Tupelo Honey Café is a chain of southern restaurants that began in Asheville and has quickly grown to a dozen locations across the mid-south. Their first cookbook, Tupelo Honey Café: Spirited Recipes for Asheville’s New South Kitchen, appeared in 2011. And just a year ago — yes, I running behind — came this book: Tupelo Honey Café: New Southern Flavors from the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Author Elizabeth Sims and Tupelo Honey Executive Chef Brian Sonokus bring the Tupelo concept to bright fruition in the 125 recipes and many pictures that comprise this newest volume. Brian is a graduate of Johnson and Wales and also has a farm just outside Ashville. He is literally a farm-to-table farmer-chef and the recipes here reflect Southern traditional food married to his Johnson and Wales sophistication.
If you have had the chance to drive the Blue Ridge Mountains, then you’ll recognize the scenes from the many of the photos in this book that feature the land behind the food. If you have never seen the Blue Ridge before, these glimpses will make you want to sample the mountains. And food. Firsthand.
Enter a Tupelo Honey Café, and you are greeted with biscuits. White Lily biscuits, of course. And, no, this book’s recipe is not one you’ll find at the White Lilly site. Brian uses both heavy cream and buttermilk, both shortening and butter, to achieve breakfast nirvana. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or just anytime. You really can’t say “no” to a biscuit, not these biscuits.
The recipes here range from beverage to picnics to dinner to, naturally, dessert. There are basic comfort food dishes here and then some elevated extensions of Southern basics. Here’s a dozen and a half reasons you want to try New Southern Flavors from the Blue Ridge Mountains:
Rosemary Peach Lemonade with Rosemary Simple Syrup
Tupelo Honey Molasses Eggnog
Smoked Sunburst Trout Dip [cream cheese, garlic, trout, capers!]
Rib Eye Steak and Mushroom Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Biscuit Crust
Frogmore Stew [the Carolina Low Country specialty of sausage, chicken and shrimp]
Acord Squash Stuffed with Bacon Bread Pudding [an idea to savor until next Thanksgiving]
Maple Brown Sugar Butternut Squash Pancakes
Country Ham and Pimento Cheese Biscuits
Sea Scallop and Chorizo Cornbread Stuffing
Savory Herbed Pancakes with Smoked Trout and Tomato Concasse
Deep-Fried Macaroni and Cheese with Tomato Jam and Red Onion Marmalade
Appalachian Egg Rolls with Smoked Jalapeno Sauce, Pickled Onion, and Pulled Pork
Root Beer and Molasses-Braised Beef Short Ribs
Maple Sweet Potato Blinis with Mountain Cured Trout
Turkey Breast Tenderloin with Mushroom Parsley Beurre Blanc
Smoked Chicken Wings with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce
Gala Apple Cashew Cobbler
Maple Sweet Potato Bread Pudding
I think to enjoy the Deep-Fried Mac and Cheese, Suzi and I will be walking into one of the Tupelo Honey Café spots this summer — we’re doing a drive-and-hike in the Blue Ridge on our way to a wedding. Suzi is not a deep-fry girl at all. But, I’m sure I can convince her to attempt the Root Beer and Molasses-Braised Beef Short Ribs. And that Apple Cashew Cobbler.
I hope that my sampling of the delights in this cookbook tempt you to pick up a copy and, ideally, take it home. You’ll see the genius of Brian’s kitchen. You start close to home with those everyday ingredients we all have: apples, sweet potatoes, onions, trout, peaches. But there is this urbane elevation that Brian applies. It’s not typically southern to have Gorgonzola Cream Sauce or Maple Sweet Potato Blinis. Up in the “hollars” of those mountains, the folks don’t normally serve egg rolls, and certainly not with Smoke Jalapeno Sauce.
But whether you are from a holler or a city, everyone will agree that this book is a Southern hoot, a tribute to Southern cuisines and style and to the imagination of a farm-to-table chef who epitomizes creativity.
Tupelo Honey Café: New Southern Flavors from the Blue Ridge Mountains is published by Andrews McMeel Universal. If you love cookbooks, you should explore their portfolio of edible delights.