What do you think?
Rate this book
The Taste of Country Cooking
In this classic Southern cookbook, the “first lady of Southern cooking” (NPR) shares the seasonal recipes from a childhood spent in a small farming community settled by freed slaves. She shows us how to recreate these timeless dishes in our own kitchens—using natural ingredients, embracing the seasons, and cultivating community. With a preface by Judith Jones and foreword by Alice Waters.
With menus for the four seasons, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) shares the ways her family prepared and enjoyed food, savoring the delights of each special time of year.
From the fresh taste of spring—the first wild mushrooms and field greens—to the feasts of summer—garden-ripe vegetables and fresh blackberry cobbler—and from the harvest of fall—baked country ham and roasted newly dug sweet potatoes—to the hearty fare of winter—stews, soups, and baked beans—Lewis sets down these marvelous dishes in loving detail.
Here are recipes for Corn Pone and Crispy Biscuits, Sweet Potato Casserole and Hot Buttered Beets, Pan-Braised Spareribs, Chicken with Dumplings, Rhubarb Pie, and Brandied Peaches. Dishes are organized into more than 30 seasonal menus, such as A Late Spring Lunch After Wild-Mushroom Picking, A Midsummer Sunday Breakfast, A Christmas Eve Supper, and an Emancipation Day Dinner.
In this seminal work, Edna Lewis shows us precisely how to recover, in our own country or city or suburban kitchens, the taste of the fresh, good, and distinctly American cooking that she grew up with.
With menus for the four seasons, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) shares the ways her family prepared and enjoyed food, savoring the delights of each special time of year.
From the fresh taste of spring—the first wild mushrooms and field greens—to the feasts of summer—garden-ripe vegetables and fresh blackberry cobbler—and from the harvest of fall—baked country ham and roasted newly dug sweet potatoes—to the hearty fare of winter—stews, soups, and baked beans—Lewis sets down these marvelous dishes in loving detail.
Here are recipes for Corn Pone and Crispy Biscuits, Sweet Potato Casserole and Hot Buttered Beets, Pan-Braised Spareribs, Chicken with Dumplings, Rhubarb Pie, and Brandied Peaches. Dishes are organized into more than 30 seasonal menus, such as A Late Spring Lunch After Wild-Mushroom Picking, A Midsummer Sunday Breakfast, A Christmas Eve Supper, and an Emancipation Day Dinner.
In this seminal work, Edna Lewis shows us precisely how to recover, in our own country or city or suburban kitchens, the taste of the fresh, good, and distinctly American cooking that she grew up with.
268 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
Read
June 27, 2017My husband walked by the other night and asked what I was reading. “Oh, just a cookbook” I answered. “What for?” he said with raised eyebrows and added, “When was the last time you cooked something from a cookbook?” He had a point. “Well, this one’s really interesting. I’ve always wanted to know how to butcher a hog”. That sent him on his way shaking his head.
To tell the truth, my husband was right. I read lots of cooking magazines and cookbooks and yet make very little beyond the usual meals I’ve cooked the last forty-seven years. What he doesn’t realize is, cookbooks are read for more than the recipes. They are oral histories of lives lived, our connection to family through food and celebration and storytelling at their finest.
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, reissued with a foreword by Alice Waters, is a gem. This is one of those times that I wish I knew how it got on my reading list as I’d love to thank the source for the recommendation. Lesson learned.
Edna Lewis was born in 1916, the year my own dear father entered this world. This is probably where their commonality ended though their Christmas stockings held similar treats. The foreword penned by Alice Waters begins
”Miss Edna Regina Lewis was born in Virginia in 1916, in a bucolic, out-of-the-way settlement known as Freetown, which had been founded by her grandfather and other feed slaves after the emancipation of 1865.She enjoyed a childhood that could only be described as idyllic, in which the never-ending hard work of a farming and cooking both sustained an entertained an entire community. In 1976, with the publication of this lovely, indispensable classic of a cookbook, she brought her lost paradise of Freetown back to life. Thanks to this book, a new generation was introduced to the glories of an American tradition worthy of comparison to the most evolved cuisines on earth, a tradition of simplicity and purity and sheer deliciousness that is only possible when food tastes like what it is, from a particular place, at a particular point in time.”
Now, thirty years later, this anniversary edition may once again offer readers a glance into a time past. A time when food, was not packaged, shipped and purchased at a chain grocery store but was planted, grown, raised and cooked from scratch using recipes handed down from generation to generation. Not fast food, but meals that took hours to prepare on wood stoves by the women of the house with hard work pride and love; the original farm to table.
After an introduction that gives us a brief history of Edna and her grandfather’s farmland the cookbook is presented in four seasons, each with their harvests, feasts and stories.
It would be impossible to share all that delighted me and most likely you’d pick something different anyway. Here is a sample of each season.
