Kitchen Confidence

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Kitchen Confidence
he old saw where Southerners ask,
“Who are your people?” could easily be
followed (or replaced altogether) by a
much more tantalizing question: “What
are your favorite family recipes?” Our
regional dishes continue to define and
inspire us, from the novice home cook to our city’s
latest celebrity chef. Herewith, we present our list of
must-have Georgia cookbooks. These standout culinary authors showcase, gastronomically speaking,
where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re
headed. Even if you never cook, each of these volumes
makes for novelistic reading. ¶ To take our project a
step further—and to nudge future generations toward
Southern food—we asked culinary students from the
Art Institute of Atlanta to prepare recipes from some
of the books (listed on pages 111–114), which were photographed for this story. In a blur of chef whites, the
students labored with worker-bee earnestness. Some
grew up on Southern classics such as fried chicken
and collards; others had never before baked a batch of
biscuits. Regardless, the results made us want to grab
the following books and head for the kitchen.
New Southern Cooking bridged
traditional Southern cuisine
with the New American culinary movement that began to
flower in the eighties. Published
in 1986 and written as a companion to her television series of
the same name, the book helped
ingratiate Southern foodways
to the rest of the country with
its casual, conversational tone
and streamlined recipes. “The
fun of new Southern cooking is
to take the old and the new and
put them together with creative
zest,” Dupree says in the introduction. The former Atlanta
magazine columnist proves her
point skillfully with recipes such
as butter bean soup made with
champagne rather than stock,
and dinner roll dough whipped
together using a food processor.
If you’re new to Southern cooking or need a refresher course in
fried green tomatoes, shad, and
caramel cake, Dupree remains
the quintessential teacher.
The Gift of Southern
Cooking
by Edna Lewis and
Scott Peacock
Southern Cooking
by Mrs. S.R. Dull
university of georgia press
Any discussion of Georgia cookbooks begins with Henrietta
Stanley Dull’s regional masterwork. An able cook who became
the family wage earner when
her husband’s health failed,
Dull catered and demonstrated
gas stoves for Atlanta Gas Light
Company before being named
the editor of the home economics page for the Atlanta Journal’s
Sunday magazine in 1920. She
wrote a weekly column called
“Mrs. Dull’s Cooking Lessons”
that ran for a quarter century. A
9 4 | at l a n ta | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 9
oyster bisque, eggplant soufflé,
drop biscuits, or watermelonrind pickles, for example—are
far less graphic.) The University
of Georgia Press’s 2006 reprinting of Southern Cooking includes
a new foreword by Damon Lee
Fowler that further illustrates
the importance of Dull’s book as
a culinary record of transitional
Dixie in the twentieth century.
New Southern Cooking
by Nathalie Dupree
university of georgia press
Dull’s Southern Cooking documented venerable food customs, but Dupree’s now-classic
If we had to name a Book of the
Decade on the subject of Southern cuisine, this would be the
one. It is an intimate collaboration between two passionate and
masterful cooks who shared a
close friendship for almost two
decades. Lewis’s previous books
(including The Taste of Country
Cooking and In Pursuit of Flavor) captured the tastes of her
rural Virginia childhood in lyric
prose. Peacock, executive chef
at Decatur’s Watershed, won
the 2007 James Beard award for
Best Chef in the Southeast. Gift’s
personal writing, the meticulously researched recipes, and
the book’s clean, soothing design
a r t i n s t i t u t e p h o t o g r a p h s b y Pat r i c k H e a g n e y
previous spread: styling by Angie Mosier
alfred a. knopf
first edition of Southern Cooking
was published locally in 1928;
New York publishing house
Grosset and Dunlap printed an
expanded and reworked edition with 1,300 recipes in 1941
that sold an impressive 150,000
copies. Almost seventy years
later, the plain-spoken style of
recipe writing from that era
comes across as inevitably outmoded, but the book is still an
authoritative, fascinating read.
Her instructions for preparing possum and animal-rich
Brunswick stew redefine “from
scratch”—she coaches how to
pull off hair and saw through
backbones. (Most recipes—
Kitchen Confidence
coalesce so satisfyingly. Try the
salmon croquettes for a weeknight supper, and the Country
Captain (a Southern port-city
curried chicken dish) and ethereal banana pudding for company.
The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook
myriad influences that form
the city’s gastronomic fabric,
and enlightening tales flank
many of the recipes. Bobotie
(a minced meat and egg custard dish), rice waffles, curried
shrimp, Savannah cream rolls,
and a definitive peach tart all
illuminate the town’s authentic,
often lesser-known flavors.
by Paula Deen
random house
Before Deen’s sparkly blues,
pearly whites, and colorful ways with butter brought
her national fame on the Food
Network, she was known to
Georgians as the proprietress
of Savannah’s fiercely popular
home-cooking restaurant, The
Lady & Sons. This is her first
cookbook, a snapshot of the
heart and ambition she put into
opening her venture. Ritz crackers, canned fruit, and packaged
mixes appear copiously in these
recipes, but, let’s face it, they’ve
found a permanent and prominent place in the Southern culinary lexicon. Pass the pineapple
casserole, please?
