Bon Appetit, Y'all : Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking

by Willis, Virginia

• ISBN13: 9781580088534
• ISBN10: 1580088538
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-30
• Publisher: Random House Inc

Summary

The daughter and granddaughter of consummate Southern cooks, Virginia Willis is also a classically trained French chef. These divergent influences come together splendidly inBon Appeacute;tit, Y'all, a modern Southern chef's passionate and utterly appealing homage to her culinary roots. Espousing a simple-is-best philosophy, Virginia uses the finest ingredients, concentrates on sound French technique, and lets the food shine in a style she calls "refined Southern cuisine." More than 200 approachable and consistently delicious recipes are arranged by chapter into starters and nibbles; salads and slaws; eggs and dairy; meat, fowl, and fish main dishes; sides; biscuits and breads; soups and stews; desserts; and sauces and preserves. Collected here are stylishly updated Southern and French classics (New SouthernChicken and Dumplings, Boeuf Bourgignonne), rib-sticking, old-timey favorites (Meme's Fried Okra, Angel Biscuits), and perfectly executed comfort food (Mama's Apple Pie, Fried Catfish Fingers with Country Reacute;moulade). Nearly 100 photographs bring to life both Virginia's food and the bounty of her native Georgia. You'll also find a wealth of tips and techniques from a skilled and innovative teacher, and the stories of a Southern girl steeped to her core in the food, kitchen lore, and unconditional hospitality of her culinary forebears on both sides of the Atlantic.Bon Appeacute;tit, Y'allis Virginia's way of saying, "Welcome to my Southern kitchen. Pull up a chair." Once you have tasted her food, you'll want to stay a good long while.

Author Biography

Virginia Willis is a French-trained chef, television producer, food stylist, cooking teacher, and food writer. Formerly Martha Stewart Living's kitchen manager, she now makes her home in Atlanta, Georgia.

THE AUTHOR SCOOP

Tell me a story that other people might not know about you.
People generally think I am a Southern lady, but I turn into a big old redneck at Atlanta Braves games

Have any good pet stories?
Our pets usually all have food names – we've had Butterbean and Peanut. Our cats are Earl Grey, Biscuit, and Smokey. Our recent rescue is a dog named Cricket. I wanted to name her Cracker, but that's somewhat of a derogatory term in the South, so we decided against it. We also have 3 chickens and since it's kind of country to have chickens in town, we named them Patsy, Tammy, and Loretty for the country music singers. (It's important to say Loretty, not Loretta, just like Doo called Loretta in A Coal Miner's Daughter.

Favorite cocktail?
I'm from Georgia; Bourbon and water.

Do you have a scar anywhere on your body? How did you get it?
I have more than one – the most interesting one is on my temple. We were fishing in the Gulf and a friend caught a sea catfish. Their barbs are poisonous, so he tried to flip the fish off the hook instead of touching the fish. Well, he did – right into my head. Since it was a head wound, it bled profusely. We were out on a little island and we had to get back to the dock to take me to the hospital. It was all fine, but could have been very serious. Another inch and I would have lost my eye. The funniest part is the doctor, of course, cleaned the wound, but a year later I found myself scratching the scar and a little piece of catfish barb came out!

What was your first job?
Making pizza @ Pizza Pronto. I also had to deliver pizza for a short period of time. Then once, I delivered a pizza in a sketchy area and a man followed me. I got back to the car, my heart beating, and he came up to the car and said, "I was worried about you; you don't need to come here by yourself. Go back to your store and tell your boss you won't do it." And, I did.

