Martha Hall Foose
Books
Screen Doors and Sweet Tea
Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook
2009 winner of the
James Beard Award for American Cooking
2009 winner of the
Southern Independent Booksellers Award
Pub by Clarkson Potter, (256p) ISBN 978-0-307-35140-1
Gifted chef and storyteller Martha Hall Foose invites you into her kitchen to share recipes that bring alive the landscape, people, and traditions that make Southern cuisine an American favorite.
Born and raised in Mississippi, Foose cooks Southern food with a contemporary flair: Sweet Potato Soup is enhanced with coconut milk and curry powder; Blackberry Limeade gets a lift from a secret ingredient—cardamom; and her much-ballyhooed Sweet Tea Pie combines two great Southern staples—sweet tea and pie, of course—to make one phenomenal signature dessert. The more than 150 original recipes are not only full of flavor, but also rich with local color and characters. Foose crafts recipes that are the perfect combination of delicious, creative, and accessible. Filled with humorous and touching tales as well as useful information on ingredients, techniques, storage, shortcuts, variations, and substitutions, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea is a must-have for the American home cook—and a must-read for anyone who craves a return to what cooking is all about: comfort, company, and good eating.
A Southerly Course
Recipes and Stories From Close To Home
New for spring 2011
Pub by Clarkson Potter, (256p) ISBN 978-0-307-46428-6
It takes a clever food writer to transcend the mythology and easy stereotypes of a place, and this collection of recipes and essays is a colorful, nuanced exploration of Mississippi eating. Following up her James Beard Award–winning Screen Doors and Sweet Tea, writer and chef Foose celebrates the "eccentricity, ingenuity, and creativity" of Southern cooking as she personally has experienced it. Yes, there are the usual suspects, like pimento cheese, crawfish, corn and peaches. But there will be many quirky surprises for non-Southern readers—Rum Tum Tiddly, or tomato-and-cheese toasts, doe loin with winter biscuits, and mirliton or chayote squash stuffed with ham, shrimp, and breadcrumbs.
Foose, who got her culinary degree in France, also dabbles in the international influences that have inspired her, with recipes for a Mississippi Masala-style peas and paneer and Korean grilled green onions. Finally, there are her own inventive concoctions like sweet and sour salsify and Delicata brown butter crepes. Offering meditations on subjects like congealed salads and family china, Foose has all the savvy of a local tour guide, leading the way through her native state with poetry and wit.
