Product Description

In this definitive cookbook, Ronni Lundy draws upon her Kentucky mountain roots and on the recipes and food passions of the fellow Southerners--from home cooks to a new generation of professional chefs--she has met in her extensive regional travels. Lundy cooks her way through the bounty of the Southern garden, from succulent purple speckled butter beans and lady cream peas to corn and greens, muscadines, Georgia peaches, figs, mayhaws, and watermelon. Her mouthwatering recipes include Crawfish Corn Cakes with Smoked Tomato Sauce, Warm Green Bean and Tommy-Toe Salad, Watermelon Salsa, Blackberry Cobbler, and Bourbon-Apricot-Cherry Stack Cake. She visits farm markets and festivals, finds heirloom-seed growers, and provides mail-order sources for everything from sweet-potato chips and old-fashioned whole heart grits to fiery-orange Honey Bells. Butter Beans to Blackberries is also a great guide for food-conscious visitors to a South that is rediscovering its culinary heritage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1169602 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A captivating paean to dishes made with vegetables and fruits harvested from Kentucky to Florida, from Maryland to Texas, the latest by Lundy (Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken) is packed with more than 150 recipes and a string of colorful yarns that recall her three-year, 13-state effort to seek out Southern culinary customs. Yankees will encounter a roster of unfamiliar ingredientsAshoepeg corn, poke, calamondinAand Southerners will be reminded of food that has comforted generations of ancestors. Recipes are as homey as Hoppin' John and its lesser-known relative, Limpin' Susan Edisto, which counts okra among its components, and as interpretive as Middle Eastern Ratty-Too (the family favorite ratatouille) and New South Moussaka, made with broiled eggplant slices but without b?chamel sauce. Lundy asserts that Skillet Corn (creamed) is preferable to corn on the cob and explains how to "milk" the fresh cob to collect all the juice for that side dish; True Grits require old-fashioned, stone-ground white corn grits. Although bacon drippings are a feature in Real Cornbread and Fried Green Tomatoes with Cream Gravy, Lundy doesn't go overboard with fats. This warming fare will induce a homesickness for the SouthAeven in those who don't whistle "Dixie."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Fried chicken and biscuits aside, the Kentucky-bred Lundy writes that what Southerners are really passionate about are their native fruits and vegetables, from butter beans and crowder peas to peaches, scuppernongs, and those blackberries. Most of these get their own chapter here. In addition to mouthwatering recipes from both home cooksincluding many of Lundys own family favoritesand chefs, there are dozens of boxes about, for example, the Lee Brothers, who will ship five-pound gunnysacks of boiled peanuts to homesick Southerners and others; colorful descriptions of farmers markets, festivals, and events like the St. George Rolling in the Grits Contest; and Road Notes about the people and places Lundy has visited on tasting trips throughout the South. The author of The Festive Table (LJ 9/15/95), Lundy writes well and enthusiastically, and her latest book is both thoroughly researched and delightful. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Southern cooking enjoys a renaissance, especially among those with roots below the Mason-Dixon Line. Its emphasis on vegetables such as beans and okra makes it seem healthy by contemporary measures, but its dependence on animal fats for flavor moves it in another direction. Lundy mixes reminiscences about her southern upbringing with dozens of recipes that reflect the best in southern cooking traditions, updated to make them accessible to modern cooks. Her Frogmore soup gets its richness from buttermilk rather than cream, and buttermilk's tang nicely points up the shrimp brininess. Reading Lundy on the glories of peach ice cream makes one want to rush out and buy an ice cream freezer. Among the rambling essays, Lundy's Arkansas encounter with author Crescent Dragonwagon stands out. A worthwhile addition to any modern cooking collection. Mark Knoblauch

Customer Reviews

This is a fun read. Good stories AND great recipes!
The recipes in "Butterbeans to Blackberries" are good enough to make bona-fide vegetable haters ask for a second helping, but this cookbook is so much more than a compilation of tasty recipes. Lundy is a Southerner who not only loves cooking and knows all those hidden secrets of Southern cooks, but she weaves the recipes around the unique people who make the South a special place. Her stories of the characters she runs into are every bit as delicious as the recipes. She's an authentic and fresh voice out of the South and her next move should be a novel of some of those characters (with a few new recipes thrown in for good measure!)

Very interesting and full of good basic recipes
I really enjoyed this book and a variety of recipes found in this book. The author added stories that were amusing and made you want to read this book from cover to cover. Having a husband that drives long distance truck, the resturant referrals were great and have proven to be accurate!

Wonderful stories -- and great food too - the real South
This is the first book of Ronni Lundy's that I read and it inspired me to find and buy all the rest of her books. If you have Southern roots or know anyone who has, the stories and recipes will be even more meaningful to you. The South produces some of the best vegetables in the country and Southerners of all races have been developing ways to best showcase them. Buy this book for the recipes but keep it for the stories too.