Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing

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 a wok 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.

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

Fred W. Sauceman is an associate professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of four books including the three-volume series The Place Setting, which explores Appalachian foodways. He directed and produced the documentary A Red Hot Dog Digest. Sauceman’s Food with Fred appears monthly on WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee. The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies, and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. It is a member-supported organization of more than 1,000 cooks, thinkers, academics, writers, and eaters. Atlantic Monthly called the SFA "this country's most intellectually engaged (and probably most engaging) food society." www.southernfoodways.org. John T. Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and Cornbread Nation general editor. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Foodways and A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South. Edge contributes to a wide array of publications, including the New York Times, Oxford American, and Garden & Gun. www.johntedge.com.