We love this book. First published in 1942, Cross Creek Cookery was compiled by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at the request of readers who wanted to recreate the luscious meals described in Cross Creek, her famous memoir of life in a Florida hamlet.

Lovers of old-fashioned, down-home cooking will treasure the recipes for grits, hushpuppies (one of Florida's great contributions to the national cuisine), Florida Fried Fish, Orange Fluff, and Utterly Deadly Southern Pecan Pie. For more adventuresome palates, there are such unusual dishes as Minorcan Gopher Stew, Coot Surprise, Alligator Tail Steak, Mayhaw Jelly, and Chef Huston's Cream of Peanut Soup.

Spiced with delightful anecdotes and lore, Cross Creek Cookery guides the reader through the rich culinary heritage of the deep tidal South with a loving regard for the rituals of cooking and eating. Anyone who longs for food––and writing––that warms the heart will find ample portions of both in this classic cookbook.

This is the classic book on Southern cooking. On a personal note, I've spent a good deal of time at Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's home at Cross Creek. For a while, I'd go there each year for a now-defunct writers' workshop called "Writing the Region." It's a lovely place, rustic yet elegant, and it's easy to imagine the suppers that Marjorie would host there, most of them rich with heavy cream and butter. Marjorie's dairy cow was called Dora, and you'll read about Dora in the pages of this book. My favorite lines in the book are about that cow: "I mentioned to my friend Edith that I was doing a practical Cross Creek Cookery. She said, with a trace of bitterness, 'You should give away a Jersey cow with every copy of the book.'"

Softcover, 230 pages. 1996 edition of the 1942 text. To get the full experience, you'll want to get a copy of Cross Creek, too.