Cooking Southern is much more than a collection of historic recipes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It probes deeper into the development of the Southern personae by way of their foods and by extension their community. In early America, without the enslaved Africans cooking for them, the Southerners would not have learned to eat turnip greens, okra, sweet potatoes, benne seed cakes, or grits. The European immigrants were added to this menagerie of Southerners and brought with them jambalaya, roux, syllabub, scones, shortnin' bread, and chocolate. Sweet tea, fried chicken, biscuits, hush puppies, and even a mint julep came out of necessity or the want of sheer pleasure.Due to the ravages of the Civil War, cornbread, black-eyed peas, and hominy became Southern staples. We are beneficiaries of the historic South's many culinary contributions, including today's soul foods. You will also be beneficiaries as you explore this book's more than eighteen hundred historic recipes and as you create your own version of Cooking Southern