The Savannah Cookbook
by Damon Lee Fowler
gibbs smith
Rare is the coffee table cookbook, such as this one, whose
pretty pages you also want to
splatter in the kitchen. All of
Fowler’s books—from Classical
Southern Cooking to New Southern Baking—are worth owning, but his most recent effort
tightens the focus onto the city
where he’s made his home for
the past three decades. Fowler,
who is as much a historian as
he is a cook, tells the stories
of Savannah’s resonant political, social, and economic past
through its indigenous dishes. The introduction alone is
an absorbing account of the
9 6 | at l a n ta | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 9
Atlanta Cooks at Home
in a sweet dubbed “Hawaiian
nut sandwiches”), but there are
also plenty of honest regional
specialties: Look for Georgia
peanut soup, two user-friendly
versions of Brunswick stew, no
fewer than four variations of
fried chicken, and, of course, a
cake made with Coca-Cola.
Bon Appétit, Y’all
by Virginia Willis
by Melissa Libby
ten speed press
citybooks publishing
Long regarded in Atlanta (and
beyond) for her grace and culinary prowess, Georgia native
Virginia Willis debuted her first
cookbook last year, and it’s a
visual and gustatory stunner.
Willis has earned quite the culinary pedigree: She apprenticed
with Nathalie Dupree, studied with Anne Willan at her
famed La Varenne in France,
worked as the kitchen director on Martha Stewart Living
for three years, and runs her
own production company. In
her book, she gathers all these
experiences and marries them
to her family’s local roots. She
refers to her style as “refined
Southern cuisine,” acknowledging that any cuisine (even one
as stubbornly rooted as Southern cooking) is never frozen
in a stagnant set of principles
but evolves continuously. In
that regard, savor her red velvet cake and summer vegetable
succotash, but don’t overlook
her Vidalia onion soup with
bacon flan, or even her unapologetically Gallic—and incredibly
comforting—recipe for boeuf
Bourguignonne.
Savannah prides itself on its
domestic cooking heritage; Atlanta loves its restaurants. Who better to gather recipes for home
cooks from prominent Atlanta
chefs than Libby, one of the city’s
reigning restaurant public relations mavens? The chefs contributed themed menus, ranging from bridal or baby shower
luncheon fare by Canoe’s Carvel
Grant Gould to a Greek Easter
dinner by Kevin Rathbun. Jason
Hill’s mac and cheese flecked
with braised greens, served at
Wisteria, is one of our favorite
side dishes in town.
Best of the Best from
Georgia Cookbook
edited by Gwen McKee and
Barbara Moseley
quail ridge press
Junior League, church, and
community cookbooks can offer
piquant glimpses into the culinary traditions and idiosyncrasies of a region. The Best of the
Best cookbook series, which by
2005 had covered all fifty states,
combs through these local, frequently self-published tomes
and compiles some of the most
noteworthy finds. The Georgia
edition, originally published
in 1989 and updated in 2006,
occasionally forays into kitsch
(pecans, not macadamias, star
BakeWise
by Shirley O. Corriher
scribner
Corriher, an Atlanta biochemist
who became a recipe consultant
to food companies and cookbook
authors, made the science behind
food accessible—chatty, even—in
her first book, CookWise. Late
last year, after a dozen years of
testing and tinkering, Corriher
published its sweet-toothed
sequel. BakeWise is a tome of
cakes, cookies, pies, and breads
full of clear, infallible instructions that demystify desserts
(as well as savory pastries) for
those who don’t consider themselves bakers. It also elucidates
the chemistry behind flours,
sugars, and leaveners for those
who geek out on such esoterica.
Corriher’s point of concentration is not strictly Southern, but
her recipes for gloriously puffed
spoonbread, meringue inspired
by Bill Greenwood of Greenwood’s on Green Street restaurant in Roswell, and her famous
“touch-of-grace” biscuits do the
South and Atlanta more than
proud. —cookbook reviews
by bill addison
Thanks to the Art Institute of
Atlanta, especially Elizabeth Wilson, Kim Resnik, and chef Ken Celmer, for their help with this project.
Student chefs are: Ellen Anderson,
Rodrick Beazer, Astrid Julia Remello Dixon, Brian David Hills,
Mariá V. Juarbe, Nathan Lute,
Doug Page, James Pak
Recipes starting on page 111:
“Country Captain,” The Gift of
Southern Cooking, Edna Lewis
and Scott Peacock
“Fresh Summer Vegetable Succotash with Basil,” Bon Appétit,
Y’all, Virginia Willis
“Braised Green Mac and
Cheese,” Atlanta Cooks at Home,
Melissa Libby
“Shirley Corriher’s ‘Touch-ofGrace’ Southern Biscuits,” BakeWise, Shirley O. Corriher
“Peach Tart,” The Savannah
Cookbook, Damon Lee Fowler