If you visit Atlanta or Raleigh or one of the other metro areas in the South, you can find authentic world cuisine. Parisian classics, pad Thai, soy-doused Chinese, authentic tacos, and sumptuous pasta are available and have excellent quality.
What if you wanted those world influences but impacting traditional Southern dishes. Dishes like:
Black Pepper Cornish Game Hens with Alabama White Sauce
Blackberry Bourbon Dumplings
Garlic Rubbed Skirt Stead and Vidalia Onions with Peanut Romesco
Shrimp Burgers with Jalapeno Comeback Sauce
Skillet-Baked Eggs in Tomato Gravy with Spinach
Southern Stir-Fry with Turnips and Greens
Spiced Sweet Potato and Pecan Breakfast Bread
Those are examples of the culinary delights awaiting you in the book. Georgia-born and Paris-trained, Virginia Willis is a renown cookbook author and food writer. She’s James Beard Award winner, a reflection of her impeccable skills.
Each of the eight chapters in the book follows a generous format:
- A personal survey of two farmers or vendors
- Ten recipes reflecting the cuisine of the modern South
Those chapters cover the spectrum of your daily needs:
- From the Garden
- Grain, Grits, and Other Starchy Goodness
- Seafood
- Beef, Pork, and Lamb
- Gospel Birds and Game Birds
- Soups and Stews
- Biscuits, Breads, and Hoecakes
- Desserts
All these recipes reflect a careful integration of classic Southern ingredients with new flavor dimension and, perhaps, combined with new techniques.
That Stir-Fry with Turnips and Greens is an example. Stir-frying was not a classic Southern technique but it is a perfect avenue to combine those very Southern turnip and green components. On a Southern menu, you expect to find fried chicken. But here, its that Black Pepper Cornish Game Hens with Alabama White Sauce.
Oh, never heard of that sauce? You need to travel more. It’s a combo of mayonnaise, cider vinegar, Worcestershire, garlic powder, pepper, dry mustard, and cayenne. It has, let us say, a certain zip that is a brilliant contrast to the Cornish hens that have been spatchcocked and well-seasoned. The white sauce is used to baste and to accompany on the table.
Sauces are an integral element of Southern cuisine. In the Shrimp Burgers, the Jalapeno Comeback Sauce is a combination of mayonnaise, jalapeno, onion, chili sauce, lemon juice, Worcestershire, paprika, hot sauce, and mustard powder. Potent and a delightful companion for the shrimp burgers — made by pureeing shrimp in your food processor.
My favorite chapter? Desserts. Of course. Southern make every dinner a delight:
Lemon Icebox Tart with Saltine Cracker Crust
Chocolate Chess Pie
Mexican Chocolate Pudding with Bourbon Whipped Cream
Sweet Potato Bread Pudding with Peanut Streusel
Buttermilk Pound Cake with Roasted Strawberries
Secrets of the Southern Table was just published on May 1. Don’t wait for the rest of June to leave you behind. Go get some shrimp, some grits, yes some soy sauce and, of course, some mayonnaise.
There is a biscuit recipe for you. And Nashville Hot Grilled Chicken. The classics are here and the classics to be too!