Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas : With More Than 200 Favorite Recipes

by Amy T. Rogers

This mouth-watering collection of more than 200 recipes showcases the best of traditional Southern cooking and storytelling. This is no ordinary cookbook, though it boasts plenty of old-fashioned recipes for cakes, pies, casseroles, and stews, submitted by people who hail from the Carolina mountains to the Low Country and even from locales around the world. Editor Amy Rogers invited more than 100 contributors to tell their favorite stories about food. Included are some of the Carolinas' most beloved writers, as well as many first-time writers who have wonderful tales to tell about their recipes. Josephine Humphreys describes how to catch and cook blue crabs. Jill McCorkle shares her grandmother's recipe for making fried apple pies. Lee Smith acquaints us with "Lady Food." True-crime writer Jerry Bledsoe asserts that "Seafood Bledsonia" is better than any other fish dish you can imagine. There are even some offerings from songwriters, including former Carolinian James Taylor, who passes along his recipe for baked beans. The book is divided into groupings such as Appetizers and Soups; Main Dishes; Vegetables and Side Dishes; Breads; Desserts; and Holiday Recipes and Other Specialties. Each recipe is accompanied by a story, telling where it came from, a firsthand account of how it became part of a family tradition, or a profile of the cook who submitted it. The stories are humorous, poignant, sometimes surprising, and always memorable. Sprinkled throughout are little-known facts about the origins and background of time-honored Southern foods. As this collection makes clear, the meals we prepare and share mean more to us than simple sustenance. Food is a touchstone of identity and culture, a link between one generation and another. No matter where you're from or what your tastes might be, this book will leave you hungry for home.

Genres: Cookbooks

440 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because hubby and I traveled all around North and South Carolina a few years ago on a vacation, a friend sent this to me as a gift. I collect cookbooks, so I was delighted to receive it. I've already put post-its on several of the recipes that I'm eager to try. I enjoyed the short stories about the recipes and the cooks. We had so many outstanding meals in NC and SC.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people, like myself, enjoy reading cookbooks. This book seems to be written to be read, reread and sampled. It's filled with memories and such good food, you can almost smell it cooking. It is almost an oral history of people's best moments rather than a simple cookbook. It has more than just Southern cookin' in it. There are diverse stories and recipes from Indian and Asian cooks, and a few Yankees was well.

[Just - The romance reader]

I would love to try the following recipes: crab melt-a-ways, Heidi's smoked turkey and brie sandwiches, Mom's spaghetti sauce, stew beef, home-cooked candied yams, sausage bread, Krispy Kreme bread pudding, Moravian sugar cake, oatmeal chocolate chip heaven (cookies), Grandmommy's chicken and dumplings, peach ice cream, party sangria, North Carolina vinegar sauce & coleslaw,