The Taste of Country Cooking

The average cook pays $ 30.00 for a cookbook and is lucky to find 3, maybe 5 recipes in it she/he will add to her permanent collection of favourites. The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis is another kind of book. Although I may not ever use her recipes for corn bread or muffins I will remember in future that the secret to keeping them from sticking to the pan is to heat the fat that is used in the batter in the pan and pouring it on the batter from the smoking hot pan just before I bake then in the pan which is still sizzling hot. Most of us would not buy bacon with the rind--skin--of the pig still on it let alone fry it that way; but it is interesting to note that Edna's family did and finished it in a slow oven which make the rind crispy. But then her bacon was probably not the paper thin shaved product we pick up in the cello pack. Some cookbooks are for recipes, some are reference books on proper technique, and some few are read from cover to cover for the lore they contain. Edna Lewis' is one of the latter.