[.ca] The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations ... (ISBN 0375400354)

From Amazon.com:
The books of Edna Lewis--In Pursuit of Flavor, The Taste of Country Cooking, and the out-of-print Edna Lewis Cookbook--should be on any serious cook's bookshelf. Add to that list The Gift of Southern Cooking, which she wrote with fellow Southern cook, Scott Peacock. In her time, Edna Lewis has quietly upheld the virtues of a good meal and the Southern cooking she learned as a child. Her grandfather, a former slave, joined with freed slaves to found Freetown, a Virginia farming community. So Lewis grew up with the food at hand, fresh buttermilk, for example. She moved to New York City early on where she cooked for and rubbed shoulders with artists and actors, musicians and writers, cooks and Communists. And through all her years, through her life and through her cooking, she described the most elegant, simple line. It's there for you to see in each of her recipes, the way she approaches flavor. Here in her mid-80s Lewis brings out the best of Southern cooking with a collaborator less than half her age. She's a Virginian; he's from Alabama. So get ready for a delicious spread. They are both dedicated to preserving Southern food ways, and to updating whenever they can. The book is simply packed with wonderful treats from Spicy Eggplant Relish all the way to Warm Apple Crisp. It's written in Peacock's voice and unless he says so there's no telling where his recipes end and hers begin. But it doesn't matter. They are peas in a pod, those two. You will not only learn how Southern food should taste with The Gift of Southern Cooking, you will learn why and you will learn how. Neither your fried chicken nor your buttermilk biscuits will ever be the same. --Schuyler Ingle

So much more than southern cooking...:
I happened on this book several weeks ago at a neighborhood bookstore and was instantly hooked. This is so much more than a cookbook. The stories and recipe introductions evoke so many memories. Edna Lewis is the godess of southern cooking and she and her co-author are in rare form here. Do by all means try the brining methods, especially brining chicken. The results will make you feel like you're eating your mama's fried chicken. This cookbook is a classic; simple, earthy, stick-to-your-ribs food presented lovingly by one extraordinary cook and her friend and protoge.

MASTERPIECE:
This book is so good, the instructions so clear and the results so reliable. Since the origin of many/most recipes are true or variations of heirloom family recipes, some a century old, it would only make sense that this cannot be a low fat health conscious cookbook, but these are authentic recipes and soo good! You have to try the carrot cake and the many cakes as well as follow the delcious recommendations for menus!! Everything I have made has been superb and that never happens with me!!! Get this book, you'll love it!