Spring - ”Coffee or Java (as we called it)”
”The smell of coffee cooking was a reason for growing up, because children were never allowed to have It and nothing haunted the nostrils all the way out to the barn as did the aroma of boiling coffee. The decision about coffee was clear and definite and a cook’s ability to make good coffee was one of her highest accomplishments. Mother made real good coffee but some mornings my father would saddle the horse and ride more than a mile up the road to have his second cup with his cousin Sally, who made the best coffee ever.
This brings back memories of the first coffee I brewed for my husband and his uncle prior to our marriage. It’s a miracle he married me.
The description of Carmel Pie, with a history of more than one hundred and fifty years was a specialty of the Freetown Ladies and one that Edna calls haunting.
Pan-fried Shad was a favorite meal of Spring, as shad is only available around May in Virginia just as it is here in Connecticut. I prefer it sprinkled with a bit of pepper, topped with lemons, wrapped and foil and grilled. Somehow we missed Shad season this year and need to wait a whole year to enjoy it again.
Summer
”The busy season of harvesting and caning brought many delights at mealtime: deep-dish blackberry pie, rolypoly, summer apple dumplings, peach cobblers, and always pound cake to accompany the fruits or berries that would be left from canning."
A delight of summer would be turtle soup. My uncle used to make this and though I did like it I’ll stick to that pound cake recipe Edna provides.
Fall – Race Day Picnic
”Beautiful Montpelier, nestling in the Shenandoah Valley, surrounded by an oak forest, was the most perfect spot to have a great fall picnic lunch. Everyone would be dressed in the latest fashions to attend the races, even the handsome guest horses wearing the colorful silks of their stables.”
Winter - Christmas
”Around Christmastime the kitchens of Freetown would grow fragrant with the baking of cakes, fruit puddings, cookies, and candy. Exchanging gifts was not a custom at that time, but we did look forward to hanging our stockings from the mantel and finding them filled on Christmas morning with tasty “imported” nuts from Lahore’s, our favorite hard candies with the cinnamon-flavored red eye, and oranges who special Christmas aroma reached us at the top of the stairs.”
One last thought.
Edna and her sisters loved liver pudding. It is the one recipe I have no desire to try.
To tell the truth, my husband was right. I read lots of cooking magazines and cookbooks and yet make very little beyond the usual meals I’ve cooked the last forty-seven years. What he doesn’t realize is, cookbooks are read for more than the recipes. They are oral histories of lives lived, our connection to family through food and celebration and storytelling at their finest.
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, reissued with a foreword by Alice Waters, is a gem. This is one of those times that I wish I knew how it got on my reading list as I’d love to thank the source for the recommendation. Lesson learned.
Edna Lewis was born in 1916, the year my own dear father entered this world. This is probably where their commonality ended though their Christmas stockings held similar treats. The foreword penned by Alice Waters begins
”Miss Edna Regina Lewis was born in Virginia in 1916, in a bucolic, out-of-the-way settlement known as Freetown, which had been founded by her grandfather and other feed slaves after the emancipation of 1865.She enjoyed a childhood that could only be described as idyllic, in which the never-ending hard work of a farming and cooking both sustained an entertained an entire community. In 1976, with the publication of this lovely, indispensable classic of a cookbook, she brought her lost paradise of Freetown back to life. Thanks to this book, a new generation was introduced to the glories of an American tradition worthy of comparison to the most evolved cuisines on earth, a tradition of simplicity and purity and sheer deliciousness that is only possible when food tastes like what it is, from a particular place, at a particular point in time.”
Now, thirty years later, this anniversary edition may once again offer readers a glance into a time past. A time when food, was not packaged, shipped and purchased at a chain grocery store but was planted, grown, raised and cooked from scratch using recipes handed down from generation to generation. Not fast food, but meals that took hours to prepare on wood stoves by the women of the house with hard work pride and love; the original farm to table.
After an introduction that gives us a brief history of Edna and her grandfather’s farmland the cookbook is presented in four seasons, each with their harvests, feasts and stories.
It would be impossible to share all that delighted me and most likely you’d pick something different anyway. Here is a sample of each season.
Spring - ”Coffee or Java (as we called it)”
”The smell of coffee cooking was a reason for growing up, because children were never allowed to have It and nothing haunted the nostrils all the way out to the barn as did the aroma of boiling coffee. The decision about coffee was clear and definite and a cook’s ability to make good coffee was one of her highest accomplishments. Mother made real good coffee but some mornings my father would saddle the horse and ride more than a mile up the road to have his second cup with his cousin Sally, who made the best coffee ever.
This brings back memories of the first coffee I brewed for my husband and his uncle prior to our marriage. It’s a miracle he married me.
The description of Carmel Pie, with a history of more than one hundred and fifty years was a specialty of the Freetown Ladies and one that Edna calls haunting.
Pan-fried Shad was a favorite meal of Spring, as shad is only available around May in Virginia just as it is here in Connecticut. I prefer it sprinkled with a bit of pepper, topped with lemons, wrapped and foil and grilled. Somehow we missed Shad season this year and need to wait a whole year to enjoy it again.
