Georgia Magazine - December 2017 - 38

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Dish it up!
Cookbooks for Southern holiday gifts

his holiday season, explore the range of Southern cookbooks as gifts
for family and friends. Many
chronicle a personal story or
the culinary history of a people, a region or a nation.

Southern food and those
who make it

N
USED BY PERMISSIO
BY RICHARD BLAIS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY EVAN SUNG.
ARD BLAIS, © 2017
ERVED.
"SO GOOD" BY RICHFLIN HARCOURT. ALL RIGHTS RES
OF HOUGHTON MIF

BY JANE F. GARVEY

Kentucky native Ronny
Lundi focuses on the Mountain South, where she grew
up. Her latest tome is a sweeping, gloriously photographed
exploration of her home region. "Victuals" (Clarkson Potter, 2016; $32) won the 2017
James Beard Foundation awards for
American cooking and for Book of
the Year. In addition to photographer Johnny Autry's images of hazeshrouded mountains and glorious
food, you'll enjoy the lovingly told
personal stories. And the recipes?
For starters, you'll find ones for fried
pies, country ham, beans and peas,
cornbread, stack cake, pickles and
preserves.
Southern food is evolving, embracing the cooking that immigrants
have been bringing to the South's
shores and mountains for a very long
time. Jamie DeMent's new book,
"The Farmhouse Chef" (University
of North Carolina Press, 2017; $35),
is just one that shows Asian, Italian,
Cuban and even Zimbabwean influences on Southern dishes.
Nashville food writer Jennifer Justus' "Nashville Eats" (Stewart, Tabori
& Chang, 2015; $35) celebrates traditional regional fare with entries such
as Blackberry Jam Cake and a treatise
on Nashville's Hot Fried Chicken. But
alongside those recipes you'll find
the food of the city's immigrants. See
38

Above: Virginia Willis trims the fat and
calories-but not the flavor-in
Southern favorites. Left: Richard Blais'
cookbooks bring his joyful culinary
spirit into our home kitchens.

her recipe for Kurdish lentil soup.
Blending traditions continues
in the South. Korean fried chicken
has become as much a fixture here
as tacos and tamales. Adopted from
her native Korea, Kim Sunée grew
up unfamiliar with the cuisine of her
birth country. Eager to connect with
her birth home, she enlisted Seung
Hee Lee, an Atlantan who was born
and raised in Korea, as her translator and guide in Korea. Bonding over
food, the pair produced "Everyday
Korean" (Countryman Press, 2017;
$30). This book brings Korean elements to familiar fare and makes traditional dishes attainable in the home
kitchen. What's not to love about the
Korean seafood pancake? The classic fermented-cabbage condiment,
kimchi, perks up a traditional mac 'n'
cheese.
Bridging French and American
cuisine, Mississippi native and Lilburn
resident Jennifer Hill Booker learned
classic dishes and techniques in Europe and successfully merged French
cooking and Southern fare in her
first book, "Field Peas to Foie Gras:
More online at www.georgiamagazine.org

Southern Recipes with a French Accent" (Pelican Publishing Co., 2014;
$27). Her second book, "Dinner Déjà
Vu (Southern Tonight/French Tomorrow)" (Pelican Publishing Co., 2017;
$29), offers Southern classics such
as Hoppin' John and French classics
such as clafoutis, a warm dessert that
bakes fruit into an egg custard.

Making classic Southern
contemporary
Long Island, N.Y.-born Richard
Blais came to Atlanta in 2000, headed up several restaurants, then won
"Top Chef" in 2010. He has since relocated to San Diego, Calif., where
he has two restaurants, Juniper & Ivy
and The Crack Shack. In 2013, Blais
published his first book, "Try This
at Home" (Clarkson Potter; $30). In
it Blais demonstrates his famed, cutting-edge methodology for the practiced home cook. Yet, he loves to
roast chicken at home and is a fan of
sriracha-spiced ranch dressing. You'll
learn how to make boiled peanuts in
a pressure cooker.
Blais' new book, "So Good: 100
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - December 2017