Great Survey of Classic Cuisine. More instructive than many:
On the surface, this book bears a strong resemblance to the volume by James Villas and his mother, Martha Pearl Villas, entitled 'My Mother's Southern Kitchen', as it is written by a younger man and an older woman, both of whom have serious culinary chops, and where the younger man does most of the actual writing. The differences between the two books, however, are much more instructive. First, in this book, both authors are professional restaurant chefs who both grew up eating southern cuisine and who specialize in cooking it. In the Villas' book, neither are professional chefs. This means that there is just a bit more fussiness about the methods and ingredients in the Lewis / Peacock recipes. One example is that while both pair of authors endorse homemade mayonnaise, Lewis and Peacock go an additional step by recommending and giving a recipe for homemade baking powder, especially for use in making biscuits. Skeptics, please note, I have made biscuits with my White Lily flour and homemade baking powder, and the homemade stuff does make a difference in eliminating the faint metallic aluminum taste in the stuff from Clabber Girl or Count Rumsfield. Second, in this book, the two authors are originally from two very different parts of the south. Edna Lewis was raised in rural Virginia and Scott Peacock grew up in Alabama. Both now work in urban Georgia. The Villas' are native of low country North Carolina. Therefore, this book is much stronger in discussing regional differences between, for example, the peanut oil cooking Alabama and the lard cooking Virginia. While the Villas' book deals with some regional issues, such as the dispute over the source of Brunswick stew, it is largely oriented around the cuisine of a single North Carolina low country household and extended family. Third, in the Lewis / Peacock book, the authors are not mother and son, so there is no chronic family sniping over who is the better cook. Peacock defers to the older Lewis, but they clearly approach the task as equals. The upshot of all these differences is that our Lewis / Peacock book is at the same time more true to its rural, old South roots while presenting these traditions with a very professional interpretation. A perfect example of this is the interpretation of fried chicken in the two books. Jimmy Villas says his mother's fried chicken has gotten great response from the likes of Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, and Paul Bocuse, yet it is obviously the kind of recipe which would be done in a 20th century home, using Crisco and an electric fry pan. On the other hand, the Lewis / Peacock recipe is clearly more rustic and one which would suit a large restaurant with its hotel pans and walk-in refrigerators. It uses lard, and both a brining and an overnight marinade in buttermilk before breading and frying. I believe this means that if you want to learn a lot about classic southern cooking techniques, our Lewis / Peacock recipe is the preferred volume. This dedication to true traditional methods even extends to stock making, where a smoked pork stock is as important an ingredient to southern vegetable and soup cooking as a good veal stock is to French soup making. Another illuminating Peacock basic is his methods for making chicken stock, one yielding poached chicken meat and one yielding a very fast stock from scraps. Another great traditional recipe is for cooked dressing for things such as cole slaw. I have not seen this in any other modern book, while it is a staple preparation in books by James Beard, for example. While the Lewis / Peacock book has a lot of well-known southern dishes, it also has many which are totally unfamiliar to us northerners. One of my favorite discoveries is 'Caveach', a cold fish salad which the authors speculate was named from a corruption of the Spanish 'escabeche', especially as the dish is prepared by marinading white fish in an acidic dressing. Another very nice discovery is skillet scallions, an exquisitely simple way of fattening up spring onions with butter. The variety of recipes for several common southern vegetables such as tomatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, corn, greens, and cabbage is a testament to the very vegetarian diet and long growing season. If I were looking for a dish for a classic southern recipe and I had these two books from which to choose, I would start with the Lewis / Peacock book. I have made several dishes from this book and all had methods which were very simple to follow and all of which give superior results. This even includes the recipes for preserves and pickles, as the professional chefs are more likely to have a far greater well of professional experience from which to draw than the talented amateur Villas clan. Be warned that this book does not deal at all with barbecue, grilling, Creole specialities or Cajun cuisine. For that, you will have to consult specialists in those fields. On the other hand, there are many little gems that are rapidly becoming better known to Americans at large through cable and PBS food shows. My finding a classic southern recipe for a 'BLT' salad makes me think that Alton Brown is really nothing more than a closet southern cook who tried to turn this salad into a Tuscan panzanella salad on his 'Good Eats' show about tomatoes. He would have been more honest and truer to his Georgia roots to confess that the salad was as American as his Weber grill. This is an excellent interpretation of traditional southern American cuisine as seen by two very accomplished professional chefs. Not every dish is famous and some are the authors' own creations; however, all are true to their roots, and none are more complicated than they have to be. A highly recommended source for home cooks and students of southern American cuisine.

Every recipe you ever wanted is in this book:
That is,if you are a southerner or you appreciate southern food. OK,so the reviewer from New Jersy is upset because he doesn't get a recipe for lard and thinks the writer chefs should have spent more time out of the South-Miss Lewis spent a lifetime in NYC but thankfully,it didn't ruin her cooking. The recipes are easy to follow,make sense,don't "weird-up" the classics by doing things like adding lemongrass to grits and the text is interesting.There are recipes for many different kinds of dishes. No,its not low fat but who cares? You gotta love these two for reminding me of when people dared save their bacon grease in a can! The two chefs have a sweet relationship that was recently profiled in the NY Times.It comes through in Chef Peacocks writing. This book resonated with me in an emotional way. If you grew up with traditional southern food,or wish you had,buy this book!

A Beautiful Book, But...:
I am going to be honest with you, while The Gift of Southern Cooking is a beautiful cookbook, just be careful before picking it up. This one is certainly not for the health-conscious chef. I hate to even say that because I sound like an uptight party-pooper, but many of these recipes cook with lard or bacon fat--I was a little shocked. Needless to say, there isn't any nutritional information about these recipes either. That being said, this is a beautiful cookbook with many interesting and traditional recipes.