John Egerton (1935-2013), a journalist known for his work in southern race relations, education, and food, was co-founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance. His articles appeared in the Washington Post, Saturday Review, New York Times Magazine, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and many other publications. He is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including The Americanization of Dixie and Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South.
Southern food and cooking viewed with a critical but not jaundiced eye, and with a sense of urgency about capturing the past before it disappears forever. Egerton follows a short history of Southern food with a report on eating placesfew of them fancy but each with a regional specialtywhich he visited on a tour of 11 states. A chapter on eating at home includes 160 recipes chosen to show Southern food at its home-cooked best. His roster of 225 restaurants listed by state is a gold mine for travelers who would like to sample the past at meal time; a 300-item annotated bibliography is a gold mine for readers. An odeno, a symphonyto what is left of a glorious past: less than it ought to be but infinitely better than nothing. Ruth Diebold, M.L.S., Upper Nyack, N.Y.
Egerton (Generations, Nashville, etc.) writes here not as a food critic or professional historian but as an affectionate observer. The book commences with an informal history that suffuses the entire volume, from notes on 19th century meat packing in Nashville to the invention of the hot Brown sandwich at the Brown Hotel in Louisville in the 1930s. However, aside from a few wistful observations, such as a comment that the golden age of oysters peaked in 1850, the book celebrates the here and now of Southern food. Extensive travel and tasting produce a narrative account of more than 200 restaurants, from unique pockets of homestyle cooking to the Po Folks franchise, which has 167 restaurants in 24 states. Home cooking also is well represented with descriptions of dishes and the people who prepare them. Included are recipes for a number of traditional items such as burgoo, a hearty stew, which can be made entirely with grocery-store ingredients though ``a squirrel or two would have added much in the way of both flavor and history,'' pecan bourbon cake, deviled crabs, red-eye gravy and buttermilk pie. Photos. (June 17)
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