This image is the cover for the book Irresistible History of Southern Food, American Palate

Irresistible History of Southern Food, American Palate

Fried chicken, rice and gravy, sweet potatoes, collard greens and spoon bread - all good old fashioned, down-home southern foods, right?�

Wrong. The fried chicken and collard greens are African, the rice is from Madagascar, the sweet potatoes came to Virginia from the Peruvian Andes via Spain, and the spoon bread is a marriage of Native American corn with the French souffl� technique thought up by skilled African American cooks.

Food historian Rick McDaniel takes 150 of the South's best-loved and most delicious recipes and tells how to make them and the history behind them. From fried chicken to gumbo to Robert E. Lee Cake, it's a history lesson that will make your mouth water.

What southerners today consider traditional southern cooking was really one of the world's first international cuisines, a m�lange of European, Native American and African foods and influences brought together to form one of the world's most unique and recognizable cuisines.

Rick McDaniel

Rick McDaniel is a food historian, culinary anthropologist and author who specializes in the food of the American South with a particular interest in the Federal and Antebellum periods. He is the author of�An Irresistible History of Southern Food�(History Press, 2011).

The History Press