Summer
”The busy season of harvesting and caning brought many delights at mealtime: deep-dish blackberry pie, rolypoly, summer apple dumplings, peach cobblers, and always pound cake to accompany the fruits or berries that would be left from canning."
A delight of summer would be turtle soup. My uncle used to make this and though I did like it I’ll stick to that pound cake recipe Edna provides.
Fall – Race Day Picnic
”Beautiful Montpelier, nestling in the Shenandoah Valley, surrounded by an oak forest, was the most perfect spot to have a great fall picnic lunch. Everyone would be dressed in the latest fashions to attend the races, even the handsome guest horses wearing the colorful silks of their stables.”
Winter - Christmas
”Around Christmastime the kitchens of Freetown would grow fragrant with the baking of cakes, fruit puddings, cookies, and candy. Exchanging gifts was not a custom at that time, but we did look forward to hanging our stockings from the mantel and finding them filled on Christmas morning with tasty “imported” nuts from Lahore’s, our favorite hard candies with the cinnamon-flavored red eye, and oranges who special Christmas aroma reached us at the top of the stairs.”
One last thought.
Edna and her sisters loved liver pudding. It is the one recipe I have no desire to try.
November 28, 2020
A unique experience! So much more than a cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking is a sweetly contemplative and often elegiac travelogue through Lewis' life as a girl in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community founded by freedmen including the author's grandfather. It is hard to do justice to the moving quality of the writing, which manages to be both matter-of-fact (the post-butchering preparation of a hog carcass is described quite clearly) and lyrical (portraits of her mother cooking, the smells of fruits and slow cooking, her long summer days with her many siblings, a child's wonder at life's busyness and bounty). Lewis structures the cookbook by season, describing the high points of each and how the changing of seasons impacted farming life and the food that came to her table. Sections and subsections start with recollections about each time of year, as well as key events such as Sheep-Shearing Day, Wheat-Harvesting Day, Sunday Revival, Race Day, Emancipation Day, and Christmas Eve. Many of the individual recipes include snatches of history about this or that vegetable and how they came to her community, or how a certain cut of meat tastes compared to other cuts. She describes life on this Freetown farming settlement as an almost utopian place of hard work, plentiful food, generous friends and family, a strong sense of community, and a true partnership with nature. This was an immersive experience and I soon came to live in this special place and time.
And it was just that for Lewis: a very specific place and time: her past. At the age of 16, after the death of her father, she struck out on her own to New York City where she worked in many different jobs (including three hours as a laundress), became something of a bohemian and socialite as well as an ardent radical, eventually married Harlem communist spokesman Steve Kingston, and formed a 50/50 partnership with the fabulous international antiques dealer John Nicholson. And so through the late '40s to the mid-'50s, she was chef and partner at what would become the renowned and very au courant author-magnet named Cafe Nicholson. Many years later- with a number of stops and starts along the way - she authored a series of cookbooks that eventually positioned her as one of the foremost authorities on Southern cooking. Edna Lewis passed away in 2006 at 90 years of age. In 2014, she was commemorated in stamp form by the U.S. Postal Service. I came to learn of her recently, on episode six of Top Chef's 14th season.
All that said, perhaps the many remembrances and pictures of life in Freetown painted by Lewis have such an elegiac quality to them because she spent a mere one-sixth of her storied life in that setting. The Taste of Country Cooking is a splendid cookbook, of course, but it is also a portrait of a bygone life and an era long past. Fond wistfulness suffuses this lovely and poignant book.
Sad to say, it is unlikely that I will make many of these recipes because I really feel that the flavors that Lewis so beautifully describes will only come after using ingredients fresh from garden and field (or - during winter months -from the bounty that comes from home-canning), meat from animals that roam free on a country farm, food foraged or hunted or fished within the forest and streams surrounding her community farm, and then cooked over wood-burning stoves and hearths. That said, there were still a good number that seemed doable, including:
> Skillet Scallions
> Lentil and Scallion Salad
> Scalloped Potatoes (featuring beef broth rather than dairy)
> Pan-fried Oysters
> Virginia Fried Chicken with Browned Gravy
> Pan-fried Chicken with Cream Gravy
> Chicken Gelatine (recipe looks more tasty than its title!)
> Blueberry Sauce
> Caramel Pie
But as delicious as they may sound, the recipes are scarcely the point of The Taste of Country Cooking. This is a book about nature and a certain community and times past. I had a wonderful experience getting to know my new friend Edna, traveling with her back to her youth and through some of her earliest, most precious memories.
