“Mazy paths of rivers meander and by disposition I do the same,” says Martha Hall Foose at the beginning of her newest cookbook, A Southerly Course: Recipes and Stories from Close to Home. The book is an interesting ramble through Foose’s culinary repertoire, foods local to Mississippi (including game, crawdads, and Premium Number One Beauregard sweet potatoes), sweet personal stories, regional photographs, and practical advice (such as using an angel food cake pan to stabilize an ear of corn when cutting off the kernals). The vintage textiles and glassware featured in some of the photographs are an added visual treat.
Foose won the James Beard Award for her first cookbook, Screen Doors & Sweet Tea. The current book follows Foose’s stint as food stylist (wonderful job title!) for the movie The Help. Watching the scene in which Celia presents a traditional Southern feast to Minny, who has taught her cooking and so much more, we knew as the camera panned the old-fashioned table that someone who really knew that food and loved it had shown the film makers how it’s done and how it’s dished up.
Like Katherine Stockett, author of The Help, Foose is from Mississippi. Her culinary credentials are numerous. According to her website, she’s presently on tour promoting A Southerly Course.
I loved this book from the minute I opened it, even though I hate to cook and am not good at it. But I can imagine some of these dishes, and I remember many.
While there are some recipes I wouldn’t touch (no Oysters Casino, Chicken Liver Spread, Rabbit Terrine, or Pickled Crawfish Tails for me), the stories, photographs, and charming little side notes Foose pairs with them are entertaining anyway.
The stout of stomach will appreciate even the recipe for Burgundy Duck, with its accompanying article about The Swamp Witches, six Mississippi women who have lots of guns, retrievers, and Barbour clothes, and have formed a sort of sorority of flying bullets and dead ducks. (More information about and photos of them are here). While I really like their hats and firearms, I won’t be making (or shooting the main ingredient for) Burgundy Duck, either.
And eating the chocolate chiffon pie might not be the same, after The Help.
But I’m tempted by the simpler recipes for comfort foods: Rum Tum Tiddy (a pan dish involving pecans, cheese, tomato sauce, and okra); Soda Crackers; Salsify Bisque; Peanut Slaw; Satsuma Tarts; and Gardener’s Pie.
My book-buying rule is that for every book that comes in, two must go out. Even with that stricture, I may have to get my own copy of A Southerly Course (less than $20 for the hardback on Amazon.com).
