Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners by Matt Lee, Ted Lee

From the Publisher

From the New York Times food writers who defended lard and demystified gumbo comes a collection of exceptional southern recipes for everyday cooks. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook tells the story of the brothers' culinary coming-of-age in Charleston-how they triumphed over their northern roots and learned to cook southern without a southern grandmother. Here are recipes for classics like Fried Chicken, Crab Cakes, and Pecan Pie, as well as little-known preparations such as St. Cecilia Punch, Pickled Peaches, and Shrimp Burgers. Others bear the hallmark of the brothers' resourceful cooking style-simple, sophisticated dishes like Blackened Potato Salad, Saigon Hoppin' John, and Buttermilk-Sweet Potato Pie that usher southern cooking into the twenty-first century without losing sight of its roots. With helpful sourcing and substitution tips, this is a practical and personal guide that will have readers cooking southern tonight, wherever they live.

Publishers Weekly

With respect for the past and an enlightened, modern sensibility, the Lee brothers roll up their sleeves and get elbow-deep in Southern cooking in all its sugary, fried goodness. The authors grew up in Charleston, S.C., where they developed a love for boiled peanuts, shrimp and grits, and she-crab soup. Now New Yorkers (and co-proprietors of a mail-order source for Southern pantry staples), the brothers are aware that certain Southern foods have quite a reputation elsewhere in the country ("grits run a close second to lard as the longest-running joke about southern food, perceived by the uninitiated to be a curiosity rather than what they are: a pillar of southern cooking"). As a result, their approach to the cuisine is steeped in research and never snobby. Many recipes are coded "quick knockout," meaning they use just a few ingredients and can be prepared relatively quickly (Fried Oysters, Shrimp Burgers). More involved recipes (Lady Baltimore Cake; Kentucky Burgoo, a meat stew) come with fascinating asides on their origins. Classy, matter-of-fact and welcoming, this volume deserves a permanent place on cooks' shelves by day and on bedside tables by night, as a browsable primer on a world and its food. Photos, line drawings. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Lees, frequent contributors to the New York Times, Food & Wine, and Travel & Leisure, are the owners of a mail-order business called the Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalog. Their catalog, and ensuing career as food writers, had a somewhat unlikely start: recently transplanted from Charleston, SC, and homesick for the particularly Southern treat of boiled raw peanuts, the brothers cooked up a big batch in their tiny kitchen on the Lower East Side of New York City and then tried to market them. Eventually, the Times food section ran a note about the peanuts, and their mail-order business was born. They now travel all over the South seeking out regional specialties and writing about their experiences. Once they began developing recipes to go along with their finds, they started playing around with, or rediscovering, other favorite Southern dishes, e.g., Cheese-Grits Chiles Rellenos with Roasted Tomato Gravy and Clover Peach Fried Pies. The brothers are good storytellers, and their cookbook is as entertaining as it is informative. Highly recommended. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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