![]() He slows the car to make sure it’s not his mother. ![]() ![]() the characters remain indelible, as when Bragg writes how he sometimes sees an old woman tottering along the roadside, stuffing poke salad greens into a burlap bag. Most of the book’s recipes are gloriously tempting examples from that canon – hand-mixed biscuits swimming in sweet cinnamon-scented milk, ham and redeye gravy, pecan pie, cracklin’ cornbread, even creamed onions that sound simple but are harder than they look to cook to perfection. He also recognizes how “blue-collar Southern cooks” use time and skill to transform humble ingredients into rapturous feasts. Part cookbook, part memoir, The Best Cook in the World is Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Braggs loving tribute to the South. Knopf offices last week where he read from the beginning of his new book, 'The Best Cook in the World'. By turns grim and funny, he can describe the flavors of raccoon, possum, bear, even squirrel brains (cook them with scrambled eggs, 'to cut down on that metal taste,' his mother advises), making it clear that they’re desperation meals for people with no better options. ![]() ![]() The book includes 75 recipes, which read like oral tradition even though they’re written down (one ingredient list includes both lard and luck.) The stories surrounding each meal are just as rich. Braggs latest book, The Best Cook in the World Tales from My Mamas Table, has just been released in paperback. ![]()
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