Sorghum's Savor
Ronni Lundy
"Lundy invites you to sit at the table with a good hot biscuit and some buttery sorghum syrup and meet the people who grow it, make it, and even the chefs who have discovered it. For me and other people who grew up in the Appalachians, the stories offer a taste of home."--Belinda Ellis, author of Biscuits
"Infuses the sorghum artisan's pride into each recipe, providing a taste of cooking with heritage."--James Baier, executive secretary, National Sweet Sorghum Producers & Processors Association
"Everyone who appreciates the storied intersection of food and culture deserves to savor this book. The recipes are a combination of reliable favorites and brilliant innovations."--Sheri Castle, author of The Southern Living Community Cookbook
"Whether offering authentic hill country classics or twenty-first-century novelties, Lundy's recipes and meditations explore the full range of sorghum's flavorsome possibilities. She reveals the affinities of sorghum with New Mexico's red chiles and West Indian ginger, citrus, and cardamom, as well as its long-cherished harmony with cornbread, buttermilk, sweet potatoes, and bacon."--David S. Shields, author of Southern Provisions
"Lundy not only showcases the rich history of sorghum, she goes deeper, showing how much southern chefs truly value the history and traditions of where we come from."--Travis Milton, chef de cuisine, Comfort Restaurant (Richmond, VA)
"Sorghum has been a culinary fixture for half of my life, but this book explains its significance, its community, its lore, and its place so eloquently that I feel remiss in not discovering it even sooner. In a world of rapid loss of rural food staples, Sorghum's Savor implores us to pay attention."--Hugh Acheson, author of A New Turn in the South
"With the confidence bred in her Kentucky bones, and with an intellect honed through wide travels and studies, Lundy gives sorghum its long delayed due in this smart and lyrical book."--John T. Edge, coeditor of The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South
"A celebration of one of the unsung essentials of the Southern table. Resonating of warm earth and soft summer nights, of hearth fires and crisp mountain autumns, Lundy's voice is one of the most lucid and lovely in all of southern food writing."--Damon Lee Fowler, author of Essentials of Southern Cooking
Recently rediscovered by progressive chefs across the nation, sorghum is prized for its distinct umami taste--a blend of sweet and savory with a hint of nutty tang. The lingering complexity of sorghum makes it the perfect "secret ingredient" to enhance and deepen the flavors of such innovative modern dishes as Chef Dustin Staggers's Monkey Wrench Skillet Fried Chicken and Chef John Fleer's Long Sweetening Sorbet.
Yet sorghum is no secret to southern home kitchens. While sorghum is an Old World grass that resembles corn and is cultivated and used as a grain in most of the world, the cane varieties were cultivated, processed and used as syrup only in North America, particularly in the South where it has been a staple in baked goods, confections, glazes, and dressings since before the Civil War. In Sorghum's Savor, Ronni Lundy showcases the endless possibilities of this unique ingredient, as well as the reasons why it has long been cherished in the South.
Ronni Lundy has been a frequent contributor to Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Esquire. She is the author of eight books, including Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken and Cornbread Nation 3: Foods of the Mountain South.
- Sample Chapter(s):
- Table of Contents
- Press Kit
- Excerpt
Lundy unlocks the mysteries of this subtle and splendid cousin of the sugarcane.
--NancieMcDermott.com
Not only gives us the history of sorghum but also includes a wealth of recipes.
--Appalachian Heritage
An equally deep look at the lengthy history of this versatile Appalachian staple, which can lend bittersweet base notes to everything from biscuits and cocktails to curries and salads.
--Garden and Gun
Ideal for anyone interested in replacing sugar in their diet with a natural sweetener, anyone that grew up on sorghum and wants more of it back in their life, or truly anyone that loves cooking and is looking for ways to expand on their ingredient offerings and culinary repertoire.
--Small Measure (blog)
Transported [me] back in time. Back to my childhood in Kentucky. Back to the breakfast table where I smooshed and swirled butter and sorghum together before smearing it on a hot biscuit my mom had just taken from the oven.
--Eat. Drink. Smile. (blog)
Lundy’s knowledge of sorghum carries the weight of nearly 64 years, intertwined with warm kitchen memories of eating freshly baked biscuits swiped in the amber syrup.
--Asheville Citizen-Times
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of eating a biscuit slathered with sorghum and butter, all you need is Ronni Lundy to share her childhood recollections of the sweet syrup to bring you back to that place and that flavor.
--Knoxville News Sentinel
A corrective work, this collection makes a cogent contribution to modernist studies. . . .Recommended.
--Choice
Lundy takes us on a culinary journey and explores this old-time southern sweetener in depth.
--Bakepedia
[Lundy] shows off this amber liquid’s buttery and textural qualities to its best advantage.
--Bakepedia
Full of information and wit and appetite-inspiring recipes—the type of cookbook that you want to read cover to cover.
--Nothing in the House
Sorghum’s Savor takes the reader on a lyrical journey through recipes compatible with the cane adopted by the South when the Civil War restricted the flow of sugar.
--Courier-Journal
Lundy gives people’s personal stories and describes sorghum festivals as well as giving recipes.
--Compendium Newsletter
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