The Big Jones Cookbook

The Big Jones Cookbook
Author: Paul Fehribach
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2015-04-22
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 022620586X

An original look at southern heirloom cooking with a focus on history, heritage, and variety. You expect to hear about restaurant kitchens in Charleston, New Orleans, or Memphis perfecting plates of the finest southern cuisine—from hearty red beans and rice to stewed okra to crispy fried chicken. But who would guess that one of the most innovative chefs cooking heirloom regional southern food is based not in the heart of biscuit country, but in the grain-fed Midwest—in Chicago, no less? Since 2008, chef Paul Fehribach has been introducing Chicagoans to the delectable pleasures of Lowcountry cuisine, while his restaurant Big Jones has become a home away from home for the city’s southern diaspora. From its inception, Big Jones has focused on cooking with local and sustainably grown heirloom crops and heritage livestock, reinvigorating southern cooking through meticulous technique and the unique perspective of its Midwest location. And with The Big Jones Cookbook, Fehribach brings the rich stories and traditions of regional southern food to kitchens everywhere. Fehribach interweaves personal experience, historical knowledge, and culinary creativity, all while offering tried-and-true takes on everything from Reezy-Peezy to Gumbo Ya-Ya, Chicken and Dumplings, and Crispy Catfish. Fehribach’s dishes reflect his careful attention to historical and culinary detail, and many recipes are accompanied by insights about their origins. In addition to the regional chapters, the cookbook features sections on breads, from sweet potato biscuits to spoonbread; pantry put-ups like bread and butter pickles and chow-chow; cocktails, such as the sazerac; desserts, including Sea Island benne cake; as well as an extensive section on snout-to-tail cooking, including homemade Andouille and pickled pigs’ feet. Proof that you need not possess a thick southern drawl to appreciate the comfort of creamy grits and the skill of perfectly fried green tomatoes, The Big Jones Cookbook will be something to savor regardless of where you set your table.

Prairie Avenue Cookbook

Prairie Avenue Cookbook
Author: Carol Callahan
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1993
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9780809318148

This enchanting cookbook by Carol Callahan allows us to reverse time and transcend space in order to enter a period and place in American history when confidence abounded and all things seemed possible and some Chicago families were able to live in a manner never to be equaled. Judge for yourself. The thirty-five illustrations that accompany the text document what a grand life-style it was. "If you want to see the richest half-dozen blocks in Chicago. . . drive down Prairie Avenue from Sixteenth Street to Twenty-second. Right there is a cluster of millionaires not to be matched for numbers anywhere else in the country." -- Chicago Herald, 1887 And the Herald wasn't guilty of braggadocio. Prairie Avenue was home to such august individuals as Marshall Field, George Pullman, Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, William Kimball, Samuel Allerton, Joseph Sears, and John Glessner. Among the delights they enjoyed were the joys of the table-- the recipes for which, preserved by family members, are shared here for the first time. Carol Callahan makes it possible to taste the flavors of that opulent era with a collection of more than two hundred historic recipes from the prominent nineteenth-century families of Prairie Avenue. All of the recipes have been tested and modernized for today's cook. They range from everything you might like for breakfast to however you' d like your oysters to snacks, soups, salads, entré es, preserves, desserts, and some power-packed Prairie Avenue party punches. To place these dishes in their proper context, Callahan includes family anecdotes gathered through oral history interviews that encompass food, meals, health, and entertainment as well as other aspects of nineteenth-century Chicago life. Callahan devotes part of the book to discussions of the foods available to Prairie Avenue residents, the impact of the rapidly changing technology on cooking, the fine art of dining, the ritual of calling, the problems and pleasures of servants in the household, the children of Prairie Avenue, and the effect of the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition on Chicago. Whether you elect to prepare these Victorian delights or simply savor them in your imagination, the Prairie Avenue Cookbook is sumptuous fare.