And it was just that for Lewis: a very specific place and time: her past. At the age of 16, after the death of her father, she struck out on her own to New York City where she worked in many different jobs (including three hours as a laundress), became something of a bohemian and socialite as well as an ardent radical, eventually married Harlem communist spokesman Steve Kingston, and formed a 50/50 partnership with the fabulous international antiques dealer John Nicholson. And so through the late '40s to the mid-'50s, she was chef and partner at what would become the renowned and very au courant author-magnet named Cafe Nicholson. Many years later- with a number of stops and starts along the way - she authored a series of cookbooks that eventually positioned her as one of the foremost authorities on Southern cooking. Edna Lewis passed away in 2006 at 90 years of age. In 2014, she was commemorated in stamp form by the U.S. Postal Service. I came to learn of her recently, on episode six of Top Chef's 14th season.
All that said, perhaps the many remembrances and pictures of life in Freetown painted by Lewis have such an elegiac quality to them because she spent a mere one-sixth of her storied life in that setting. The Taste of Country Cooking is a splendid cookbook, of course, but it is also a portrait of a bygone life and an era long past. Fond wistfulness suffuses this lovely and poignant book.
Sad to say, it is unlikely that I will make many of these recipes because I really feel that the flavors that Lewis so beautifully describes will only come after using ingredients fresh from garden and field (or - during winter months -from the bounty that comes from home-canning), meat from animals that roam free on a country farm, food foraged or hunted or fished within the forest and streams surrounding her community farm, and then cooked over wood-burning stoves and hearths. That said, there were still a good number that seemed doable, including:
> Skillet Scallions
> Lentil and Scallion Salad
> Scalloped Potatoes (featuring beef broth rather than dairy)
> Pan-fried Oysters
> Virginia Fried Chicken with Browned Gravy
> Pan-fried Chicken with Cream Gravy
> Chicken Gelatine (recipe looks more tasty than its title!)
> Blueberry Sauce
> Caramel Pie
But as delicious as they may sound, the recipes are scarcely the point of The Taste of Country Cooking. This is a book about nature and a certain community and times past. I had a wonderful experience getting to know my new friend Edna, traveling with her back to her youth and through some of her earliest, most precious memories.
August 15, 2017
This is Little House in the Big Woods for adults. Edna Lewis writes through the seasons, demonstrating how to make scrumptious food without the newest, oldest, or next best kitchen appliance. Honestly, she made meringue made with a fork!
Look at the cover photo. That winsome smile compels me, that face makes me want to name Edna Lewis my friend.
I haven't cooked from this book yet. Lard, a common ingredient, is something I swore off a few years back. (But who knows? How many formerly reviled foods are now pronounced good? ::confused exhale::)
Edna's way of cooking is so old —so primitive, in a way— that it's en vogue today. Whether you call it slow cooking, farm to table, eating locally, eating seasonally, or sustainable agriculture, that's the kind of meal preparation you get. All the stories are a bonus!
Ham held the same rating as the basic black dress. If you had a ham in the meat house any situation could be faced.
There were high points of the summer that made your work rewarding. One was the day you picked the first ripe tomato.
Although there were no exceptions of our usual custom of sitting down together three times a day for meals, during Christmas week we were free to return to the food safe as many times a day as we liked and my mother would never say a word.
Along in February, she would save all of her eggshells, line them up on the windowsill, place the seed of a green bean in each one, and add about a tablespoon of water. When sprouted enough she would set them, still in the shell, into a prepared row and cover them with soil on the first warm day of spring.
Look at the cover photo. That winsome smile compels me, that face makes me want to name Edna Lewis my friend.
I haven't cooked from this book yet. Lard, a common ingredient, is something I swore off a few years back. (But who knows? How many formerly reviled foods are now pronounced good? ::confused exhale::)
Edna's way of cooking is so old —so primitive, in a way— that it's en vogue today. Whether you call it slow cooking, farm to table, eating locally, eating seasonally, or sustainable agriculture, that's the kind of meal preparation you get. All the stories are a bonus!
Ham held the same rating as the basic black dress. If you had a ham in the meat house any situation could be faced.
There were high points of the summer that made your work rewarding. One was the day you picked the first ripe tomato.
Although there were no exceptions of our usual custom of sitting down together three times a day for meals, during Christmas week we were free to return to the food safe as many times a day as we liked and my mother would never say a word.
Along in February, she would save all of her eggshells, line them up on the windowsill, place the seed of a green bean in each one, and add about a tablespoon of water. When sprouted enough she would set them, still in the shell, into a prepared row and cover them with soil on the first warm day of spring.
October 25, 2022
If you’re going to be influenced by any of the 573829 books I log here from my classes let it be this one. Edna Lewis was extraordinary.
October 2, 2012
I knew this place and these flavors well; maybe not the homemade wines and the salsify, but these dishes and seasonal ways of being were still alive during my Deep South childhood in the "60's. Gravy? You don't know gravy until you've had ham and cream ...
February 19, 2009
An already cherished gift from a great friend - reads like a novel, the best, most comforting novel you can imagine. I would read every menu aloud just to hear the words - blackberries and cream, ham biscuits, watermelon rind pickles, Tyler Pie, a thermos of hot coffee...I am going to find Freetown, Virginia and have a memorial picnic for Edna Lewis one day, I swear
August 1, 2017
Oh my goodness, I just opened this cookbook and I think I will enjoy reading it cover to cover - even make some of the recipes for our quiet 4th of July BBQ at home...
