The Blue Diamond Heritage Cookbook

Over 200 of the best regional recipes are presented in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, so users can sample the food they love and learn the secrets and skills of preparing authentic regional treats. 800+ full-color photos.

Food is a significant part of our daily lives and can be one of the most telling records of a time and place. Our meals—from what we eat, to how we prepare it, to how we consume it—illuminate our culture and history. As a result, cookbooks present a unique opportunity to analyze changing foodways and can yield surprising discoveries about society's tastes and priorities. In Kentucky's Cookbook Heritage, John van Willigen explores the state's history through its changing food culture, beginning with Lettice Bryan's The Kentucky Housewife (originally published in 1839). Considered one of the earliest regional cookbooks, The Kentucky Housewife includes pre–Civil War recipes intended for use by a household staff instead of an individual cook, along with instructions for serving the family. Van Willigen also shares the story of the original Aunt Jemima—the advertising persona of Nancy Green, born in Montgomery County, Kentucky—who was one of many African American voices in Kentucky culinary history. Kentucky's Cookbook Heritage is a journey through the history of the commonwealth, showcasing the shifting priorities and innovations of the times. Analyzing the historical importance of a wide range of publications, from the nonprofit and charity cookbooks that flourished at the end of the twentieth century to the contemporary cookbook that emphasizes local ingredients, van Willigen provides a valuable perspective on the state's social history.

Finalist for the IACP Cookbook Award in Baking and the James Beard Foundation Book Award in Baking and Desserts Named a Best Cookbook of the Year by Bon Appétit, NPR, Washington Post, Epicurious, WBUR Here & Now, and Five Books Named a Best Cookbook of the Spring by Eater, Epicurious, and Robb Report The key to better, healthier baked goods is in the grain. Barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, and wheat will unlock flavors and textures as vast as the historic lineages of these ancient crops. As the head baker and owner of a beloved Los Angeles bakery, Roxana Jullapat knows the difference local, sustainable flour can make: brown rice flour lightens up a cake, rustic rye adds unexpected chewiness to a bagel, and ground toasted oats enrich doughnuts. Her bakery, Friends & Family, works with dedicated farmers and millers around the country to source and incorporate the eight mother grains in every sweet, bread, or salad on the menu. In her debut cookbook, Roxana shares her greatest hits, over 90 recipes for reinventing your favorite cakes, cookies, pies, breads, and more. Her chocolate chip cookie recipe can be made with any of the eight mother grains, each flour yielding a distinct snap, crunch, or chew. Her mouthwatering buckwheat pancake can reinvent itself with grainier cornmeal. One-bowl recipes such as Barley Pumpkin Bread and Spelt Blueberry Muffins will yield fast rewards, while her Cardamom Buns and Halvah Croissants are expertly laid out to grow a home baker’s skills. Recipes are organized by grain to ensure you get the most out of every purchase. Roxana even includes savory recipes for whole grain salads made with sorghum, Kamut or freekeh, or easy warm dishes such as Farro alla Pilota, Toasted Barley Soup, or Gallo Pinto which pays homage to her Costa Rican upbringing. Sunny step-by-step photos, a sourcing guide, storage tips, and notes on each grain’s history round out this comprehensive cookbook. Perfect for beginner bakers and pastry pros alike, Mother Grains proves that whole grains are the secret to making any recipe so much more than the sum of its parts.

The very notion of comfort food could have begun in the farm kitchen, with its rich aromas of bubbling stew and apple pie, its stock of fresh eggs and butter and bacon, its warming custard on a cold winters night or cool spoonful of home-churned ice cream on a steaming Fourth of July. Culled from the pages of The Farmers Wife, the beloved magazine published and pored over throughout Americas heartland for forty-six years, the recipes in this cookbook allow today's cook to recreate all the comforting tastes of the farm kitchen--and to create new memories of food that means home. With straightforward directions and wholesome ingredients to suit the busiest farm wife--or twenty-first-century cook--these hearty soups, casseroles, roasts, pot pies, desserts, and refreshing beverages conjure all the sweet and savory comforts of country cooking at its best.Here’s a sampling of the recipes you’ll find inside: • Mammy’s Corn Bread • Clam Chowder • Deviled Eggs • Macaroni and Cheese • French Stew • Chili Con Carne • Boston Baked Beans • Pot Pie • Escalloped Tuna and Peas • Southern Fried Chicken • Fried Green Tomatoes • Rhubarb Brown Betty • Flapper’s Pudding • Ginger Ale

"In Philadelphia during the first decades of the nineteenth century, Mrs. Elizabeth Goodfellow ran a popular bakery and sweet shop. In addition to catering to Philadelphia's wealthy families and a reputation of making the finest desserts in the young country, her business stood out from every other establishment in another way: she ran a small school to teach the art of cooking, the first of its kind in America. Despite her notoriety--references to her cooking as a benchmark abound in the literature of the period--we know very little about who she was. Since she did not keep a journal and never published any of her recipes, we have to rely on her students, most notably Eliza Leslie, who fortunately recorded many of Goodfellow's creations and techniques. Mrs. Goodfellow is known for making the first lemon meringue pie and for popularizing regional foods, such as Indian (corn) meal. Through old recipe books, advertisements, letters, diaries, genealogical records, and other primary sources, "Mrs. Goodfellow: the story of America's first cooking school" provides a more complete portrait of this influential figure in cooking history."--Back cover

Says author DeWald: "Cooking, like love, must be shared. This isn't a recipe collection. It is a history-of-life cookbook" -- the result of over thirty years of exploring the culinary scene of the cooking fires of Arizona.