This book has stellar ratings, and is heavily marked down. I know that there are Southern recipes in it--150 to be exact (no, I didn't count them myself--it says so on the cover). Fine. I bought the ebook.
What I am confused about is whether or not the recipes are Florida recipes or general Southern recipes. The word "Cracker" keeps being thrown around. In the book description, it appears that whoever wrote it is using "Cracker" synonymously with "Southerner." In point of fact, "Cracker" refers only to a Floridian--originally to one of a particular group of Floridians many years ago, and now accomodatively of any Floridian or perhaps just Florida natives. A little more reading in the book hopefully will clear up the mystery. Whether it's general Southern food or Florida food, though, I'm glad to have this cookbook.
The Cracker Kitchen: A Cookbook in Celebration of Cornbread-Fed, Down Home Family Stories and Cuisine. By Janis Owens. Rated 4.8 stars, from 37 reviews at the present moment. Print list price N/A; digital list(?) price $16.99; Kindle price now
$3.99. Scribner, publisher. 305 pages.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracker-Kitche...FB3R9NP5ZK4TXX.
Book Description
Though our roots are in the Colonial South, we Crackers are essentially just another American fusion culture, and our table and our stories are constantly expanding -- nearly as fast as our waistlines. We aren't ashamed of either, and we're always delighted with the prospect of company: someone to feed and make laugh, to listen to our hundred thousand stories of food and family and our long American past.
Crackers, rednecks, hillbillies, and country boys have long been the brunt of many jokes, yet this old Southern culture is a rich and vibrant part of American history. In The Cracker Kitchen
, Janis Owens traces the root of the word Cracker back to its origins in Shakespeare's Elizabethan England -- when it meant braggart or big shot -- through its proliferation in America, where it became a derogatory term to describe poor and working-class Southerners. This compelling anthropological exploration peels back the historic misconceptions connected with the word to reveal a breed of proud, fiercely independent Americans with a deep love of their families, their country, their stories, and, most important, their food.
With 150 recipes from over twenty different seasonal menus, The Cracker Kitchen
offers a full year's worth of eating and rejoicing: from spring's Easter Dinner -- which includes recipes for Easter Ham, Green Bean Bundles, and, of course, Cracklin' Cornbread -- to summer's Fish Frys, fall's Tailgate Parties, and winter's In Celebration of Soul, honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
Recounted in Owens's delightful and hilarious voice, the family legends accompanying each of these menus leap off the page. We meet Uncle Kelly, the Prince of the Funny Funeral Story, who has family and friends howling with laughter at otherwise solemn occasions. We spend a morning with Janis and her friends at a Christmas Cookie Brunch as they bake delectable gifts for everyone on their holiday lists. And Janis's own father donates his famous fundamentalist biscuit recipe; truly a foretaste of glory divine.
The Cracker Kitchen
is a charming, irresistible celebration of family, storytelling, and good old-fashioned eating sure to appeal to anyone with an appreciation of Americana.