This is the best way, if extremely worky, to make the best tasting food.
This is a story about a farming community that worked together to raise the kids and tend the fields, animals and gardens used to make the food for each family and the entire community.
Sounds like a wonderful utopian existence, except that it is really a lot of constant hard work and everyone must do their part.
I wish I could cook like that - I will try in corporate some of the techniques into my own meal prep, though.
This is the best way, if extremely worky, to make the best tasting food.
This is a story about a farming community that worked together to raise the kids and tend the fields, animals and gardens used to make the food for each family and the entire community.
Sounds like a wonderful utopian existence, except that it is really a lot of constant hard work and everyone must do their part.
I wish I could cook like that - I will try in corporate some of the techniques into my own meal prep, though.
September 3, 2012
A combination of charming memoir, practical technique and delicious sounding recipes sprinkled with a good serving of vanishing skills. If only we worked hard enough these days to eat the meals she describes!
October 28, 2020
I am rating this more as a reading book than a cookbook. No doubt it's a fine cookbook; however, my interest in it was to read about the wonderful Edna Lewis' memories of her Virginia childhood and life in a small town. That said, her fried chicken, corn pudding, and biscuit recipes can't be beat. Just note that the friend chicken is supposed to be a special thing. Make that one too often, and you'll need to put a cardiologist on speed-dial.
Lewis was born in 1916, so her memories are of the simpler, more native southern life and of meals made from farm-fresh foods before "farm fresh" became a marketing buzz phrase with little meaning. Her constant reminder to pick vegetables in the early mornings reminded me of my grandmother's similar admonishments, as did her obvious disdain for "brownulated" sugar and the lack of quality of modern pork and poultry. I suspect her memories of life in Freetown, VA were softened and romanticized a little, but that is the privilege of elders and good storytellers.
The recipes in this cookbook are straight-forward and simple. They assume a certain self-confidence and comfort in the kitchen. That doesn't mean they are difficult. Most are easy, but without the hand-holding of current cookbooks written for people who are afraid to boil water without specific instructions. There are no photos, which no doubt will send some people into spasms because they imagine they can't possibly make something without 47 color photographs. Let's be honest here: the best cooks don't learn to cook by leafing through glossy photo-rich cookbooks penned by celebrity chefs or by reading Instagram or blogs. They learn by watching, doing, by using their sense of smell, hearing, and touch, and by doing. As Lewis says, no one taught her to cook; she just learned.
The book I have is the 30th anniversary edition. I wish I'd noticed that before I bought it because I would have then hunted down the original without the totally unnecessary -- and to me, unwelcome -- forward by Alice Waters. As usual, Waters' comments add nothing but hot air. Just skip it and read the lovely second (original) forward by Judith Jones instead.
And to get an idea of what Edna Lewis was about, there is a nice documentary on her here .
This is about her later cookbook with Scott Peacock, but it provides some biographical material. Plus you get to see that decadent fried chicken and those biscuits.
I wish someone would make a movie of Lewis' life. She did so many fascinating things in her life, not just cooking and championing Southern foods.
Lewis was born in 1916, so her memories are of the simpler, more native southern life and of meals made from farm-fresh foods before "farm fresh" became a marketing buzz phrase with little meaning. Her constant reminder to pick vegetables in the early mornings reminded me of my grandmother's similar admonishments, as did her obvious disdain for "brownulated" sugar and the lack of quality of modern pork and poultry. I suspect her memories of life in Freetown, VA were softened and romanticized a little, but that is the privilege of elders and good storytellers.
The recipes in this cookbook are straight-forward and simple. They assume a certain self-confidence and comfort in the kitchen. That doesn't mean they are difficult. Most are easy, but without the hand-holding of current cookbooks written for people who are afraid to boil water without specific instructions. There are no photos, which no doubt will send some people into spasms because they imagine they can't possibly make something without 47 color photographs. Let's be honest here: the best cooks don't learn to cook by leafing through glossy photo-rich cookbooks penned by celebrity chefs or by reading Instagram or blogs. They learn by watching, doing, by using their sense of smell, hearing, and touch, and by doing. As Lewis says, no one taught her to cook; she just learned.
The book I have is the 30th anniversary edition. I wish I'd noticed that before I bought it because I would have then hunted down the original without the totally unnecessary -- and to me, unwelcome -- forward by Alice Waters. As usual, Waters' comments add nothing but hot air. Just skip it and read the lovely second (original) forward by Judith Jones instead.
And to get an idea of what Edna Lewis was about, there is a nice documentary on her here .
This is about her later cookbook with Scott Peacock, but it provides some biographical material. Plus you get to see that decadent fried chicken and those biscuits.
I wish someone would make a movie of Lewis' life. She did so many fascinating things in her life, not just cooking and championing Southern foods.
