Everybody has one in their collection. You know—one of those old, spiral- or plastic-tooth-bound cookbooks sold to support a high school marching band, a church, or the local chapter of the Junior League. These recipe collections reflect, with unimpeachable authenticity, the dishes that define communities: chicken and dumplings, macaroni and cheese, chess pie. When the Southern Foodways Alliance began curating a cookbook, it was to these spiral-bound, sauce-splattered pages that they turned for their model.

Including more than 170 tested recipes, this cookbook is a true reflection of southern foodways and the people, regardless of residence or birthplace, who claim this food as their own. Traditional and adapted, fancy and unapologetically plain, these recipes are powerful expressions of collective identity. There is something from—and something for—everyone. The recipes and the stories that accompany them came from academics, writers, catfish farmers, ham curers, attorneys, toqued chefs, and people who just like to cook—spiritual Southerners of myriad ethnicities, origins, and culinary skill levels.

Edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge, written, collaboratively, by Sheri Castle, Timothy C. Davis, April McGreger, Angie Mosier, and Fred Sauceman, the book is divided into chapters that represent the region’s iconic foods: Gravy, Garden Goods, Roots, Greens, Rice, Grist, Yardbird, Pig, The Hook, The Hunt, Put Up, and Cane. Therein you’ll find recipes for pimento cheese, country ham with redeye gravy, tomato pie, oyster stew, gumbo z’herbes, and apple stack cake. You’ll learn traditional ways of preserving green beans, and you’ll come to love refried black-eyed peas.

Are you hungry yet?

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

Contributions by: Hugh Acheson, Sheri Castle, David Cecelski, Georgeanna Milam Chapman, Craig Claiborne, Nathalie Dupree, Lolis Eric Elie, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, Damon Fowler, Nikki Giovanni, Jessica B. Harris, Linton Hopkins, Mary Lasseter, Edward Lee, Ted Lee, Donald Link, April McGreger, Angie Mosier, Susan Puckett, Sara Roahen, Lee Smith, Robb Walsh, Virginia Willis, Joe York, Dale Abadie, Jean Anderson, Ben Averitt, Ben Barker, Karen Barker, Scott Barton, Billy Bayley, Allan Benton, Bill Best, Vishwesh Bhatt, Marcelle Bienvenu, Fritz Blank, Pauline P. Bridgforth, Sean Brock, Gayle Brooks, Eliza Brown, Walter Bundy, Richard Bunn, Ora Lee Butler, Erin Caricofe, Johnnie Carr, Kathy Cary, Ann Cashion, Margaret P. Cashion, Madge Castle, Bryan Caswell, Natalie Chanin, Leah Chase, Carol Copeland, Shirley Corriher, Diana Cottier, Mildred Council, John Coykendall, Amy Crockett, John Currence, Carol Darden, Norma Jean Darden, Sally Davenport, Nan Davis, Eula Mae Doré, Stephen Palmer Dowdney, Crescent Dragonwagon, Jason Edwards, Belinda Ellis, Rick Ellis, Corbin Evans, Eli Evans, Mary Beverly Evans, Pam Eversmeyer, John Fleer, John Folse, Martha Foose, Kenneth Ford, Sara Foster, Fred Fussell, Sara Gibbs, Jim Gossen, Flavius B. Hall, Melissa Booth Hall, Ashley Hansen, J.C. Hardaway, Chris Hastings, Thomas Head, Eddie Hernandez, Blair Hobbs, Beckett Howorth, Dan Huntley, Bret Jennings, Sonya Jones, Elizabeth Karmel, Lionel Key, Joyce King, Jimmy Koikos, Nicky Koikos, David Lasseter, Mike Lata, Phoebe Lawless, Austin Leslie, Dana Logsdon, Ronni Lundy, John Malik, Dean McCord, Rick McDaniel, Nancie McDermott, Robby Melvin, Alexander Mitchell, Debbie Moose, Gene Morris, Jennie Sue Murphree, Walter Murphree, Bill Neal, Cynthia LeJeune Nobles, Sarah O'Kelley, Louis Osteen, Mary Margaret Pack, Peter Patout, Tim Patridge, Scott Peacock, Bob Perry, Audrey Petty, Floyd Poche, Margaret Propst, Paul Prudhomme, Billy Reid, Kay Rentschler, Todd Richards, Jared Richardson, Lee Richardson, Cappy Ricks, Ann Garner Riddle, Grace Riley, Glenn Roberts, Clinton Robinson, Ray Robinson, Tom Sasser, Steven Satterfield, Jill Sauceman, Lynne Sawicki, Patty Schnatter, James Schroeder, Francine Wolfe Schwartz, Ed Scott, Jamie Shannon, Jim Shirley, Beth Shortt, LaRou Shouse, Bill Smith, Bill Smith, Ken Smith, Greg Sonnier, Susan Spicer, Martha Stamps, Kathy Starr, Robert Stehling, Frank Stitt, Chuck Subra, John Martin Taylor, Sarah Thomas, Poppy Tooker, Miguel Torres, Celeste Uzee, Vance Vaucresson, Julie Vaucresson, Ari Weinzwieg, Hal White, Liz Williams, Horace Randall Williams, Alex Young, Matthew Lee, Amy Evans