Cornbread Nation v. 5

This title offers a generous helping of food writing that explores southern food culture. 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 woks 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.

Cornbread Nation 5 is a mouth-watering read that evokes the smells of exotic foods like fried Coke, paddlefish, and livermush, as well as the familiar aroma of field peas, corn, and sweet potato pie. . . . Fred Sauceman has edited a truly historic body of reflections on southern food that will be read with gusto by all who love to eat. And eat they must after relishing this beautiful book.--William Ferris "author of Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues", Sam the Tamale Man, Mama Sugar, Doe's Eat Place, North Carolina livermush, Georgia chicken mull, Jelly Roll Morton, Sazeracs and Micheladas--the very names of eats, drinks, jazzmen, and cooks are riffs on the heard melodies of culture and cuisine. In the South, eating, like writing, celebrates the fact that there's no place like home.--Betty Fussell "author of Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef"

Fred W. Sauceman is a native of Greeneville, Tennessee, and teaches courses in the foodways of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University. He is food columnist for the Kingsport Times-News and contributes features on Southern foodways to Blue Ridge Country magazine. A member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, he is a regular commentator on food-related subjects for ""Inside Appalachia,"" produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and is editor of Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine, published by ETSU.