June 10, 2009
Oh, my, my, just lovely. Like dessert, this book is perfect for reading in bed and dropping imaginary everyday-cake-crumbs on the sheets. A lovely story about eating locally and sustainably before it was made trendy by Whole Foods. I had severe family jealousy for a bit (although my family always ate quite well, too - in a small rural town, we often ate canned jams from local blackberries & the like).
I got this from the library, but I will definitely be looking for a used copy at the next bookstore I enter.
I got this from the library, but I will definitely be looking for a used copy at the next bookstore I enter.
October 3, 2015
This book was such a joy to read. If you like to cook, if you like to garden, if you're Southern, if history of the way we eat and cultivate food interests you - definitely read this book. It is a lovely (and lovingly crafted) book about the process of food and cooking and the reasons certain foods were eaten.
July 5, 2017
A great cookbook and historical account. The recipes are more interesting because of the stories about farming and community. Good tips and mouth-watering ideas.
May 12, 2021
This book is a true gift. Edna Lewis was a genius and a communist in the 50s to boot. I plan on reading all her other books and reading all the interviews I can find. For anyone interested in food this is a must. I would also rec to anyone interested in farming, which I am personally not interested in doing in the slightest but feels necessary to know about if u eat food! This book is very romantic and romanticized, and I think that was a very intentional choice. Edna Lewis is an icon!!
December 7, 2022
It didn't occur to me until now to rate cookbooks on here, but the truth is, I read cookbooks all the time and they influence me as much as literature can.
This book is great. Other reviews emphasize the recipes but what really captivated me about this book, what makes me return to it, is the description of how they lived in Freetown. It connects the dots between food culture and reality: seasons, lifespans, spoilage, fermentation. There are descriptions of what gets eaten and by whom, when, from what vessels, how it's stored, what they anticipated in one season or another, how work impacted their appetite, what was rare and what was abundant. When you read a book like this, other recipe collections seem strangely disengaged from the reality of savoring what you produce and save. It's all the tactile fun of Laura Ingalls Wilder without the genocidal mania of Western Expansion. It's an amazing book.
This book is great. Other reviews emphasize the recipes but what really captivated me about this book, what makes me return to it, is the description of how they lived in Freetown. It connects the dots between food culture and reality: seasons, lifespans, spoilage, fermentation. There are descriptions of what gets eaten and by whom, when, from what vessels, how it's stored, what they anticipated in one season or another, how work impacted their appetite, what was rare and what was abundant. When you read a book like this, other recipe collections seem strangely disengaged from the reality of savoring what you produce and save. It's all the tactile fun of Laura Ingalls Wilder without the genocidal mania of Western Expansion. It's an amazing book.
February 22, 2019
What a beautifully evocative story of home and childhood and every best memory of the rewards of dedication and hard work. Then there are the recipes, each within its particular season. Can't wait to dig in!
February 9, 2021
If this book were a person, you would describe it as gentle and sweet. And so it is. This book nudges somewhat toward memoir. It's probably best looked at as not-just-a-cookbook, but a nostalgic celebration of a lost time and place - and a great insight into the life of the African-American community, just themselves, not dependant on interaction with whites to "move the story forward." So it also turned out to be a pleasant little book to read during Black History Month.
December 27, 2021
Single-handedly the most informative and interesting cookbook I’ve read all year. Southern cooking, especially African American foodways, have such a poor reputation with many white northerners and this book completely eradicated that notion in my mind. I’m excited to own this book soon and be able to easily access both the recipes but also the stories and wisdom of the author.
September 11, 2017
This was such an interesting cookbook. There is so much history behind the recipes and the meals. I like how the book was broken into seasons, then into meals. It was interesting to see how much food was served at each meal. I did find some recipes I'm hoping to try. If you're looking for healthy, this is not the cookbook for you! But it's still a good read.
October 18, 2008
Edna Lewis was cooking seasonally before it was trendy to do so - it was simply the way she and her family lived on their family farm. Her recipes flow from season by season, using ingredients we think of as "gourmet" today - sorrel, fresh thyme, fish roe. A true farmhouse cookbook, Miss Lewis's stories and anecdotes are a joy to read.
March 25, 2018
I don't normally list cookbooks on Goodreads, but this one is perfect for reading curled up in bed - full of enticing recipes, it also reads as a memoir of Edna Lewis's childhood and an ode to the food ad customs of Freetown, a farming community of freed slaves in VA.
March 29, 2015
Lovely!
February 3, 2017
Delightful
September 4, 2021
I own an original 1978 version of this classic cookbook. It is one of the very first cookbooks I bought - back in my first year of college. I went to the U of Chicago where the affiliated Seminary School had an infamous basement bookstore. It rambled though basement nooks and crannies and was the best place to get lost during a cold winter day between classes. The Seminary Coop still exists, but is now in an English Basement storefront not too far from the original.
