Showing posts with label south. Show all posts
Showing posts with label south. Show all posts

White Trash Cooking (Jargon) Review

White Trash Cooking (Jargon)
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I must confess that I resisted buying this cookbook for many years. I am an avid collector of American Regional and International cookbooks, but found the title of this book offensive. I assumed it was written to mock rural whites, a people I know to be hardworking, self-reliant, and decent. I was wrong about this one. This book actually celebrates these people and their cuisine, and is one of the very best traditional American cookbooks in print. Great recipes for fried chicken, catfish, hushpuppies, collard greens, Hoppin John, cornbread, and biscuits, as well as rabbit, squirrel, and yes, even possum. The book has a folksy humor throughout, and the recipes are authentic. Books like this become even more precious as this and other American regional cuisines disappear under a blanket of bland corporate burger chains, sub shops, and pizza joints. Incidentally, several recent medical studies have shown that rural Appalachians who consume this traditional fare are far healthier than those who embrace the modern suburban diet of chain restaurant food! If you have any interest in traditional American cooking, this book is a must-own.

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White Trash Cooking II: Recipes for Gatherins (Vol 2) Review

White Trash Cooking II: Recipes for Gatherins (Vol 2)
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For the record, "White Trash Cooking II" was originally published as "Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins" and although the order info says it is hardback, it is a spiral-bound soft cover. But no matter --- BUY IT!
I have the original "White Trash Cookbook" and this is more of the same. Anyone can cook like this and you don't need all those expensive, fancy herbs and spices. In fact, you don't need much more than salt and pepper. I sit and read these cookbooks like novels. They remind me of my simple roots and I feel like these people are my people. These books are portals to honest and simple times, people and food.

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From Oleen's Stuffed Pepper Slippers and Franceen's Good Ol' Meat to Mrs. Tooler Doolus's Oven Spaghetti and Bobbie's Lemon/Lime Jell-O Cake Supreme, Ernie Mickler has collected another whopping batch of the"most magnannygoshus” recipes of the Very Deepest South. Previously known as SINKIN SPELLS, HOT FLASHES, FITS AND CRAVINS, this collection has a new name and a new cover that calls to mind its best-selling brother, WHITE TRASH COOKING. Same good eatin', though. With color photographs by the author.

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Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City Review

Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City
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I liked this book because it made me examine some pre-concieved notions I had(have.) It took me several chapters to figure out the author's race and religion and my perceptions morphed during the exercise.
I used to live in New Orleans and my brother still does. He was there through Katrina and I was there less than 2 weeks after.
The book presents some of the most grievous episodes of post-Katrina NOLA--evacuees turned back on the Crescent City connection, the handling of state prisoners, the case of Abdulrahman Zeitoun and tries to extrapolate from them a theory of systematic oppression. I didn't quite buy it, but the author shines a light on some obvious problems in southern Louisiana.
As a lawyer who represents death penalty prisoners he has a clear bias against law enforcement and "the system." Every instance of authority paints the law enforcement officers in the worst possible light. I don't doubt that there are bad cops in New Orleans, but I worked with many noble selfless officers when I worked in the Emergnecy Rooms in Baton Rouge, Metairie and Bay St Louis, MS. Still, there's no defense for women pushing strollers to be forced back to the Superdome at shotgun point.
The book reads like a confession from the author who is trying to exorcise his survivor's guilt rather than an objective reflection on what happened. It is an interesting an compelling read, but it's only a few moments of one side of a very long story.


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Rising from Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered Review

Rising from Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered
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Rising from Katrina is a beautiful tribute to the very wonderful people of Mississippi and the horrendous ordeal they have been dealt. It is a story of hope and love, and a story of strength and faith. It is very well done and beautifully written. If you care about what has happened along the Gulf Coast and fear forgetting, buy this book. Kathleen Koch is a superb writer and she brings us into the world of the characters who are Mississippi, and I mean that in a very positive way. Thank you Ms Koch for giving your time and energy to help your hometown and for sharing this incredibly personal and powerful book with us.
A fan of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and all of her residents,
Kate

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Hurricane Katrina left Eddie Favre, the affable mayor of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, with nothing but the shirt and shorts he was wearing. State and local officials offered to send him pants, but Favre declined. ''Wearing long pants sends a signal that everything is okay,'' he insisted. ''And until such time as everything is okay here, I'll wear my shorts.''Even George W. Bush took notice. ''I arrive here at this important school and he's got short pants on,'' the president remarked during a visit nearly five months after the storm. ''Eddie, I like a man who sticks to his guns.''Those who read this moving story of the small town of Bay St. Louis and the Mississippi Gulf Coast will discover an entire region that did just that.The 2005 hurricane season was the most devastating in history. People from the Bahamas to Mexico to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida suffered a record 15 hurricanes, four of which reached Category 5 strength.Katrina was the costliest. Images from the Superdome and the rooftops of New Orleans are seared into the American consciousness.But few realize the Mississippi Gulf Coast was where Katrina hit full force and where the destruction was worst. Entire towns were reduced to shoulder-high rubble by the winds and the unprecedented 30-foot storm surge.Bay St. Louis was the former home of CNN correspondent Kathleen Koch. From her initial Katrina assignment in Alabama, Koch headed west in the storm's aftermath. The closer she got to her community, the more personal the story became. Old friends asked her to search for loved ones whose bodies would soon be found. She reported from the sites of once-beautiful homes--including her own--stripped to their concrete pads. Time and again, she heard residents pleas to spread the word about the dire needs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.Rising from Katrina is a story of the kindness of strangers, of minor miracles--and, above all, of how despite bureaucratic snarls and insurance battles a region rolled up its sleeves and rebuilt. It is also the story of a veteran reporter who, struggling to maintain her objectivity amid loss, traveled her own personal path from devastation to recovery.

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The Hurricanes: One High School Team's Homecoming After Katrina Review

The Hurricanes: One High School Team's Homecoming After Katrina
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I'll start out by saying that this is a good story. This book focuses on football, and the story of a team and teams coming together to rebuild their lives. It's a "rags-to-riches" tale that will surely one-day make a good movie, but it ignores the real tragedy that I was thinking about the entire time. What it doesn't focus on is the real tragedy of why rural Louisiana is dirt poor and uneducated. A year after Katrina, officials are proud to announce that the new sod is on the field, yet there is no school cafeteria. The scoreboard works, but there are not enough books to go around at school. More examples abound like this abound, but it is clear to me why communities like this will continue to decline as they focus more on their fleeting football success than on graduating educated kids from their high schools. A few of these kids will end up in college, and maybe one every few years will play pro ball, but 200 others will be poorly served by their lack of a decent education.

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