VICTUALS
AN APPALACHIAN JOURNEY, WITH RECIPES
Winner of the James Beard Foundation Book of the Year Award and Best Book, American Cooking, Victuals is an exploration of the foodways, people, and places of Appalachia.
Victuals explores the diverse and complex food scene of the Mountain South through recipes, stories, traditions, and innovations. Each chapter explores a specific defining food or tradition of the region--such as salt, beans, corn (and corn liquor). The essays introduce readers to their rich histories and the farmers, curers, hunters, and chefs who define the region's contemporary landscape. Sitting at a diverse intersection of cuisines, Appalachia offers a wide range of ingredients and products that can be transformed using traditional methods and contemporary applications.
SORGHUM’S SAVOR
Recently rediscovered by progressive chefs across the nation, sorghum is prized for its distinct umami taste—a blend of sweet and savory with a hint of nutty tang. The lingering complexity of sorghum makes it the perfect “secret ingredient” to enhance and deepen the flavors of such innovative modern dishes as Chef Dustin Staggers’s Monkey Wrench Skillet Fried Chicken and Chef John Fleer’s Long Sweetening Sorbet.
Yet sorghum is no secret to southern home kitchens. While sorghum is an Old World grass that resembles corn and is cultivated and used as a grain in most of the world, the cane varieties were cultivated, processed and used as syrup only in North America, particularly in the South where it has been a staple in baked goods, confections, glazes, and dressings since before the Civil War. In Sorghum’s Savor, Ronni Lundy showcases the endless possibilities of this unique ingredient, as well as the reasons why it has long been cherished in the South.