From Publishers Weekly
Villas, the former food and wine editor of
Town & Country and the author of 12 cookbooks, explores the distinctive cuisine of Southern cooking. Villas sees Southern cookery as the only legitimate cuisine in this county, being on the same level with French and Italian home cooking. His collection spans the entirety of the Southern states, including recipes for such classics as fried chicken, pork barbecue, and grits and greens, and lesser known dishes such as Baked Oysters with Mustard Greens and Bacon, Nashville Turnip Greens with Ham Hock, and Memphis Casserole Cheese Bread. Recipes highlight the abundance of natural food ingredients found in the South as well as the multitude of ethnic influences that contributed to the cuisine's evolution. Chapters include Cocktail and Tea Foods; Soups, Chowders, and Gumbos; Rice and Grits; and Cornbread, Biscuits, Hush Puppies, and Other Breads. Villas also provides helpful sections on equipment, ingredients, special cooking techniques, and a glossary of terms for those unfamiliar with the cuisine. This is a solid primer for those who like comfort food or have an interest in Southern cooking.
(Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Already well established as one of America's leading proponents of southern cooking, Villas has produced one of the great definitive volumes on a subject near and dear to the hearts and stomachs of a huge number of Americans. For Villas, southern cooking includes everything from Key West specialties to Cajun and Creole casserole, through Carolina low-country seafood and on up as far as Maryland. To Villas' great credit, he avoids using canned products except for in a very few recipes, such as a North Carolina eggplant casserole. Multiple fried chicken recipes reflect different geographic traditions and so do varieties of biscuits. Cakes, pastries, candies, and other sweets abound. Serious cooks will appreciate the host of pickles and other relishes for canning. A glossary helps the uninitiated rapidly find apt distinctions between angel biscuits and beaten biscuits, between Cajun and Creole cooking, and between a bog and a burgoo. Villas also provides mail-order sources for specialized southern foodstuffs.
Mark KnoblauchCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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