Sunday Revival, the event of the year, when Edna's mother would pack up as many as fifteen dishes (what with her pickles and breads and pies) to be spread out on linen-covered picnic tables under the church's shady oaks. pan-fried chicken, sage-flavored pork tenderloin, spicy baked tomatoes, corn pudding, fresh blackberry cobbler, and more, for hungry neighbors on Wheat-Threshing Day. The feasts of summergarden-ripe vegetables and fruits relished at the peak of flavor. the treat of braised mutton after sheepshearing. a ring mold of chicken with wild mushroom sauce. The fresh taste of springthe first shad, wild mushrooms, garden strawberries, field greens and salads. With menus for the four seasons, she shares the ways her family prepared and enjoyed food, savoring the delights of each special time of year: In recipes and reminiscences equally delicious, Edna Lewis celebrates the uniquely American country cooking she grew up with some fifty years ago in a small Virginia Piedmont farming community that had been settled by freed slaves.

Lewis has been an inspiration for generations of cooks and cookbook authors.

While we both grew up and matured amongst very different backgrounds, there's so much about her books that denote shared experience with anyone who grew up with a family garden, a close community, and a deep love of local ingredients and preparations. Much like an old friend, her books are refreshing, relaxing, and a quiet ode to the changing of the seasons. On those quiet Sunday mornings when the air is still crisp, but warm enough to have coffee on my front porch, I reach for Edna Lewis's books.

The taste of country cooking recipes