Once a year they held a cookbook sale. I attended every year, but this book came from the very first sale I attended. I’ve gotten rid of many of those cookbooks over the years, but held on to this wonderful collection. I hadn’t opened it up in probably 20-30 years, but thanks to the Goodreads Reading Women Challenge (find in the “community” menu) I picked this book up anew and read it cover to cover.
The Taste of Country Cooking deserves its status as a classic. Even more, it is a memoir of Edna Lewis’s life growing up on a rural Virginia farm. The book is divided by seasons and I enjoyed the memories shared. Like many families, life revolved around the meals cooked and shared. Unlike most modern families this book recounts the seasonal rotation those meals revolved around.
There are many heirloom recipes very relevant to today’s way of eating. I’m adding many to my upcoming meal planning. There are also some recipes I’ll never make (liver pudding, kidney pie) but found fascinating to read about.
If you enjoy cooking or reading about cooking pick up this classic. If you are interested in US history pick it up - you won’t find any better descriptions of early 1900’s daily life than you will here - especially for small farmers and African American traditions.
Once a year they held a cookbook sale. I attended every year, but this book came from the very first sale I attended. I’ve gotten rid of many of those cookbooks over the years, but held on to this wonderful collection. I hadn’t opened it up in probably 20-30 years, but thanks to the Goodreads Reading Women Challenge (find in the “community” menu) I picked this book up anew and read it cover to cover.
The Taste of Country Cooking deserves its status as a classic. Even more, it is a memoir of Edna Lewis’s life growing up on a rural Virginia farm. The book is divided by seasons and I enjoyed the memories shared. Like many families, life revolved around the meals cooked and shared. Unlike most modern families this book recounts the seasonal rotation those meals revolved around.
There are many heirloom recipes very relevant to today’s way of eating. I’m adding many to my upcoming meal planning. There are also some recipes I’ll never make (liver pudding, kidney pie) but found fascinating to read about.
If you enjoy cooking or reading about cooking pick up this classic. If you are interested in US history pick it up - you won’t find any better descriptions of early 1900’s daily life than you will here - especially for small farmers and African American traditions.
January 15, 2022
This is a wonderful book with great recipes, but the best part is the narrative her her growing up in rural Virginia in Freetown, a burg started by her grandfather and others after they were freed at the end of the Civil War. The year-long account of life on the farm and the significant events in their lives provides an eye-witness view of freed slaves and their legacy. As much a historical tract as a cookbook, this charming volume also reminds my own immigrant grandmother's way of life, albeit in the city. She is the one who took me to the farmer's market every Saturday and carefully chose the fresh vegetables and other items. She taught me how to cook, not by pulling out a recipe, nor by sitting me down and explaining. Rather, as I hung around the kitchen as she cooked, I learned. She was a superb cook who regularly led a team of church women to make dinners for 50-100 in the church basement social hall.
The Taste of Country Cooking reminds us that cooking is the ultimate social activity. It is a way of sharing, a necessity for life, and provides for some of our fondest memories. Aromas as Lewis points out are defining moments in our lives. I give thanks that Lewis shared so much with us as well as other professional chefs.
The Taste of Country Cooking reminds us that cooking is the ultimate social activity. It is a way of sharing, a necessity for life, and provides for some of our fondest memories. Aromas as Lewis points out are defining moments in our lives. I give thanks that Lewis shared so much with us as well as other professional chefs.
October 26, 2022
Excellent. This book is a masterclass in foodways. Superbly written to place the reader in a time and place, so softly yet acutely rendered, that it somehow feels like home even when your own home couldn’t be farther from the African-American farm community of Freetown, Virginia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Edna Lewis has a gentle, expert writing voice that both enthralls and soothes as she describes the environment in which she grew up, and the way that the farm and community provided an abundance of very fine ingredients, harvested, preserved and cooked to bring forth the very best qualities of the food by skilled home cooks.
And the recipes… oh the recipes! They may be near a century old, but boy do they hold up. Farm to table, but before that was a trending restaurant buzz phrase for seasonal cooking. Simple, sometimes deceptively so, and elegant, these recipes rely on the pure goodness of very fresh ingredients, prepared with thoughtful respect for seasonality, resources and timing. And the sheer delight of preparing, sharing, and eating good, fresh, home-cooked meals.
I could say so much more. This cookbook belongs in every kitchen, if nothing else than to remind us of how and when food is meant to be eaten. A cover to cover read.
And the recipes… oh the recipes! They may be near a century old, but boy do they hold up. Farm to table, but before that was a trending restaurant buzz phrase for seasonal cooking. Simple, sometimes deceptively so, and elegant, these recipes rely on the pure goodness of very fresh ingredients, prepared with thoughtful respect for seasonality, resources and timing. And the sheer delight of preparing, sharing, and eating good, fresh, home-cooked meals.
I could say so much more. This cookbook belongs in every kitchen, if nothing else than to remind us of how and when food is meant to be eaten. A cover to cover read.
