Synopses & Reviews
Perhaps no other cook has played such a central role in therenaissance of traditional southern cooking as Edna Lewis. When asked who hasinfluenced them most, chefs from New York to Little Washington to Charleston citeMs. Lewis and her classic collection of recipes, In Pursuit of Flavor, firstpublished in 1988.
Edna Lewis learned to cook bywatching her mother prepare food in their kitchen in a small farming community inVirginia. Because she was raised at a time when the vegetables came from the garden, fruit from the orchard, pickles, relishes, chutney, and jellies from quick canning, and meat from the smokehouse, Edna Lewis knows how food should taste. Every recipeincluded in her cookbook, both old friends and new discoveries, reflects her memoryof and continuing search for good flavor.
Inchapters devoted to fruits and vegetables, meat and fowl, fish, herbs and spices, bread, and other baked goods, Ms. Lewis shares her secrets for getting the best outof food: combining tomatoes with cymling squash, pumpkins with onion and bacon, cooking sweet potatoes with lemon, and boiling corn in its husk. She always keeps abit of country ham around to perk up greens, cooks fish fillets or chicken breastsin parchment, and braises meat in a clay pot to keep it moist. Her baking recipes, for the griddle and the oven, include tips on the right flour to use, how to makeyour own baking powder (to avoid the chemical taste), how to listen for signs that acake is done, and when to use frozen butter in a pie crust and when to use pure leaflard.
In Pursuit of Flavor brings generations ofcooking wisdom to today's kitchen.