Bon Appetit: Stories & Recipes for Human Consumption

Bon Appetit: Stories & Recipes for Human Consumption
Author: Hydra M. Star
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1387188801

In Bouillon de Bébé, a family's twisted tradition of self-sacrifice contains the power to bring their loved ones back from the brink. In Secret Ingredient, revenge is a dish best served with... apple pie. In Nyotaimori, a young, attractive sushi model responds to be the display at an event that turns out to be more than a little fishy, & in We All Scream, your friendly ice cream man delivers two scoops of terror. Editors Alder Strauss & Hydra M. Star serve to you, the reader, the tantalizing talents of eighteen manifestations of mouthwatering macabre paired with rousing recipes and succulent supplementaries; including history, film, and more. Enjoy, Bon Appetit

Praise the Lard

Praise the Lard
Author: Mike Mills
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2017-05-09
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0544702506

Signature recipes and wisdom from the country's foremost pitmaster Mike Mills and Amy Mills, the dynamic father-daughter duo behind the famous 17th Street Barbecue, are two of the most influential people in barbecue. Known as “The Legend,” Mike is a Barbecue Hall-of-Famer, a four-time barbecue World Champion, a three-time Grand World Champion at Memphis in May (the Super Bowl of Swine), and a founder of the Big Apple Block Party. A third-generation barbecuer, Amy is the marketing mind behind the business, a television personality, and industry expert. Praise the Lard, named after the Mills' popular Southern Illinois cook-off, now in its thirtieth year, dispenses all the secrets of the family’s lifetime of worshipping at the temple of barbecue. At the heart of the book are almost 100 recipes from the family archives: Private Reserve Mustard Sauce, Ain’t No Thang but a Chicken Wing, Pork Belly Bites, and Prime Rib on the Pit, Tangy Pit Beans, and Blackberry Pie. With hundreds food photos, candids, and illustrations, this book is as rich as the Mills’ history.

Christmas in Illinois

Christmas in Illinois
Author: James Ballowe
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780252081354

"Christmas seems to have been always with us. It is that time of year when we expect good cheer and goodwill, a moment's respite from the year's vicissitudes, solace during difficult times," writes James Ballowe in his introduction to Christmas in Illinois. This book is about the holiday as remembered by Illinoisans. Some are widely familiar--John W. Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sandra Cisneros, Mike Royko, Carl Sandburg, Joseph Smith--but most are known only in their close-knit communities that together represent the very best of the Prairie State. We learn here about the customs of Christmas from Chicago to Cairo, Belleville to Danville, before statehood to the present day, through hard times and good. Tales, poems, news reports, memoirs, recipes, and images are arranged in sections on Christmas in Illinois history, living traditions, songs and symbols, Christmas outdoors, eating merrily, and memories. We see how bright an occasion Christmas has been, and sometimes amusing, raucous, or even dark. The collection's highlights include Chicago's Christmas tree ship, Peoria's Santa Parade, Rockford's Julotta service, a Victorian holiday in Bloomington, and Audubon's 1810 Christmas on the Cache River. Nature writers detail holiday bird-watching expeditions along the North Shore and in deepest southern Illinois. A letter from a member of the 130th Illinois Infantry captures Christmas Day 1863, and Jack McReynolds recalls West Frankfort's 1951 Orient Number Two mine disaster that thereafter haunted the holiday for him and many others. The holiday table is not neglected, with traditional recipes for wild game, pickled herring, and all manner of Christmas cookies. A wide array of illustrations includes images of Chicago's grand State Street parade, the Santa Lucia celebration at Bishop Hill, Belleville's Santa Claus House, Millikin University's Vespers tradition, the University of Illinois madrigal singers, Studs Terkel singing songs of good cheer, and the holiday art of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Heat up some cider, put a log on the fire, and curl up with Christmas in Illinois to share the holiday with friends both old and new.

