By the time chef Edna Lewis published her now-classic 1976 book "The Taste of Country Cooking," she had already built a loyal following among New York City's creative class. She made biscuits for Truman Capote. She dished up home cooking for the likes of Salvador Dali and Tennessee Williams. But this book introduced her — and Appalachian cuisine — to the world, one season at a time.

From the fresh taste of spring (the first wild mushrooms and field greens) to the feasts of summer (garden-ripe vegetables and fresh blackberry cobbler) to the harvest of fall (baked country ham and roasted newly dug sweet potatoes) to the hearty fare of winter (stews, soups, and baked beans), Lewis shared recipes beside wondrous prose that evoked the lives of Black and rural families in Appalachia. 

She described how shoes were optional outside of school and how her family would wallpaper and paint the house for their annual Homecoming celebration. Then she shared recipes for Corn Pone, Crispy Biscuits, Sweet Potato Casserole, Hot Buttered Beets, Pan-Braised Spareribs, Chicken with Dumplings, Rhubarb Pie, and Brandied Peaches.

These dishes are organized into more than 30 seasonal menus, such as A Late Spring Lunch After Wild-Mushroom Picking, A Midsummer Sunday Breakfast, A Christmas Eve Supper, and an Emancipation Day Dinner.

In this seminal work, Edna Lewis shows us how beautiful and thoughtful Appalachian food can be and how we can each carry those traditions to our kitchen, wherever in the world we may be. 

READ OUR ARTICLE ABOUT EDNA LEWIS.

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