Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler's Journey through the Soul of the South

Selected Reading

281 Selected Reading I found these cookbooks very helpful in educating me about Delta foodways. Adaptations of some of their recipes appear throughout the book. Belzoni Garden Club. All Rolled Together. n.d. Charleston Arts and Revitalization Effort. Cooking with C.A.R.E.: A Collection of Recipes by Charleston Arts and Revitalization Effort. 2008. http://www.charlestonartscenter .com. Craig Claiborne’s Southern Cooking. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007. Delta Rice Promotions Committee. Between the Levees. 1994. Foose, Martha Hall. Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. Clarkson Potter, 2008. —. A Southerly Way. Clarkson Potter, 2011. Humphreys Academy Patrons. Festival Cookbook: A Collection of Favorite Recipes. 1983. Junior Auxiliary of Vicksburg. Ambrosia: A Deep-South Mixture of Homes, Recipes, and History. 1997; reprint, 2008. http://www.javicksburg.org. —. Vintage Vicksburg: A Collection of Recipes from the Junior Auxiliary of Vicksburg, Mississippi. 2008. http://www.javicksburg.org. The Junior League of Memphis. Heart and Soul: Stirring Recipes from Memphis. 1992. http://www.jlmemphis.org. Mellor, Ernie. Hog Wild: Just about Everything You Want to Know about Barbeque. 2002. http://www.hogwildbbq.com. North Sunflower pta. The Pick of the Crop: A Collection of Recipes. Drew, Miss., 1978. Reed, Julia. Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Reed, Keetha DePriest. Culinary Kudzu: Recollections and Recipes from Growing Up Southern. Inverness, Miss.: Pecan Street Press, 2002. Roughton, Evelyn, and Tony Roughton. Classic Catfish from the Crown at the Antique Mall. Memphis, Tenn.: Wimmer Books, 1993. http://www.thecrownrestaurant.com. St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. Bayou Cuisine: Its Tradition and Transition. 1970. Townsend, Melissa, ed. The Delta Magazine Cookbook: A Celebrated Collection of Recipes and Culinary Traditions from the Most Southern Place on Earth. Cleveland, Miss.: Coopwood, 2011. Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society. Moore Groceries. 2008. http://www .oldcourthouse.org. 282 Selected Reading ^ Woman’s Club of Itta Bena. Itta Bena’s Favorite Recipes. 1950. Woman’s Exchange of Memphis. Tea Room Treasures. 1996. http://www.womans-exchange.com. Women of St. George Eastern Orthodox Church. T’ai Bien: A Delicious Collection of Lebanese Recipes. 1988. Here are some of the books that helped me get my head around the Delta and its mindset, directly and indirectly. I have supplemented this list with a handful of others that come highly recommended from Delta scholars. For a more extensive list of recommendations, see www.blueshighway.org /nehbibliography.htm. And while you’re in the area, be sure to check out the regional selection at several destination-worthy bookstores: in Memphis, The Booksellers at Laurelwood (thebooksellersatlaurelwood.com) and Burke’s Book Store (burkesbooks.com); in Greenwood, Turnrow Books (www.turnrowbooks.com); in Vicksburg, Lorelei Books (www.loreleibooks.com); and—if you’re passing through Oxford—Square Books (www.squarebooks.com). Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. The story of how this epic disaster transformed the Delta way of life and altered the face of American society and politics. Blackwell, Unita, with JoAnne Pritchard Morris. Barefootin’: Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom. New York: Crown, 2006. A civil rights heroine’s journey from sharecropper to Freedom Fighter to Mississippi’s first black female mayor. Canonici, Paul. The Delta Italians: Their Pursuit of the Better Life and Their Struggle against Mosquitoes, Floods, and Prejudice. Madison, Miss.: P. V. Canonici, 2003. The story of how Italians came to be one of the Delta’s most influential ethnic groups. Cheseborough, Steve. Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of the Delta Blues. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001. A blues musician and scholar’s guidebook to blues sites with historical tidbits. Clay, Maude Schuyler. Delta Land. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999. Haunting black-and-white photographs of the Delta landscape, with an evocative introduction by Lewis Nordan. (His critically successful 1993 novel Wolf Whistle is based on the murder of Emmett Till.) Cobb, James C. The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. This comprehensive yet highly readable history of the Delta has become one of the most recommended books for anyone trying to grasp this complicated region. Delta Nonfiction and Fiction Selected Reading 283 Cohn, David L. Where I Was Born and Raised. Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin, 1948. The Greenville-born, Yale-educated journalist and lecturer (1894–1960) uses his...