The Best Cook in the World

The Best Cook in the World
Author: Rick Bragg
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1400032695

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Part cookbook, part memoir, these “rollicking, poignant, sometimes hilarious tales” (USA Today) are the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s loving tribute to the South, his family and, especially, to his extraordinary mother. Here are irresistible stories and recipes from across generations. They come, skillet by skillet, from Bragg’s ancestors, from feasts and near famine, from funerals and celebrations, and from a thousand tales of family lore as rich and as sumptuous as the dishes they inspired. Deeply personal and unfailingly mouthwatering, The Best Cook in the World is a book to be savored.

Inventing Authenticity

Inventing Authenticity
Author: Carrie Helms Tippen
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2018-08-12
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1682260658

In Inventing Authenticity, Carrie Helms Tippen examines the rhetorical power of storytelling in cookbooks to fortify notions of southernness. Tippen brings to the table her ongoing hunt for recipe cards and evaluates a wealth of cookbooks with titles like Y’all Come Over and Bless Your Heart and famous cookbooks such as Sean Brock’s Heritage and Edward Lee’s Smoke and Pickles. She examines her own southern history, grounding it all in a thorough understanding of the relevant literature. The result is a deft and entertaining dive into the territory of southern cuisine—“black-eyed peas and cornbread,fried chicken and fried okra, pound cake and peach cobbler,”—and a look at and beyond southern food tropes that reveals much about tradition, identity, and the yearning for authenticity. Tippen discusses the act of cooking as a way to perform—and therefore reinforce—the identity associated with a recipe, and the complexities inherent in attempts to portray the foodways of a region marked by a sometimes distasteful history. Inventing Authenticity meets this challenge head-on, delving into problems of cultural appropriation and representations of race, thorny questions about authorship, and more. The commonplace but deceptively complex southern cookbook can sustain our sense of where we come from and who we are—or who we think we are.

Peace, Love & Barbecue

Peace, Love & Barbecue
Author: Mike Mills
Publisher: Rodale Books
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2005-05-20
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1605292540

This unique combination of cookbook, memoir, and travelogue features 100 recipes, photographs, and behind-the-scenes stories from legendary pitmaster Mike Mills. In Peace, Love, & Barbecue, Mike Mills, the unrivalled king of barbecue, shares his passion for America's favorite cuisine—its intense smoky flavors, its lore and traditions, and its wild cast of characters. Through conversational anecdotes and black-and-white photographs, readers meet a diverse circle of colleagues and friends and join Mills in a behind-the-scenes tour of the barbecue contest circuit, with stops at some of the best “shrines, shacks, joints, and right-respectable restaurants.” Also included are prizewinning recipes that have earned Mills his fame and fortune as a barbecue maestro. These 100 recipes will enable anyone with a grill to achieve champion barbecue flavor right in their own backyard. The selection features Mills own secret concoctions and treasured family recipes as well as choice contributions from his pitmaster friends, and it covers all manner of barbecued meat and fish, sauces and dry rubs, as well as the sides, soups, and down-home sweets that complete any great barbecue feast. With its folksy, fun tone and its unique insider’s take on a hugely popular—and deeply American—subject, Peace, Love, & BBQ is perfect for barbecue lovers, food mavens, and cooks of all stripes.

The Cooking Gene

The Cooking Gene
Author: Michael W. Twitty
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2018-07-31
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0062876570

2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts

B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style

B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style
Author: Barbara Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2009-11-03
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1416595430

In B. Smith’s Southern Cooking A-Z, she explores the rich and diverse cuisines of the American South—from Cajun to creole, Soul food to “New Southern.” Laced with engaging anecdotes about culture and history, Smith’s recipes equal parts instructive and entertaining. Hers isn’t a cookbook for elaborate dinner parties or calorie counters, but rather a guide for those unafraid to smoke a pig and toss back a few sliders. From Smith’s mouthwatering catfish fingers to her Jambalaya, her Kentucky Burgoo, and the entertaining stories she tells while teaching you her tricks, B. Smith’s Southern Cooking A-Z will show even the most skeptical reader why the Wall Street Journal has hailed her as “One of the most formidable rivals of Martha Stewart.”