The book's fifty-six recipes invariably highlight and maximize that beloved bacon factor, so appreciated throughout the South and beyond (by Thompson's count, fifty different styles of bacon exist worldwide).

Robust and delicious, beans and field peas have graced the tables of southerners for generations, making daily appearances on vegetable plates, sideboards, and lunch counters throughout the region.

Andrea Weigl defines the year by her canning sessions.

Ham's 55 recipes bring home the love in just about every way—brine- or dry-cured, smoked or not, boiled, baked, glazed, honey-baked and spiral cut, thin-sliced and piled into biscuits and sandwiches, fried up with eggs, with grits, with ...

Embracing but going well beyond the classics--from Sweet Potato Pone and Candied Sweet Potatoes to Sweet Potato Chiles Rellenos and Sweet Potato-Ginger Cremes Caramels--McGreger's creations will delight and satisfy with their deliciousness ...

" Attributing her own love of this American nut to the state of her birth--Georgia is the nation's leader in growing pecans--and to the happy fact that her mother "hardly made a cookie, candy, or pan of Sunday dressing without them," ...

With Okra, Virginia Willis provides "the key that unlocks the door of okra desire" to okra addicts and newcomers to the pod alike.

This book will put southerners in touch with their heritage and let those who aren't southerners pretend that they are.

Did you know that bourbon must be made in America and aged for at least two years in new American oak barrels that are charred on the inside?

Greens--collard, turnip, mustard, and more--are a defining staple of southern food culture.