American Home Cooking: Over 300 Spirited Recipes Celebrating Our Rich Tradition of Home Cooking - Softcover

A breakfast that includes fresh pie is indeed a meal to enjoy. Authors Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison assure us in American Home Cooking that pie for breakfast was standard American fare in the days before Corn Flakes and Cap'n Crunch. The home cook at the turn of the last century was faced with seemingly overwhelming reasons to abandon the traditional cooking of her progenitors--ease and speed of packaged foods, the barrage of advertising, and mounting health concerns among them.

"The amazing thing is not what we lost in this period," the authors write, "but what survived.... In every corner of the country cooks refused to give up their most cherished regional and ethnic dishes. They may have reserved them for special occasions, or may have altered them in some ways for convenience or health purposes, but they kept the heritage alive for future generations."

And at the turn of another century where we are besieged by even more advertising, more foods built around speed and ease, and more health concerns, Jamison and Jamison have compiled a book of recipes that gives us the flavor of where have come from as Americans and who we are. This is not a unique concept. But where so many books that have preceded American Home Cooking have been rife with recipes for dishes you'd rather never serve, let alone taste, Jamison and Jamison have let delectability be their bellwether.

Serve your hungry the likes of Georgia Bits and Grits Waffles for breakfast, as well as a slice of Apple-Cranberry Pie. Perhaps a Brown Oyster Stew with Benne for lunch, accompanied by an Oregon Hot Crab and Cheddar Sandwich. There's Crawfish Etouffée to consider, as well as Willamette Valley Grilled Chicken with Blackberry Sauce. Check out the Chicken-Fried Steak, and the directions for making your own fresh lard, ye of nonsqueamish nature. When you get to the Broccoli-Rice Casserole and the recipe for Wilted Greens with Hot Bacon Dressing, you're only halfway through the book. Potato and bean dishes are yet to come, as well as sweet and sour pantry goodies, breads and rolls, those great pies and cobblers, and cookies and cakes. It's all here, ending with a mint julep. --Schuyler Ingle

Nothing says American like American home cooking.  From a steaming bowl of New England Clam Chowder, to Tucson Chimichangas, to Door County Sour Cherry Pie, these are the dishes that form the soul of our collective culinary heritage.  And these are the recipes that bestselling, award-winning authors Cheryl and Bill Jamison serve up right here--in American Home Cooking.

In a lively and lucid style that appeals to both novice and experienced cooks, the Jamisons invite you to sample a coast-to-coast feast of more than 300 recipes straight from the heart of America's own home cooking tradition.  To the degree that we are what we eat, the dishes are us, a vibrant expression of our national spirit that's as full of robust flavor as the food of any land.

Cheryl and Bill speak with authoritative passion on the home-grown culinary tradition.  They visited family cheese crafters in Wisconsin, over-nighted with Pennsylvania Dutch farmers between market days, and picked up techniques for frying catfish from the first African American catfish farmer in Mississippi.  They talked with a vendor of live poultry in Providence's Little Italy over the din of squawking chickens and quacking ducks and barbecued a whole hog one night and day with a jolly and generous gang of rice farmers from Arkansas.  They ate warm fig cake on Okracoke Island and chilled Dungeness crab freshly pulled from Oregon waters.

American Home Cooking features the best home cooking the Jamisons found, with outstanding recipes for classic favorites like meat loaf, scalloped potatoes, iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing, sticky buns, angel food cake, and lemon meringue pie.  Regional dishes with coast-to-coast appeal include Tidewater Peanut Soup, Kansas City Sugar-and-Spice Spareribs, Pennsylvania Dutch Noodles with Corn and Tomatoes, Maui Mango Bread, and Catahoula Sweet Dough Pies.  You'll also relish recipes for intriguing local treasures like Louisville Benedictine, Iowa Skinny, and Miles Standish--all sandwiches.

Exquisite color photographs illustrate the dishes, and sidebars celebrate our nation's food fancies, from peanut butter to po'boys, and memorable cooks, from Lydia Marie Child to Julia Child.  Destined to become a culinary classic, this sweeping collection offers delicious ideas for every meal and occasion, every day of the year.  Bring the best of America's home cooking tradition into your home with American Home Cooking.