The Taste of Country Cooking: 50th Anniversary Edition: A Cookbook

The most beloved Southern cookbook of all time: a glorious celebration of seasonal eating that has shaped generations of home cooks, from "the first lady of Southern cooking" (NPR). Beautifully repackaged and redesigned, with a new foreword by Toni Tipton-Martin.

"A classic, showing Americans the bounty of Southern cuisine and influencing generations." --Melissa Clark, The New York Times

"Indispensable . . . An inspiration to all of us who are striving to protect both biodiversity and cultural diversity by cooking real food in season and honoring our heritage through the ritual of the table." --Alice Waters, James Beard award-winning chef and founder/owner of Chez Panisse

With the publication of The Taste of Country Cooking in 1976, Edna Lewis proclaimed the food of the American South one of the world's great cuisines. From the field greens and salads of spring; pan-fried chicken and crushed peaches in summer; preserves and sweet potatoes for fall; and hearty soups and stews during the cold winter months, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) extolled the vir­tues of the good food of her childhood, spent in a Virginia farming community founded by her grandfather and his friends after Emancipation.

A celebration of eating locally--decades before "farm to table" became common parlance--the book showcases the joys of cooking with the seasons.

The 150 accessible recipes in its pages include:
-Baked Virginia Ham, Buttered Jerusalem Artichokes, and Rhubarb Pie in Spring
-Green Tomato Preserves, Wilted Lettuce with Hot Vinegar Dressing, and Fresh Blackberry Cobbler in Summer
-Crispy Biscuits, Green Bean Salad with Sliced Tomatoes, and Country-Fried Apples in Fall
-Oyster Stew, Pan-Braised Spareribs, and Coconut Layer Cake in Winter

An affirmation of a distinctly American way of eating, fifty years after its publica­tion, The Taste of Country Cooking remains the definitive book on Southern food.

Author: Edna Lewis
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 05/05/2026
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.89lbs
Size: 9.07h x 7.18w x 1.19d
ISBN: 9780593804957

About the Author

Edna Lewis was born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community founded after the Civil War by freed slaves (among them her grandfather) and for many years lived and cooked in New York City. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the inaugural James Beard Living Legend and Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Grande Dame des Dames d'Escoffier International, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Lifetime Achievement Award. Her books were inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame, and she was commemorated with a United States Postal Service postage stamp. Miss Lewis was also the author of The Edna Lewis Cookbook, In Pursuit of Flavor, and, with Scott Peacock, The Gift of Southern Cooking. She died in February 2006.