Martha Hall Foose

Yes, I sometimes do read cookbooks from cover to cover. This is a fine one for that purpose. Full of interesting recipes for food people actually eat (as well as a few I have my doubts about), beautiful photos of food, natural beauty and iconic Southern sights, and crunchy little tidbits of Memory and Story to go with many of the recipes. In between "courses" there are longer stories to delight, such as the one about the author receiving a book from her great aunt when she was very small--the book was about a dictionary-loving parrot in a shoe store, and Martha had just learned to write her own name; she was upset to find someone else's name written in cursive script inside the book, so to claim it as distinctly her own, she colored all the pictures and printed her own name in large letters on the first page. (Martha is from Mississippi, btw. Does anyone see what's coming here?) "That shoe-store bird book was mine once I wrote my name inside. Lina had given it to me and in time I learned that the same Eudora Welty who had written her name right inside had given it to me and all children as well." Shame on me, I was not aware that Eudora Welty had written a children's book, The Shoe Bird, but now I've ordered a copy for MY great-nieces, without the dear lady's autograph, I'm afraid. I have only tried one recipe from A Southerly Course, and it wasn't a great success (the method seems overly complicated and messy for the outcome, which I think I could have improved upon if I'd done it my own way with her ingredients). But that isn't going to stop me from trying others. A good cook rarely follows a recipe to the letter anyway, at least not after the first time.… (més)