The Gift of Southern Cooking

Starred review from March 17, 2003
Lewis (In Pursuit of Flavor), grande dame of Southern cooking, has at last come out with a cookbook explicitly devoted to the traditional cooking of the American South. Authenticity is always an issue in southern cooking—each state has its fiercely held opinions and sacred recipes—but Lewis and her young friend and protege, Scott Peacock, have unbeatable credentials. Peacock, a restaurateur, is from Alabama, Lewis from Virginia, so their culinary reach extends from the Tidewater to the Gulf. They have decades in the kitchen between them and have been cooking together since 1988; indeed, much of the book's charm rises from their heartfelt friendship and mutual respect. Though the book is written in Peacock's voice, nearly every page offers anecdotes and instructions from "Miss Lewis." These are mouthwatering recipes, conceived with integrity (there's even a recipe for your own baking powder if, like Miss Lewis, one is habitually suspicious of industrial food) and include a panoply of classic southern favorites: Cornbread-Pecan Dressing , Old-Fashioned Creamy Grits, Country Ham Steak with Red-Eye Gravy, Hot Crusty Buttermilk Biscuits, and Southern Greens Cooked in Pork Stock. But as if to prove that the Southern kitchen does not begin and end with the pig, several more modern innovations appear: Sauteed Frogs' Legs with Brown Butter and Capers, Silken Turnip Soup, Chanterelles on Toast. The rest of the country owes its thanks to this unlikely pair for bringing Southern comfort back to everyone's table; and so, as one chapter puts it, "Praise the lard and pass the biscuits."

Starred review from March 15, 2003
It is unlikely that at the first meeting of Lewis, "the Grande Dame" of Southern cooking and author of the classic The Taste of Country Cooking, and Peacock, at the time a 25-year-old chef just starting his career, they could have imagined that they would become best friends, collaborators, and eventually housemates. More than a decade later, this charming and authoritative book is just one result of that fortunate encounter. The two were drawn together at first by their common food memories as Southerners, but Lewis is from Virginia and Peacock grew up in Alabama, so they found surprising differences as well. They began exploring Southern food together (along the way, they founded the Society for the Revival of Preservation of Southern Food), and they've been talking about food and cooking with each other ever since. Here they provide 225 of their delicious recipes, from pan-fried chicken, creamy grits, and Southern biscuits to cakes and hand-cranked ice cream, sharing as well the culinary discoveries that resulted from their collaboration in the kitchen. The book is written in Peacock's voice (they felt that using "we" for both of them would be awkward), but the opinions and observations of "Miss Lewis," as he calls her, are an integral part of the text, and her contributions to the venture are evident on every page. This delightful book is an essential purchase. [Good Cook Book Club selection.]

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.