Cornbread Nation 5 - by Fred W Sauceman (Paperback)

About the Book

The fifth volume in this popular series is a feast for the eyes, spanning the food cultures of the South and celebrating food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. This collection of more than 70 essays and poems provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

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"

About the Author

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.