Slow Food: Flavors and Memories of America's Hometowns

An exploration of American regional cuisine visits twenty-four different locations in the United States to offer a glimpse at the people and lore of each region through their food, and includes recipes for dishes ranging from Long Island Lobster Potpie to Bear Stew.

From the dust jacket:
"Slow food is not so much food that's slow to cook as food that's worth waiting for. It bubbles and bakes, simmers and slowly soaks up flavors. It's for the family in all its forms..food that often comes fresh from the earth, and is eagerly anticipated with the seasons. Now, in what can only be called a cooks journey of discovery, chef and author Michael James offers you dozens of America's best hidden recipes as he takes you off the main highways into a rapidly disappearing part of the U.S.- the farmlands, one-gas station towns, and hamlets that still treasure regional dishes often passed from generation to generation.

In these pages you'll bicycle down the Kentucky back roads with Sam Matheny past black walnut trees and dairy farms before enjoying jellied pork salad and caramelized black walnut pie. You'll meet a California mountain woman who never could stand the cold of the North Yuba River, but loved its brook trout with mushrooms for breakfast. You'll watch an Oklahoma woman bake pies in a wood oven and taste Grandma McNutt's wild persimmon pudding in Indiana.And you'll pray to the Salmon Spirit on an Indian reservation in Washington State as its denizens offer you two bear stew recipes- one that serves six to eight people and one for four thousand.

You'll hear some wonderful stories. Hilda Hensley, Patsy Cline's mother, tells you how she managed to sneak her Virginia-style chicken salad to Patsy when she was laid up in a hospital with a strictly vegetarian menu. In Oklahoma, Billy Cross recollects how a woman nicknamed Queen Esther; the most majestic woman he had ever seen, laid out a sumptuous feast of fried pheasant on snow white linen, and poured out straight shots of homemade applejack whiskey and black coflee as accompaniments.

From Aunt Agnes's Hush Puppies to Dot's Seafood Gumbo, from Gagi's Waffles with Huckleberries to Carrots á la Sidecar, Slow Food offers you warm memories and cherished meals.… platters and platters of "slow food" as delightful and varied as the places and people from which they came."