The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks [Hardcover]

Edna Lewis (Author), Scott Peacock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

Edna Lewis--whose The Taste of Country Cooking has become an American classic--and Alabama-born chef Scott Peacock pool their unusual cooking talents to give us this unique cookbook. What makes it so special is that it represents different styles of Southern cooking--Miss Lewis’s Virginia country cooking and Scott Peacock’s inventive and sensitive blending of new tastes with the Alabama foods he grew up on, liberally seasoned with Native American, Caribbean, and African influences. Together they have taken neglected traditional recipes unearthed in their years of research together on Southern food and worked out new versions that they have made their own.

Every page of this beguiling book bears the unmistakable mark of being written by real hands-on cooks. Scott Peacock has the gift for translating the love and respect they share for good home cooking with such care and precision that you know, even if you’ve never tried them before, that the Skillet Cornbread will turn out perfect, the Crab Cakes will be “Honestly Good,” and the four-tiered Lane Cake something spectacular.

Together they share their secrets for such Southern basics as pan-fried chicken (soak in brine first, then buttermilk, before frying in good pork fat), creamy grits (cook slowly in milk), and genuine Southern biscuits, which depend on using soft flour, homemade baking powder, and fine, fresh lard (and on not twisting the biscuit cutter when you stamp out the dough). Scott Peacock describes how Miss Lewis makes soup by coaxing the essence of flavor from vegetables (the She-Crab and Turtle soups taste so rich they can be served in small portions in demitasse cups), and he applies the same principle to his intensely flavored, scrumptious dish of Garlic Braised Shoulder Lamb Chops with Butter Beans and Tomatoes. You’ll find all these treasures and more before you even get to the superb cakes (potential “Cakewalk Winners” all), the hand-cranked ice creams, the flaky pies, and homey custards and puddings.

Interwoven throughout the book are warm memories of the people and the traditions that shaped these pure-
tasting, genuinely American recipes. Above all, the Southern table stands for hospitality, and the authors demonstrate that the way everything is put together--with the condiments and relishes and preserves and wealth of vegetables all spread out on the table--is what makes the meal uniquely Southern. Every occasion is celebrated, and at the back of the book there are twenty-two seasonal menus, from A Spring Country Breakfast for a Late Sunday Morning and A Summer Dinner of Big Flavors to An Alabama Thanksgiving and A Hearty Dinner for a Cold Winter Night, to show you how to mix and match dishes for a true Southern table.
Here, then, is a joyful coming together of two extraordinary cooks, sharing their gifts. And they invite you to join them.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375400354
• ISBN-13: 978-0375400353
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

189 of 192 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Survey of Classic Cuisine. More instructive than many, July 12, 2004

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks (Hardcover)

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.

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is what a cookbook should be!!, May 20, 2005

By 

Wayne Fogel (The Villages, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks (Hardcover)

This book meets every criteria of a first rate cookbook. (1) The recipes are uniformly well tested and good tasting; (2) The directions are clear and easy to follow; (3) The production value is high with large type, excellent pictures and easy to read bright white coated paper; (4) When combination of dishes such as Country Captain Chicken and Coconut Rice are appropriate, they are recommended; and (5) It authoritatively addresses its subject - Southern Cooking. Very few books meet all of these criteria. The authors and the publishing house are to be congratulated for their achievement.

I have tried a number of recopies from this book and while I can recommend them almost without exception, I would like to suggest two of them to start with. For a wonderful Sunday dinner make Country Captain Chicken and serve it as suggested with the Coconut Rice. I use chicken thighs instead of cut up chicken. It's easier to control the cooking times when all the pieces are the same size. It has always been a smash hit with company or when my children and grandchildren come to visit. I do cheat and use the Goya canned coconut milk. For a picnic make the Southern Pan-Fried Chicken and serve it cold together with the Potato Salad made with homemade mayonnaise. Brine the chicken for both of these recipes - it does make a difference.

As for the lard question - just like Coconut milk I am not going to make it myself! I am into cooking but not that much. Also, my wife would take strong exception to my tying up the stove for three days to render lard. Go to your local grocery store. If they do not carry it, ask them to order it for you or go on the net and find some.

Buy this book and cook from it for one month. If you are like 99% of the people in this world, you will learn to appreciate a whole set of tastes.

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, attractive and mouth-watering, September 23, 2003

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks (Hardcover)

This collaboration of a descendant of slaves born before 1920 and a white son of modern rural Alabama, celebrates the variety and richness of southern cooking from Red Pepper Catsup to Catfish Stew. Arranged by course, from condiments to desserts (three chapters!) this book reflects the serious authority of its authors, particularly Lewis ("The Taste of Country Cooking"), who has won numerous awards over the years.

From Blackberry Cordial and Smoked Pork Stock, Old Fashioned Boiled Dressing and Wilted Salad, to Slow-Cooked Oxtails, Spicy Collards in Tomato-Onion Sauce, Corn Pudding and Buttermilk Biscuits, the authors encompass the range of time-honored dishes, each prefaced with a touch of history or a word on technique.

Emphasis is placed on quality of ingredients and, with the south's long growing season, the natural match of seasonal foods. This is a book that's nearly as nourishing to read as it is to cook from and comprehensive and elegant enough to be the only Southern cookbook you need.