The Taste of Country Cooking

“The empress of Southern cooking.” —The New Yorker

“An eloquent tribute to farm life, and the bonding power of food… . Essays, combined with simple yet elegant menus, transformed the way people looked at Southern cooking.” —NPR

“What Edna really teaches a cook is what you can’t find in a recipe. It’s respect. Respect for every ingredient. Respect for the recipe itself … It’s about reverence—an application of spiritual sincerity, faith, vulnerability, and humanity. And that’s the greatest gift she gives: a new way to think about the art of cooking.” —Alexander Smalls, Bon Appétit

“Lewis inspired the now-ubiquitous farm-to-table movement by championing the virtues of growing one’s own food and cooking with local, seasonal ingredients.” —The Washington Post

“The grand dame of Southern cooking.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Edna Lewis in the pantheon of American chefs.” —Food & Wine

“This book is my all-time favorite cookbook, always and forever. It’s such a seminal book for so many reasons. What has always felt so particular about this book was that no one else could have written it. It’s so tied to her experience, life, and voice. It appeals to her as a writer and a cook. I think it’s one of the most important cookbooks.” —Julia Turshen, Eater

“[A] masterpiece … widely hailed as one of the most important cookbooks of the twentieth century.” —Saveur

“One of the most influential figures in modern Southern cooking… . [A Taste of Country Cooking] is celebrated for its focus on the simplicity of Southern food and emphasis of farm-to-table eating.” —The New York Times

Edna Lewis was born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community founded after the Civil War by freed slaves (among them her grandfather) and for many years lived and cooked in New York City. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the inaugural James Beard Living Legend and Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Grande Dame des Dames d’Escoffier International, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Lifetime Achievement Award. Her books were inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame, and she was commemorated with a United States Postal Service postage stamp. Miss Lewis was also the author of The Edna Lewis Cookbook, In Pursuit of Flavor, and, with Scott Peacock, The Gift of Southern Cooking. She died in February 2006.

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