John Martin Taylor

John Martin Taylor ("Hoppin' John") is the author of Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking (Bantam,1992; 20th Anniversary edition, UNC Press, 2012); The New Southern Cook (Bantam,1995); Hoppin' John's Charleston, Beaufort & Savannah (Clarkson Potter, 1997); and The Fearless Frying Cookbook (Workman, 1997). His work has appeared in journals and reviews in both Europe and the United States, including The New York Times, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Fine Cooking, The Journal of Gastronomy, Gastronomica, Bon Appétit, Country Home, Cooking Light and The Washington Post. He is the former food editor of the French-language magazine Ici New York. He has spoken at museums and conferences throughout the country and appeared on both regional and national television and radio. John has lived in the Caribbean, France, Italy, Bulgaria, and China, and is practiced in the cuisines and customs of not only his southern homeland but also of Liguria, France, the Balkans, and the African diaspora. He is the owner of HoppinJohns.com, a culinary website and mail-order business that grew out of his internationally renowned Charleston bookstore and cooking school, Hoppin' John'sâ, which he opened in 1986. In 1999, John closed the shop to concentrate on consulting, writing, and the website. His popular blog, HoppinJohns.net, has 6000 regular readers. A founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, he is considered a leading authority on the culinary history of the South and the expert on the cooking of lowcountry, the coastal plain that surrounds Charleston and Savannah. Gourmet has said that “no man deserves more credit for Charleston's culinary resurgence than John Martin Taylor, author of the exhilarating Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking." Charleston Magazine named John one of the city's Top 100 Most Influential people in its 337-year history: "Before Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking was published in 1992, Charleston cuisine was unfocused. Thanks to Taylor, we took pride in our produce, seafood, biscuits, and sweet tea. And foodies of the world agreed." He currently splits his time between Savannah, Georgia, and Washington, DC.