3 Review(s)

This title offers a generous helping of food writing that explores southern food culture. The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. ""Cornbread Nation 5"", lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history. Essays examine Nashville's obsession with hot chicken and the South's passion for congealed foods. There are stories of green tomatoes frying over a campfire in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and tea cakes baking for Easter in Louisiana. In a chapter on immigrant cooking, writers visit the Mississippi Delta where a Chinese family fries pork rinds in woks and a Lebanese restaurant serves baklava alongside coconut cream pie. Alan Deutschman, a self-described 'Jewish Yankee', chronicles his search for the perfect country ham. Barbara Kingsolver extols on the joys of eating sustainably. Sara Roahen writes a veritable love letter to the venerable New Orleans sazerac. Kevin Young delights with his ""Ode to Chicken,"" and Donna Tartt treats us to what else but bourbon. ""Cornbread Nation 5"" is a feast for the eyes, and if you're not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down.