor Cooking
• Jean Anderson Cooks: Her kitchen reference & recipe collection
• Jean Anderson's Green Thumb Preserving Guide: How to Can and Freeze, Dry and Store, Pickle, Preserve, and Relish Home-Grown Vegetables and Fruits
• Jean Anderson's New Processor Cooking
• Jean Anderson's Processor Cooking
• Jean Anderson's Processor Cooking
• Jean Anderson's Processor Cooking
• Jean Anderson's Sin Free Desserts
• A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections
• A Love Affair with Southern Cooking
• A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections
• A Love Affair with Southern Cooking
• Micro Ways
• Micro Ways: Every Cook's Guide to Successful Microwaving
• The New American Century: The Most Popular Recipes of The 20th Century
• The New Doubleday Cookbook
• The New German Cookbook: More Than 230 Contemporary and Traditional Recipes
• The Nutrition Bible: The Comprehensive, No-Nonsense Guide to Foods, Nutrients, Additives, Preservatives, Pollutants and Everything Else We Eat
• The Nutrition Bible: The Comprehensive, No-Nonsense Guide to Foods, Nutrients, Additives, Preservatives, Pollutants, and Everything Else We Eat
• One-Dish Dinners: 275 Great-Tasting, Easy Recipes Using Fresh, Frozen, Canned, And Other Convenience Foods
• Process This!: New Recipes For The New Generation of Food Processors Plus Dozens Of Time-Saving Tips
• Process This!: New Recipes for the New Generation of Food Processors Plus Dozens of Time-Saving Tips
• Quick Loaves: 150 Breads And Cakes, Meat And Meatless Loaves
• Recipes from America's restored villages
• Unforbidden Sweets
• Unforbidden Sweets: More Than 100 Classic Desserts You Can Now Enjoy - Without Counting Calories