EBOOK
About
The Mississippi Delta is a complicated and fascinating place. Part travel guide, part cookbook, and part photo essay, Eat Drink Delta by veteran food journalist Susan Puckett (with photographs by Delta resident Langdon Clay) reveals a region shaped by slavery, civil rights, amazing wealth, abject deprivation, the Civil War, a flood of biblical proportions, and-above all-an overarching urge to get down and party with a full table and an open bar.
There's more to Delta dining than southern standards. Puckett uncovers the stories behind convenience stores where dill pickles marinate in Kool-Aid and diners where tabouli appears on plates with fried chicken. She celebrates the region's hot tamale makers who follow the time-honored techniques that inspired many a blues lyric. And she introduces us to a new crop of Delta chefs who brine chicken in sweet tea and top stone-ground Mississippi grits with local pond-raised prawns and tomato confit. The guide also provides a taste of events such as Belzoni's World Catfish Festival and Tunica's Wild Game Cook-Off and offers dozens of tested recipes, including the Memphis barbecue pizza beloved by Elvis and a lemon ice-box pie inspired by Tennessee Williams.
To William Faulkner's suggestion, "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi," Susan Puckett adds this advice: Go to the Delta with an open mind and an empty stomach. Make your way southward in a journey measured in meals, not miles.
There's more to Delta dining than southern standards. Puckett uncovers the stories behind convenience stores where dill pickles marinate in Kool-Aid and diners where tabouli appears on plates with fried chicken. She celebrates the region's hot tamale makers who follow the time-honored techniques that inspired many a blues lyric. And she introduces us to a new crop of Delta chefs who brine chicken in sweet tea and top stone-ground Mississippi grits with local pond-raised prawns and tomato confit. The guide also provides a taste of events such as Belzoni's World Catfish Festival and Tunica's Wild Game Cook-Off and offers dozens of tested recipes, including the Memphis barbecue pizza beloved by Elvis and a lemon ice-box pie inspired by Tennessee Williams.
To William Faulkner's suggestion, "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi," Susan Puckett adds this advice: Go to the Delta with an open mind and an empty stomach. Make your way southward in a journey measured in meals, not miles.
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Reviews
"Eat Drink Delta eloquently tells the story of the deepest south of the Deep South, the land where black and white can have sharp contrasts, and yet many of the food traditions are blended into a rich, smooth mélange, much like the soil itself. Puckett immerses the reader in a tale that shares how the dark, fertile soil of the Delta nurtures crops as well as American food and culture. The land tha
Virginia Willis, author of Bon Appetit, Y'all
"It's heartening to see a bold collection of poems like Rosa Lane's, remarkable for the inventive language and for a direct and natural representation of the lives of women passionately in love with women."
Mississippi Magazine
"This stomach-stretching tour of the Mississippi Delta by a former Atlanta Journal-Constitution food editor takes readers inside a region that boasts 'the most Southern food on earth'. . . . The volume's gritty, photojournalistic imagery is a welcome departure from the glossy, santized views we've come to expect from our guidebooks. The book profiles over 100 largely un-touristed eating establishm
Elizabeth Gunnison, Wall Street Journal