The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie--Kca Pbk

A generous and delicious sampling (more than 200 recipes) of the cooking of Florida, along with an entertaining excurison into the land where the story of American food began and where today one can find the most interesting culinary diversity in the U.S.A. Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart take us through all six areas of Florida: the Northeast (for Oyster Roasts, Smoked Beans, Peanut Butter Pie); the Panhandle (Shrimp Stuffed Eggplant, Cheese Grits, Blackberry Dumplings); the Space Coast, Gold Coast, and the Keys (Conch Salad, Broiled Yellowtail with Orange Butter); the Big Bend and the Sun Coast (Crab Boil, Calabaza Salad, Rum Spanish Flan with Caramelized Oranges); Central Florida (Smothered Rabbit, Greens with Corn Meal Dumplings); and Florida's Great Lake (Frog's Legs, Hoppin' John, Fresh Banana Layer Cake). Anyone who loves good food will welcome the delightful fare to be found in these pages. And Floridians--newcomers, old-timers, and those just passing through--will discover a wealth of information about where and how to enjoy the riches of land and sea. With more than 65 photographs and illustrations

About the Author :
Jeanne Voltz was born in Collinsville, Alabama. She was for many years the food editor at "Woman's Day" magazine, and she edited the food pages at the "Los Angeles Times" and the "Miami Herald." She is the author of several cookbooks, including "The Flavor of the South and Barbecued Ribs, Smoked Butts, and Other Great Feeds"--which is also part of the Knopf Cooks American series--is a six-time winner of the Vesta Award for newspaper food editing and writing and has also won numerous other feature and food writing awards. Mrs. Voltz lives with her husband in Pittsboro, North Carolina, where she is a food consultant, writer, and free-lance editor. Caroline Stuart is a third-generation Floridian whose family settled in the central part of the state in the 1870s. She spent her childhood on a ranch where her father grew citrus and raised cattle. She graduated from the University of Alabama and began her career as a caterer. She then worked for several years with James Beard as his assistant and is now a member of the executive board of the" James Beard Foundation." Mrs. Stuart is a contributing editor and restaurant critic for "Hudson Valley "magazine, as well as a freelance writer and cooking teacher. She lives with her husband, John Brainard, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and has two sons.

Review :
More than 450 years ago, Florida became the cradle of American cooking as we know it now, the place where European foods were first blended with the foodways of Native Americans. The great mix was set in motion in 1513, when Ponce de Leon staked a claim for Spain near Ponte Vedra. The exchange of multicultural food customs has never ceased, creating a cuisine of more ethnic diversity than any in America, and possibly in the world.... It was the founding of St. Augustine in 1565 and, two years later, the Nombre de Dios mission that introduced European cooking to the new continent. Franciscans traveling the mission trail to Pensacola were making egg custards in the Spanish manner and using rice and spices unknown then in the Western world, and settlers in Florida were eating in the Spanish style long before Father Junipero Serra, the culinary trailblazer in the West, founded the first mission in California. However, two powerful influences moderated the Spanish flavor of Florida. First, there were the people of African heritage. A small number of Moors and Africans came as free persons with the Conquistadors, then thousands were brought here as slaves, starting in the middle of the sixteenth century. The blacks carried with them sesame seeds, yams, eggplants, and okra, for their own use. The second influential non-Spanish group was the Anglo-Americans descendants of settlers in New England, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who began to trickle into Florida before the American Revolution. They brought sweets, a taste for rice cooked differently from the Spanish, and quick hot breads. Not until the Spanish migrations to Key West and Tampa after the Civil War did European-type wheat breads come into general use, except in Pensacola, where a unique hardtack was made for the salad called gaspachee. "From the Hardcover edition."