**Edna Lewis--acclaimed author of the American classic, The Taste of
Country Cooking--and Alabama-born chef Scott Peacock pool their unusual
cooking talents to give us this unique cookbook filled with recipes and
stories of two distinct styles of Southern cooking.
Miss Lewis's specialty is Virginia country cooking and Scott Peacock
focuses on inventive and sensitive blending of new tastes with the
Alabama foods he grew up on, liberally seasoned with Native American,
Caribbean, and African influences. Together they have taken neglected
traditional recipes unearthed in their years of research together on
Southern food and worked out new versions that they have made their own.
Together they share their secrets for such Southern basics as pan-fried
chicken, creamy grits, and genuine Southern biscuits. Scott Peacock
describes how Miss Lewis makes soup by coaxing the essence of flavor
from vegetables, and he applies the same principle to his intensely
flavored, scrumptious dish of Garlic Braised Shoulder Lamb Chops with
Butter Beans and Tomatoes. You'll find all these treasures and more
before you even get to the superb cakes (potential "Cakewalk Winners"
all), the hand-cranked ice creams, the flaky pies, and homey custards
and puddings. Lewis and Peacock include twenty-two seasonal menus, from
A Spring Country Breakfast for a Late Sunday Morning and A Summer Dinner
of Big Flavors to An Alabama Thanksgiving and A Hearty Dinner for a Cold
Winter Night, to show you how to mix and match dishes for a true
Southern table.
Interwoven throughout the book are warm memories of the people and the
traditions that shaped these pure-tasting, genuinely American recipes.
The result is a joyful coming together of two extraordinary cooks,
sharing their gifts. And they invite you to join them.
