Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston and the Carolina Coastal Plain
A "sandlapper" from the South Carolina Lowcountry -- a 10,000-square-mile coastal region extending from Pawleys Island to the Savannah River and encompassing Charleston -- John Martin Taylor is the region's culinary preservationist, combining local ingredients with traditional recipes.
Some of the Lowcountry's most notable native dishes include Shrimp & Grits, Oyster Sausages, Sweet Potato Pie, Sweet Watermelon Pickles and Crawfish Gumbo. In this book, Taylor serves up more than 150 contemporary and traditional dishes thick with Lowcountry flavor.
Many of the recipes in this collection have historical antecedents, which Taylor shares in his introductions. "Traditionally, catsups were added to other sauces and dishes to season and finish them, not served as the sauce itself," he explains in the preface to Port-Scented Tomato Catsup.
"The Carolina Housewife of 1847 includes recipes for catsups made from walnuts and mushrooms as well as tomato, wisely recommending that the cook add 'the best port wine' to each bottle of tomato catsup. Port adds an intriguing roundness of flavor that the commercial brans try, unsuccessfullly, to achieve with sugar."
Thick with stories and culinary traditions studied over many years, Taylor's regional cookbook masterfully captures the taste of the place as only a native son could have achieved.
