Jean Anderson - From a Southern Oven: The Savories, The Sweets

Copyright 2012 by Jean Anderson. All rights reserved.

Cover image by Jason Wyche

Cover design by Jeff Faust

Interior design by Waterbury Publications

Photography copyright 2012 by Jason Wyche

Food styling by Mariana Velsquez

Prop styling by Martha Bernabe

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Jean

From a southern oven: the savories, the sweets / Jean Anderson; photography by Jason Wyche

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-06775-8 (cloth) 978-1-118-30941-4 (ebk); 978-1-118-30943-8 (ebk); 978-1-118-30945-2 (ebk)

1. Baking. 2. Cooking, American--Southern style. 3. Cookbooks. I. Title.

TX765.A55 2012

641.5975--dc23

2011046756

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my Southern friends and colleagues who have taught me so much over the years and continue to do so

Also by Jean Anderson

The Doubleday Cookbook * (with Elaine Hanna)

The Family Circle Cookbook (with the Food Editors of Family Circle )

Half a Can of Tomato Paste & Other Culinary Dilemmas ** (with Ruth Buchan)

The New Doubleday Cookbook (with Elaine Hanna)

The Food of Portugal ***

The New German Cookbook (with Hedy Wrz)

The American Century Cookbook

The Good Morning America Cut the Calories Cookbook (co-edited with Sara Moulton)

Dinners in a Dish or a Dash

Process This! ****

Quick Loaves

A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections *****

Falling Off the Bone

* Winner, R.T. French Tastemaker Award, Best Basic Cookbook (1975) and Best Cookbook of the Year (1975)

** Winner, Seagram/International Association of Culinary Professionals Award, Best Specialty Cookbook of the Year (1980)

*** Winner, Seagram/International Association of Culinary Professionals Award, Best Foreign Cookbook of the Year (1986)

**** Winner, James Beard Cookbook Awards, Best Cookbook, Tools & Techniques Category (2003)

***** Winner, James Beard Cookbook Awards, Best Cookbook, Americana Category (2008)

Acknowledgments

I should like to thank, first and foremost, good friends and colleagues Joanne Lamb Hayes, Kemp Minifie, and Alexis Touchet for a huge assist with recipe testing and development. They are thorough-going pros with years of experience as New York food editors and recipe developers in the test kitchens of Gourmet , Family Circle , and Country Living . Ive worked with dozens of food pros over the years and know none more knowledgeable, more cooperative, more imaginative, or more dedicated than these three.

In addition, Id like to thank Damon Lee Fowler, Babs Highfill, Robert Holmes, Sally Belk King, Rebecca Lang, Debbie Moose, Moreton Neal, Kathi Purvis, Maria Harrison Reuge, Bill Smith, Jr., Chip Smith, Tina Vaughan, and Jim Villas (Southerners all) for letting me pick their brains. And special thanks to my niece Kim Anderson for gathering and pureing wild persimmons, then sharing what shed frozen for my recipe tests.

A salute, moreover, to new friend Fran McCullough, for years a primo New York cookbook editor who now lives just up the road in Hillsborough, NC, and whose ongoing pursuit of and passion for Southern food have intensified my own. Grateful thanks also go to former New York magazine editor and colleague Lynne Whiteley Novy, computer software wizard who not only solved the riddle of tangled recipe formats but also proofed mountains of page proof spotting errors my less-than-eagle eyes had missed.

Finally, thanks to David Black, my savvy, energetic agent who found the perfect home for this book; and to my hard-working, hands-on Wiley editor, Justin Schwartz, for his wisdom, guidance, and support.

Introduction

My mother welcomed me into her kitchen as soon as I could toddle. And by the time I was four, she had taught me how to sift flour, measure sugar, andthrill!separate eggs.

But the biggest thrill came when I was allowed to solo for the first time. The recipe I chose was my Grandmother Johnsons Soft Ginger Cake, an old family recipe that Mother remembered from her own childhood.

On the big day, Mother was there to get me started. We set the oven at 375F, greased the pan, measured the ingredients, and lined them up in the order that they were to be used. Something I do to this day.

Then with Mother off to join my father outside, I was on my ownfearless and eager to improvise. Why not, I thought, add nuts to the batter? Why not do cupcakes instead of a loaf? Why not shove the oven temperature way up? That way, I reasoned, the gingerbread would be ready to eat twice as fast.