Dining in the Historic South: A Restaurant Guide With Recipes

These days most travelers don't have the luxury of enough time to wander across extraordinary local restaurants that can make trips to unfamiliar places memorable. And so we turn to guide books to lead us to tables of significance. Dining in the Historic South is such a book. 90 restaurants in ten southern states are listed, the majority on the National Register of Historic Places. These establishments include old tavems and golden-era hotels as well as mansions, cottages, schools, churches, train stations, and warehouses that have been restored or refurbished and converted into restaurants. The format is standard: each two-page entry consists of an illustration, a brief history of the building, a list of a halfdozen or so dishes on the menu, essential information like hours of busines8, credit cards accepted and, notably, the restaurant's policy on the sale of alcoholic beverages (determined by local laws, which vary greatly). The author also includes a recipe provided by the restaurant. Dining in the Historic South is the latest effort by Godbey in a series of similar volumes on Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. Doubtless the places she points out are of historic interest - the charming illustrations by James Asher convey the architectural appeal of each spot. Whether they are to be recommended for their food or service is not as certain; these are listings, not reviews. And, while recipes for dishes like Gin and Tomato Soup, Sweet Potato Pone, Low Country Shrimp over Hoppin'John Rice and Crawfish Capellini sound intriguing, one has to wonder about restaurants that contribute recipes for the likes of Strawberry and Pretzel Salad, using margarine, frozen topping and strawberry gelatin; and Butterfinger Pie using - that's right - the candy of the same name. -- From Independent Publisher