The Essential Louisiana Cookbook - Softcover

Stanley Dry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0692236376 ISBN 13: 9780692236376

Publisher: Renaissance Publishing, LLC, 2014

Synopsis

A stunning collection of 50 traditional (and some non-traditional) Louisiana recipes. An absolute must have for your kitchen or a perfect gift for a Louisiana food lover.
Louisiana is one of the few places in America having retained its distinct culinary identity. Cajun and Creole mix with French, Spanish, African, Native American, Caribbean and German cultures, among others, to create a tasty gumbo, simmered in a flavorful roux of history and finished off with a healthy douse of political hot sauce pick your favorite brand. Author Stanley Dry Louisiana Life Kitchen Gourmet columnist, former senior editor of Food & Wine magazine and accomplished cook brings all of the history, culture and spice together in his first book, The Essential Louisiana Cookbook, a Louisiana Life product by Renaissance Publishing. From classics, such as red beans and rice and a variety of delectable gumbos, to modern creations sure to become weeknight traditions, this collection of recipes is sure to become a go-to for native Louisianans and those new to the state s rich culinary landscape.

About this title

About the Author:

Stanley Dry writes the Kitchen Gourmet column for Louisiana Life magazine. Formerly senior editor of Food & Wine magazine, he is co-author of Gulf South, published by Compass American Guides. His articles on food, cooking, wine, restaurants and travel have appeared in Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times and Acadiana Profile, among others. He lives in New Iberia.

Review:

Dry Run: From food editor/writer to cookbook author, Stan Dry gets Louisiana cooking right. ...I can't recommend it more highly. Dry cooks with the directness of a home cook who finds his inspiration in the freshness of Louisiana s finest ingredients: shrimp and oysters, andouille and boudin, blackberries, satsumas, persimmons and pecans. His style? Keep it simple. Shrimp tossed in the pan with smoky paprika and garlic. Cooking time 20 minutes. A fried egg tops bacon and sweet potato hash for breakfast. Make it while you re dripping the coffee. Or if you re in the mood for trying your hand at pastry, Dry fills his dough with smothered Swiss chard and andouille for a savory turnover to warm a winter night. This is not a coffee table book, glossy and unwieldy, although the beautiful photos by Eugenia Uhl make every recipe immediately tempting. This is the kind of cookbook that will wind up gravy-splashed and coffee-ringed, a first tier go-to on a daily basis. I want people to use the recipes, says Dry. It s about what people eat at home. A Louisiana native, Dry grew up in Shreveport and attended UL Lafayette. Graduate studies in history, a literary bent and a love of food took him to Chicago, then Boston, where he worked as a caterer, restaurant consultant, and food and spirits writer for Boston Magazine. That writing gig led to a seven-year stint as the restaurant editor at Food and Wine magazine in New York City. But the tug of Louisiana is as strong as the tide. I was divorced, tired of winter in big cities, looking homeward, he says. Even Lafayette was too big. Food writer and friend Marcelle Bienvenu found Dry a haven at Bayou Jack, a small enclave right outside of New Iberia. Hurricane Rita washed him up into the Queen City. During those years, beginning in the late 1990s, Dry cooked offshore, on a jack-up boat and wrote features for the New York Times, cooking columns for Louisiana Life and was involved in starting Louisiana Cooking magazine. The Essential Louisiana Cookbook is a culmination of a dozen years of food columns for those magazines. Published by Louisiana Life, The Essential Louisiana Cookbook, $16.95, is available at Books Along the Teche in New Iberia, Octavia Books in New Orleans and Barnes and Noble in Lafayette. --Mary Tutwiler from The INDsider Media

Side Dish: Magazine columnist's Louisiana cookbook worth a look Fans of Stanley Dry's Kitchen Gourmet column for Louisiana Life Magazine will want to read his first cookbook, The Essential Louisiana Cookbook, which is based on the New Iberia resident s column. The author emphasizes using quality local ingredients for preparing the book s 50 scrumptious recipes, which are illustrated with beautiful full-color photographs by New Orleans native Eugenia Uhl. Dry, a former senior editor of Food & Wine Magazine, writes that Louisiana has the most distinctive regional cuisine in the country and he sets out to prove it with both traditional and more contemporary recipes ranging from Pain Perdu for breakfast or brunch to Chicory Coffee Ice Cream for ending a meal on a sweet note. In between are recipes for gumbos and soups; entrees such as Crawfish Etouffée and Crawfish Crepes; and Lagniappe recipes like Potato Salad, Mushrooms Stuffed With Boudin, and Oyster & Andouille Cornbread Dressing. The book, the first produced by Louisiana Life and its parent company, Renaissance Publishing LLC, is available at local bookstores and online at louisianacookbook.com. --Cheramie Sonnier with The Advocate

The Essential Louisiana Cookbook features traditional favorites like Chicken and Sausage File Gumbo, Shrimp and Okra Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Sauce Piquante, Red Beans and Rice and other recipes a la Dry, as well as those for non-traditional dishes such as Mushrooms Stuffed with Boudin, Blueberry Clafouti and Satsuma Sorbet rich culinary dishes that showcase Dry's talents as a food editor and consummate cook. As Dry writes in the ''Author's Note'', no single dish in this collection exemplifies the complexities of Louisiana cooking since it is a mixture of influences and ingredients from French, Spanish, African, Native American, Caribbean and German cultures. However, foremost among the favorite recipes for any Louisiana table are those that feature gumbos. Dry comments on the history of this famous dish with the caveat that ''trying to sort out the origins and evolution of the dish is highly speculative...'' He includes a note about one of the earliest recorded references to gumbo in the memoirs of Pierre Clement de Laussat, French colonial prefect and commissioner for Louisiana, who hosted a Louisiana ball that lasted all night and featured 24 gumbos, eight of which were sea turtle dishes! Dry knows his food as he has worked in the restaurant and food business for years, including a stint as a cook. While we visited with Dry, he and his friend Alice Burke discussed the merits of the gumbo she had made for her children's Thanksgiving dinner (an essential south Louisiana dish for Thanksgiving tables) which included both duck and oysters, two ingredients Dry mentions in the ''Author's Note'' that are often combined ''from both land and sea.'' He adds that some cooks include hard-boiled eggs in sausage gumbos and others add quail eggs to versions of this tasty dish. For the breakfast bunch, a section on Louisiana breakfasts and brunches includes a recipe for sweet potato biscuits that should please the palate of gluten-free enthusiasts, along with a dish that Dry says is associated with the Carolina low country, one that uses genuine stone ground grits as an ingredient Shrimp and Grits. This delicious recipe is followed by another one for seafood and grits, with the note that grits are ''no longer reserved for just the breakfast table.'' Dry doesn't neglect the famous jambalaya and crawfish pie recipes that have found their way into story and song, or his version of bread pudding, Coconut Bread Pudding With Meringue & Custard Sauce. And if you've worked up an appetite for south Louisiana cuisine after reading this review, drop in at Books Along the Teche, in New Iberia, Louisiana, where signed copies of The Essential Louisiana Cookbook are available. Bon appetit, and Bravo Stanley Dry for this volume that reflects your most creative culinary abilities! --Diane Moore writer of the blog ''A Word's Worth''

About this edition

• Publisher: Renaissance Publishing, LLC
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0692236376
• ISBN 13: 9780692236376
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128
• Editor: Melanie Warner Spencer
• Illustrator: Eugenia Uhl