A Gracious Plenty - Hardcover

Edge, John T.; Rolfes, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399145346 ISBN 13: 9780399145346

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 1999

Synopsis

Hundreds of classic recipes capture the rich culinary traditions of the American South, introducing more than four hundred dishes representing a broad spectrum of geographical, cultural, and social influences. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

From his post at the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture in Oxford, Mississippi, John T. Edge researches and writes about Southern foodways. He is a featured columnist for Y'All, a magazine of Southern culture, and the author of Belly of Atlanta: Homegrown Guide to Good Places.

Ellen Rolfes is a longtime publisher and packager of community cookbooks. She has developed such bestsellers as The Junior League Centennial Cookbook and The Black Family Reunion Cookbook. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Established in 1977 at the University of Mississippi, The Center for the Study of Southern Culture has become a center for innovative education and research promoting scholarship on every aspect of Southern culture. It is well known for both its programs and its publications, including the award-winning Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

Reviews

Food writer Edge and Rolfes, a cookbook packager, present an introduction to Dixie food, from Gumbo Z'herbes, Smothered Chicken, Crawfish Jambalaya and Turnip Greens to an assortment of sweet desserts. More than 400 recipes have been chosen from dozens of community cookbooks (e.g., High Cotton Cookin', The Black Family Reunion Cookbook and True Grits), some dating back to the Civil War. These dishes, from real home cooks, are simple and dependable. The authors maintain that "the best cookbooks are storybooks," and theirs is liberally peppered with stories from Southern writers, artists and cooks. Novelist Reynolds Price muses on pimiento cheese ("It was the peanut butter of my childhood"), B.B. King extols the virtues of yams and Edna Lewis (The Taste of Country Cooking) gathers all kinds of bitter greens for eating and medicine. Vintage black-and-white photographs add charm, and a closing selection of menus advises cooks how to plan a New Orleans Jazz Brunch or a Texas Barbecue.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edge is a well-known food writer and the director of the Southern Foodways Symposium at the Center for Study of Southern Culture (Univ. of Mississippi), which is also listed as an "author" of this book. With coauthor Ellen Rolfes, he has gathered more than 400 recipes for Southern home cooking, most of them from community cookbooks, which he sees as historical documents as much as recipe books. In addition to the recipes, which include both what could be called "signature dishes" of Southern cooking like Fried Chicken and Chess Pie and little-known regional specialties, there are nostalgic reminiscences from Southern authors ranging from Eudora Welty (whose fruitcake recipe also appears here) to Roy Blount. Although informative headnotes appear with most recipes, the authors haven't included the dates they were first published, which would have been helpful. That aside, this is recommended for all regional and most other collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Recipes from A Gracious Plenty:

Creole Pralines

Once sold on the streets of Louisiana towns by Creoles of color, these buttery, sweet indulgences are now enjoyed throughout the Deep South.

Yields: 3 dozen

3

cups sugar
11/2

cups whole milk
1/4

cup corn syrup
3

cups pecans
2

tablespoons butter or margarine
1 tablespoon vanilla

Mix sugar, milk, syrup, and pecans together in a deep, lightweight pot. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook to the soft ball stage. Remove from heat and add butter. Set aside to cool until pot can be handled. Add vanilla and whip with a spoon until creamy. Spoon out quickly onto wax paper. Let set until firm.

Louisiana Legacy
Thibodaux Service League
Thibodaux, Louisiana

Wedding Cookies

Pure, white, and pretty like the flowing white drape of a wedding dress on a spring day in Dixie.

Yields: 2 1/2 dozen

1 stick butter
1 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2

cup finely chopped pecans
1/2

cup powdered sugar

Cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add the flour and the pecans. Roll into tiny balls and place 1 inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes. Remove from sheet and roll immediately in powdered sugar. Cool on a wire rack; then roll again in powdered sugar.

In Order To Serve
Christ Episcopal Church
Charlotte, North Carolina

Forgotten Tea Cakes

Zora Neale Hurston, the birth mother of African American woman's fiction, named the male protagonist of her novel, Their Eyes Were watching God, a man branded by the town of Eatonton, Florida, as not having "doodly squat," but appreciated by the heroine Janie for his sweetness.

Yields 12 tea cakes

1/2

cup shortening
1/2

cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2

teaspoons baking powder
1/4

teaspoon baking soda
1/4

teaspoon salt
1/4

cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4

teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven 375. Grease baking sheet. Combine shortening and 1/2 cup sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add alternatively with buttermilk to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix well after each addition. Roll dough to 1/2-inch thickness on lightly floured surface. Cut with floured 2 1/2-inch round cutter. Place on baking sheet. Combine 1 teaspoon sugar and nutmeg. Sprinkle over top of tea cakes.

Bake at 375 for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove to cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Black Family Reunion Cookbook
National Council of Negro Women
Washington, D.C.

Forgotten Kisses

Chasteness and taste meet in this recipe from a clutch of church women in North Carolina

Yields: 2 dozen

2 eggs whites
2/3

cup sugar
Pinch of salt
6 ounces chocolate chips
3/4

cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 400. Beat egg whites, adding sugar one tablespoon at a time, and salt until stiff peaks form and hold. Fold in chocolate and nuts, if desired. Drop batter by teaspoonful on greased cookie sheet. Place in oven and turn oven off. Leave 6 hours or overnight. Do not open oven.

In Order to Serve
Christ Episcopal Church Women
Charlotte, North Carolina

Aunt Nettie's Rocks

Mrs. P. K. Lutken of Jackson, Mississippi, writes, "This is recipe is over 100 years old. When I was a bride, Aunt Nettie taught me to make these cookies so I could have them at Christmas as she had for many years and her Mother before her. She made them by ear - not measuring a thing - so, as she made them one time, I carefully measured each ingredient she put in and wrote it down."

Yields: 3 or 4 dozen

3

sticks butter

11/2

cups sugar
3 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon each of cloves, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, salt
11/2

teaspoons soda
2 tablespoons warm water
2 cups raisins
2

cups currants
4

cups pecan and brazil nuts, chopped

2

cups dates, cut fine
2

cups watermelon rind preserves, cut up
grated rind of 1 orange

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, flour, and seasonings. Dissolve soda in warm water; add to mixture. Add fruit and nuts. Place by teaspoonful on cookie sheets. Bake at 325 until done.

Inverness Cookbook
All Saints Episcopal Church
Inverness, Mississippi

Gingersnaps
Yields: 4 dozen

3/4cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/4

cup light molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/4

teaspoon salt
2

teaspoon soda
1

teaspoon cinnamon
1

teaspoon cloves
1

teaspoon ginger
Sugar for dipping

Cream shortening and sugar in a large bowl. Add molasses and egg; beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients; mix well. Roll into small balls, dip into sugar, and place 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Smoky Mountain Magic
Junior League of Johnson City
Johnson City, Tennessee

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399145346
• ISBN 13: 9780399145346
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 365