South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations

Sean Brock's influence on American Southern cooking during the twenty-first century has been striking. Although he has not been alone in advocating the return to ingredient varieties that had fallen out of the Southern culinary lexicon, through talent and tenacity he has been one of the most prominent voices raised on their behalf. At the same time, he continues to ask how the cuisine might evolve. In South Brock offers 125 touchstone recipes for contemporary Southern cooking. These are serious recipes for serious cooks, with the style and sophistication to anchor the menu of a fine dining restaurant but a commitment to traditional flavors and components that make the food unmistakably Southern. If you're thinking that you have several very fine Southern cookbooks already, maybe even a copy of Brock's earlier book, Heritage, and you wonder whether South represents something fresh, whether it shows you anything about Southern food that you do not already know, allow us to illustrate just how Brock's creativity can surprise you:

• Smoked baby back ribs with benne bbq sauce
• Summer melon with country ham and grilled-honey black pepper vinaigrette
• Chicken breasts with peanut butter gravy
• Pork prime rib with mustard onions
• Spring lamb with rhubarb butter
• Crowder pea and hominy succotash
• Brown-butter cauliflower
• Asparagus ""capers""
• Ramp sauerkraut
• Crab-roe bottarga
• Elderberry dumplings with grapefruit crème anglaise
• Hickory-smoked ice cream

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.