Product Description

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

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Product Details

Publisher	Knopf
ISBN	0375400354
Format	Hardcover
Author	Edna Lewis,Scott Peacock
EAN	9780375400353
Label	Knopf
Edition	1
Dewey Decimal Number	641.5973
Studio	Knopf
Number Of Pages	352
Title	The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks
Release Date	2003-04-15
Publication Date	2003-04-15
Manufacturer	Knopf

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Customer Reviews

A Great Book of Old Fashioned Recipes

Review by Tellitlikeitis, 2010-08-11

Any good cook knows he/she can substitute butter or margarine for lard! I found this book in the library earlier today and since it had a torn page, I asked if I could purchase it. They told me no, but I kept reading the recipes and now I'm going to order one for me and one for a Xmas gift for my aunt. As a cook and cookbook collector, this book will be a welcome addition to my collection. I can't wait to get it. I have other ideas for some of the recipes that I plan to try immediately. I hope to modify the toast cups recipe so I can add an egg, meat, and cheese filling for individual breakfast casseroles which will go good with a breakfast fruit salad. Can't wait to make the chocolate fritters with the molten chocolate centers..... If you are size 2 and living forever is a priority, then you will not appreciate the use of lard, butter, bacon fat, etc. But any southern old fashioned cook knows that these flavors make a dish every time! Ms. Edna is the kind of cook people would love to eat her food at gatherings or would appreciate an invite to a meal at her home. I'm that kind of cook although I am considerably younger, but I'm in my early 50s and grew up on this food. I can't wait for my cookbook! Also, I will try out her other cook book on country cooking as well.

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A must have for southern cooks

Review by Trish, 2010-05-18

This is more than a cookbook. The narratives are as interesting as the recipes. The deviled egg recipe is the BEST I ever tasted and my family agrees.

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The Gift of Southern Cooking

Review by Bank Of America, 2009-11-24

The Gift of Southern Cooking is a great addition to anyone's cooking library. The book was sent in a very timely fashion, and I have enjoyed cooking from it.

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Outstanding recipes from a great chef in her twilight years

Review by F, 2009-11-21

Sadly, this is Edna Lewis' last published cookbook. But wow! She left her legacy with a terrific collection of recipes with co-author Scott Peacock. Peacock himself is a rising star: the executive chef at the Watershed Restaurant in the greater Atlanta area. These two have collaborated on a work that would really make anyone enjoy Southern cooking. Peacock can consider himself fortunate: he had the priviledge of working with a woman who is considered one of America's greatest cooks (she once won the James Beard Award for best chef).

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Excellent recipes, no matter where you live

Review by M. Feldman, 2009-07-31

This is one fine cookbook, an essential to own, in my opinion. The recipes are clear, well tested, and delicious, the way Julia Child's are, the way Alice Waters's are. While this is a cookbook devoted to a regional cuisine, don't neglect it just because you live, like I do, in a place where nobody grows okra or turnip greens. The Peacock/Lewis recipes can often be adapted to whatever is growing in your garden or available at the farmer's market. (It is July, as I write this, and a cold wet summer means we are pining in Maine for that elusive first ripe tomato.) The emphasis in this book is really on simplicity. Take, for instance, the lovely chicken salad. It does not contain sun-dried tomatoes or chutney or some other designer addition you might find in a food magazine. And it's wonderful. As are the sugared raspberries, the buttermilk pancakes, the roast chicken, the corn bread, and so on. The country captain is worth every bit of prep time.

This is home cooking, utterly refined and utterly transcendent. Throughout "The Gift of Southern Cooking" there are pictures of Miss Edna Lewis enjoying a meal with family or friends. The setting depicted is generally plain and homely, the food anything but. I put up a quart jar of sugared raspberries last July. It hangs out in the back of the refrigerator, and we've been doling it out all winter on pancakes and yogurt.
M. Feldman

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