Bookshelf: Get to Grilling

Bury your nose, whet your appetite

Learn about Southern cuisine and grilling techniques with these cookbooks and chefs: Any Night Grilling by Paula Disbrowe and Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original.

Edna Lewis: University of North Carolina Press, 2018

While Edna Lewis may not be a household name in the way of her colleague Julia Child, the Virginia native shaped our understanding of Southern cuisine, particularly through her second cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking. By peppering her recipes with a personal narrative of her experiences and childhood memories—growing up in Freetown, established by emancipated slaves, where growing food was not only a source of sustenance, but also joy—she helped the nation understand the South’s complex culinary history. “What her life meant, and her influence on subsequent generations, has a new urgency at a time when the nation is looking again into the causes and effects of racism, and the history of the brutality laced through so much of the South she loved,” Kim Severson of the New York Times explains in the book’s foreword.

Divided into three parts, Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original seeks to unpack the complexities surrounding Lewis’ life through a series of impressions, interviews, and essays from those who encountered her during her lifetime, whether in person or only through her written work. In the first section, vignettes from notable voices including John T. Edge and Michael W. Twitty give a glimpse of who Lewis was through those she interacted with. A second section explores her contributions in a broader context, through lenses including the culinary world, racial exploration, and agricultural influence, along with her importance to the community of black professional chefs. Finally, musings and recipes from the likes of chefs Mashama Bailey and Vivian Howard explore the ways Lewis shaped the course of Southern food and how her legacy lives on today.

Any Night Grilling: Ten Speed Press, 2018

There comes a point each summer where the thought of turning on the oven sends Southerners scurrying from the kitchen. While the heat of the season hasn’t quite settled in yet, it’s never too early to brush up on your grilling skills, and the recipes in Any Night Grilling are a great place to start. Written by TLP contributor Paula Disbrowe in collaboration with the founders of online culinary community Food52, the book is geared toward those who want to incorporate the grill into their weeknight routine and escape the traps of long cook times and extravagant portion sizes (you’re probably not into cooking a whole hog on a Tuesday night). Aside from the occasional marinade, the meals are designed to be created from start to finish after the workday (which is exactly how Disbrowe tested them throughout the book’s development). A brief
introduction to charcoal versus gas grilling, proper fuels and tools to use, and the ideal way to build up the heat source serve to settle the nerves of even the most novice of backyard chefs. A quick cocktail section incorporates grilled fruits like pineapple and satsumas to start a meal off with a bang. Recipes range from the familiar, like grilled fish—though Disbrowe’s is topped with an earthy vinaigrette made from grilled fennel, onion, and radicchio—to the inventive, like a smoky eggplant dip served with charred pita and crispy octopus, poached in advance for tender texture. (Check out the Anatomy of a S’more chart at the back of the book to cap off a meal the right way.) Each section includes cooking tips for the best results, like when to season, when to rest, and which sauces and sides to pair with each protein.

Recipe: Basic Grilled Fish with Grilled Vegetable Vinaigrette

“The simple beauty of a lightly charred fresh catch needs little more than a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of salt, but I also love serving grilled fish with tomatillo salsa, sumac yogurt sauce, and this pleasingly bitter and herbaceous vinaigrette.”

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