Table of Contents

Contents
 
Foreword by Nathalie Dupree  | vii   X   Introduction  | 1
 
chapter 1   Starters and Nibbles  | 5
chapter 2   Salads and Slaws  | 29
chapter 3   Eggs and Dairy  | 57
chapter 4   Pork, Beef, and Lamb  | 75
chapter 5   Gospel Birds and Game Birds  | 97
chapter 6   Fish and Shellfish  | 123
chapter 7   Grits, Rice, Pasta, and Potatoes  | 151
chapter 8   Vegetables  | 173
chapter 9   Biscuits, Rolls, and Breads  | 201
chapter 10   Soups and Stews  | 225
chapter 11   Desserts  | 247
chapter 12   Sauces, Condiments, Jams, Jellies, and Preserves  | 277
 
Sources  | 301   X   Acknowledgments  | 302   X   Index  | 304

Excerpts

Introduction
 
Rich in folklore and history, the cooking of the American South embodies all the glamour, grit, and heartbreak of Southern culture: the sad cruelty of slavery's influence; the joie de vivre of wealthy, well-bred, landed aristocracy; the romance of moonlight and magnolia; the sun-washed wholesomeness of family memories; a note or two of twisted Southern Gothic; fierce attachment to the land; and recently, a prideful sense of place, with chefs boldly championing local, artisanal, and heirloom products and vegetables.
 
My part in the old and complex story of Southern food began in my grandmother's country kitchen, with its walls made of heart-of-Georgia pine. My maternal grandmother, Emily Louise Wingate Baston, whom I called Meme, was the daughter of a farmer, a true Southern lady, and a wonderful cook. Born in 1907, she grew up near Hephzibah, Georgia. From the time I was in a high chair to when I was a grown woman pulling up a chair to her kitchen table, I loved to hear her stories of milking cows and making butter and cheese, filling a root cellar, killing hogs in the fall, and curing hams in the smokehouse.
 
Meme graduated from Young Harris College in 1927, a somewhat unusual feat for a woman of her time in the rural South. Her diploma, a real sheepskin, has hung in the dining room of our family home for as long as I can remember. She met my grandfather at a fish fry on the Savannah River; they were married for almost 65 years, until he passed away. Meme was the president of the Evans Extension Homemakers Club and was famous for pound cake (see page 266); fried chicken; light, buttery yeast rolls; old-fashioned butter beans; turnip and mustard greens with salty, smoky pot liquor; and homemade jams and jellies. Many of these recipes are still scribbled in her handwriting directly on the wooden interior of her kitchen cupboard--a sight that can leave me breathless and even move me to tears.
 
My mother, Virginia, and her siblings grew up being fed from that same heart-of-pine kitchen that came to mean so much to me. The family raised chickens and cows, though they stopped milking the cows when one surly beast kicked my grandmother (they packed the freezer with beef instead!). Meme served grits every morning for breakfast and Mama said she filled the plates to the rim. The school bus would pull up at the end of the long driveway and my grandmother would make it wait until all the plates were clean. No one, including the Columbia County Board of Education, argued with Meme.
 
In the 1960s, Mama and Meme both watched Julia Child's first television series and religiously tried the recipes the following week. Years later, I was the grade school child who took leftovercrêpes aux champignonsandroulade au pouletto school for lunch. I hated it then, but now see in my mother's explorations the roots of my own passion for food. When I was three years old, my family moved to Louisiana and Mama discovered Cajun recipes, often preparing Red Beans and Rice (page 160), Crawfish Étouffée (page 130), and Shrimp Creole (page 131). So Mama's repertoire covers all the Southern classics that she learned from Meme, but also includes Quail in Red Wine Sauce (page 119), various gumbos (page 132), and French Butter Cookies (page 260).
 
A love of fresh, home-cooked food and a tradition of unconditional hospitality have always been guiding values in my family--I see them as a testimony to our Southern heritage. I spent much of my childhood in the kitchen with Meme and Mama, absorbing those values and acquiring skills I would later develop into a profession. There are photos of me as young as four in Meme's kitchen, standing on a chair making biscuits, or sitting on the counter with my feet in the cool steel sink, shelling butter beans. From the age of ten I used to sell birthday cakes to the neighborhood moms for their children.

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Excerpted from Bon Appetit, Y'all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking by Virginia Willis
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