May 26, 2022
I don't normally read cookbooks. After a few years as a short-order cook in a small restaurant I don't really cook much anymore. (a talented spouse and classically-trained chef son pretty much put an end to that) But I read this cookbook from cover to cover. It's just that good.
Ms. Lewis was once hailed as the Queen of Country Cooking and ran a very successful restaurant in New York City. I've eaten some of her recipes (I refer you to the last paragraph) and they are tasty.
But that's not why I love this cookbook.
She not only explains how to make the dishes but why they were made. This the breakfast for the day we slaughter the hogs. This is the cake my grandmother would always have handy for unexpected guests. This is the refreshing drink for after a July day working the fields. These passages are what make the book such a delight and are what warranted my occasional five stars. You not only get to taste her food but you get a taste of what life was like in her small village of Freetown, Virginia.
Besides, she's the first person I've run across, besides myself, who waxes enthusiastic about the joys of toasted bread with "too much butter". The woman was a culinary genius.
Ms. Lewis was once hailed as the Queen of Country Cooking and ran a very successful restaurant in New York City. I've eaten some of her recipes (I refer you to the last paragraph) and they are tasty.
But that's not why I love this cookbook.
She not only explains how to make the dishes but why they were made. This the breakfast for the day we slaughter the hogs. This is the cake my grandmother would always have handy for unexpected guests. This is the refreshing drink for after a July day working the fields. These passages are what make the book such a delight and are what warranted my occasional five stars. You not only get to taste her food but you get a taste of what life was like in her small village of Freetown, Virginia.
Besides, she's the first person I've run across, besides myself, who waxes enthusiastic about the joys of toasted bread with "too much butter". The woman was a culinary genius.
November 12, 2019
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis is truly a taste of history. This reads as a biography of sorts, and many months after reading this gift I still close my eyes and see a young Edna running through fields, her mother dropping cucumbers into the barrel on their front porch while the smell of dinner wafts out to her toiling family. I see their Sunday dresses and linen covered tables filled with holiday fare. And most of all, when I make a tri-meat stock, I say a silent thank you to the woman who wrote down her knowledge. To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement. To say it has a place of honor in my kitchen isn’t honoring enough. Her dandelion wine is the only one I’ve ever made that was as smooth as summer, and the description of how they planted potatoes warmed me over as I did something similar before even knowing it was once proper. If you like history, cooking or tales of remarkable people, this is a book to own.
January 11, 2021
An early contender for my favorite book of 2021, this work is so much more than a cookbook. It is also a Polaroid of a distinct Southern subculture that is at once familiar and distant to a white country bumpkin of Oklahoma stock. Edna Lewis' captivating descriptions of freedman settlement Freetown, VA takes me back to the foods of my own grandmother and the cherished stories of the old-timers. As a work, it rivals and supplements the Foxfire tomes for grasping the soul of the South. The recipes are organized around seasonal events which would be familiar to most people growing up in the not-too-distant rural South: wheat harvest, hog-killing, hunting season, and Christmas. I've only had the book for a couple weeks but can attest to the quality of the caramel pie and biscuit recipes, which impressed both my family and the neighbors. In short, this book feels like home and I absolutely adore it.
March 24, 2021
Lewis describes a year in the life of cultivating and eating food during her childhood in Freetown, Virginia, a community settled by freed slaves (her grandfather was one of the original founders). There are vegetables I am not familiar with (mainly salsify, an carrot-like root vegetable that takes a year to cultivate), meats not commonly eaten by a lot of people any more (game birds, organ meats), and the book assumes a level of cooking knowledge I don’t have, but I was just reading it for fun so that was fine. It is very lovingly written and she goes into a lot of detail about their annual traditions. The book was originally published in 1976 when the idea of eating locally and seasonally was coming back around again and it’s interesting to consider that when reading it. By being “behind” the times, Lewis was actually quite forward-thinking.
2021 Read Harder: Read a food memoir by an author of color
2021 Read Harder: Read a food memoir by an author of color
August 12, 2020
I don't usually read a cookbook cover to cover, but this one I did! Nor do I put them on Goodreads but this book deserves to be read and rated. What a lovely book! Her stories of growing up on a farm in Virginia are just wonderful. Not an easy life, but her childhood sounded very happy and full of delicious food. Even her description of the ingredients is delicious and every time the word biscuit was typed my mouth watered.
The book is divided up by seasons and the food cooked and eaten was very seasonal, being on a farm that makes a lot of sense of course. The food was all freshly grown and picked, other than in the winter when they ate the food canned in the summer. I've tried a couple of recipes, it being summer now I have lots of tomatoes and cucumbers. Yum! I dying to try some more :)
The book is divided up by seasons and the food cooked and eaten was very seasonal, being on a farm that makes a lot of sense of course. The food was all freshly grown and picked, other than in the winter when they ate the food canned in the summer. I've tried a couple of recipes, it being summer now I have lots of tomatoes and cucumbers. Yum! I dying to try some more :)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews