Edna Lewis: At The Table With An American Original At The Table With An American Original

Edna Lewis (1916-2006) wrote some of America's most resonant, lyrical, and significant cookbooks, including the now classic The Taste of Country Cooking. Lewis cooked and wrote as a means to explore her memories of childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, a community first founded by black families freed from slavery. With such observations as "we would gather wild honey from the hollow of oak trees to go with the hot biscuits and pick wild strawberries to go with the heavy cream," she commemorated the seasonal richness of southern food. After living many years in New York City, where she became a chef and a political activist, she returned to the South and continued to write. Her reputation as a trailblazer in the revival of regional cooking and as a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement continues to grow. In this first-ever critical appreciation of Lewis's work, food-world stars gather to reveal their own encounters with Edna Lewis. Together they penetrate the mythology around Lewis and illuminate her legacy for a new generation. The essayists are Annemarie Ahearn, Mashama Bailey, Scott Alves Barton, Patricia E. Clark, Nathalie Dupree, John T. Edge, Megan Elias, John T. Hill (who provides iconic photographs of Lewis), Vivian Howard, Lily Kelting, Francis Lam, Jane Lear, Deborah Madison, Kim Severson, Ruth Lewis Smith, Toni Tipton-Martin, Michael W. Twitty, Alice Waters, Kevin West, Susan Rebecca White, Caroline Randall Williams, and Joe Yonan. Editor Sara B. Franklin provides an illuminating introduction to Lewis, and the volume closes graciously with afterwords by Lewis's sister, Ruth Lewis Smith, and niece, Nina Williams-Mbengue. Edna Lewis (1916-2006) wrote some of America's most resonant, lyrical, and significant cookbooks, including the now classic The Taste of Country Cooking . Lewis cooked and wrote as a means to explore her memories of childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, a community first founded by black families freed from slavery, and to commemorate the seasonal richness of southern food, articulating the moments when "we would gather wild honey from the hollow of oak trees to go with the hot biscuits and pick wild strawberries to go with the heavy cream." After living many years in New York City, where she became a chef and a political activist, she returned to the South and continued to write. Her reputation as a trailblazer in the revival of regional cooking and as a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement continues to grow. I n this first-ever critical appreciation of Lewis's work, food-world stars gather to reveal their own encounters with Edna Lewis. Together they penetrate the mythology around Lewis and illuminate her legacy for a new generation. The essayists are Annemarie Ahearn, Mashama Bailey, Scott Alves Barton, Patricia E. Clark, Natalie Dupree, John T. Edge, Megan Elias, John T. Hill (who provides iconic photographs of Lewis), Vivian Howard, Lily Kelting, Francis Lam, Jane Lear, Deborah Madison, Kim Severson, Ruth Lewis Smith, Toni Tipton-Martin, Michael W. Twitty, Alice Waters, Kevin West, Susan Rebecca White, Carolina Randall Williams, and Joe Yonan. Editor Sara B. Franklin provides an illuminating introduction to Lewis, and the volume closes graciously with afterwords by Lewis's sister, Ruth Lewis Smith, and niece, Nina Williams-Mbengue What is Southern?: the annotated Edna Lewis / Jane Lear Polished / Joe Yonan A message from my muse / Toni Tipton-Martin Lunch with Miss Lewis / Deborah Madison Paying down debts of pleasure / John T. Edge On Edna Lewis / Alice Waters Edna Lewis and the black roots of American cooking / Francis Lam On Edna Lewis's The Edna Lewis cookbook / Susan Rebecca White How to talk about Miss Lewis?: home cook, writer, icon: one young black woman's act of remembering / Caroline Randall Williams Eu tenho um p'na cozinha: put(ting) your foot in it / Scott Alves Barton Edna Lewis: African American cultural historian / Megan Elias The African Virginian roots of Edna Lewis / Michael W. Twitty Edna Lewis: selected portraits / John T. Hill Edna Lewis and the melancholia of country cooking / Lily Kelting Looking for Edna / Patricia E. Clark I had, of course, heard about her: an interview with Nathalie Dupree, April 14, 2016 / Sara B. Franklin It's not all fried chicken and greasy greens / Mashama Bailey Building an appetite: seasonal reflections on the farm / Annemarie Ahearn The wisdom in the pages / Vivian Howard Their ideas do live on for us: Edna Lewis, my grandmother, and the continuities of a Southern preserving tradition / Kevin West A family remembers / Ruth Lewis Smith and Nina Williams-Mbengue. Edna Lewis (1916-2006) wrote some of America's most resonant, lyrical, and significant cookbooks, including the now classic The Taste of Country Cooking . Lewis cooked and wrote as a means to explore her memories of childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, a community first founded by black families freed from slavery, and to commemorate the seasonal richness of southern food, articulating the moments when "we would gather wild honey from the hollow of oak trees to go with the hot biscuits and pick wild strawberries to go with the heavy cream." After living many years in New York City, where she became a chef and a political activist, she returned to the South and continued to write. Her reputation as a trailblazer in the revival of regional cooking and as a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement continues to grow. In this first-ever critical appreciation of Lewis's work, a constellation of food world stars gather to reveal their own encounters with Edna Lewis. Together... "Edna Lewis (1916-2006) wrote some of America's most resonant, evocative, and significant cookbooks ever, including the now classic The Taste of Country Cooking. Lewis cooked and wrote first as a means to explore her memories of childhood on a farm in Freetown, Virginia, a community originally founded by freed black families. Later, she wrote to commemorate and document the seasonal richness of southern foodways ... She moved from the rural South to New York City, where she became a chef and a political activist, and eventually returned to the South. Her reputation as a trailblazer in the revival of regional cooking and as a progenitor of the farm-to-table movement only continues to burgeon."-- Provided by publisher