The Soul of Southern Cooking (Muscadine Books Series) - Softcover

Starr, Kathy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878054154 ISBN 13: 9780878054152

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 1989

Synopsis

Here is a collection of representative authentic soul food dishes for those who want the real thing. Most of the recipes were learned by the author from her grandmother, Frances Fleming Hunter, a cook whose café was in the little Mississippi town of Hollandale.

Kathy Starr compiled these recipes as a tribute to her grandmother, whom she remembers amid big pots of greens and vegetables that were bubbling on the stove as she stirred up the cornbread.

“Hunger,” she says, “was something the black family had to conquer, and it was a must that simple foods make a delicious meal. My grandma, even today, can tell you stories of how proud she felt about her sister Malindy, who would walk up out of the cotton field and find company sitting on the steps and then would take a shelf of nothing and make the best meal you ever tasted.”

While this cookbook does preserve the foodways of southern African Americans of the past, the recipes are food traditions that live today in the rural South. The author has also included recipes that are traditional treatments of more recently available foods, such as lobster with cornbread stuffing.

About this title

About the Author

Kathy Starr was born in the Mississippi Delta where her family has lived since the mid-1800s. After seventeen years in nursing, she decided it was time to utilize her talent for cooking, a talent cultivated by her grandmother. She has, since 1981, owned and operated her own catering business. She culled this book of “dash” recipes from her grandmother and her own memories of Mississippi Delta cooking.

From the Back Cover

A fine black cook's recipes from a hard-scrabble heritage and its ritual of surviving and rejoicing in family values. "Reminds me of my childhood in Mississippi. . . an excellent contribution to the history of black foodways and culture" -Craig Claiborne

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0878054154
• ISBN 13: 9780878054152
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Ham Eugene
• Number of pages: 220
• Editor: Miller Roberta