John T. Edge (Editor) JOHN T. EDGE is the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including the foodways volume of
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.
Sara Camp Milam (Editor) SARA CAMP MILAM is the Southern Foodways Alliance’s managing editor. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
Sara Roahen (Editor) SARA ROAHEN is an oral historian and the author of
Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table. She has written for
Tin House and
Food & Wine.
Everybody has one in their collection. You know—one of those old, spiral- or plastic-tooth-bound cookbooks sold to support a high school marching band, a church, or the local chapter of the Junior League. These recipe collections reflect, with unimpeachable authenticity, the dishes that define communities: chicken and dumplings, macaroni and cheese, chess pie. When the Southern Foodways Alliance began curating a cookbook, it was to these spiral-bound, sauce-splattered pages that they turned for their model.
Including more than 170 tested recipes, this cookbook is a true reflection of southern foodways and the people, regardless of residence or birthplace, who claim this food as their own. Traditional and adapted, fancy and unapologetically plain, these recipes are powerful expressions of collective identity. There is something from—and something for—everyone. The recipes and the stories that accompany them came from academics, writers, catfish farmers, ham curers, attorneys, toqued chefs, and people who just like to cook—spiritual Southerners of myriad ethnicities, origins, and culinary skill levels.
Edited by SalãÂ