For our third season of As We Eat, we are exploring some of favorites themes - empowerment, community & celebration, identity, and more - as seen through the lens of the cookbook. We are starting with The Taste a Country Cooking by Chef Edna Lewis, a book that is both a personal favorite and a masterpiece meditation on the value of approaching food, cooking, and eating with seasonality and locality in mind and in heart.
A Brief Biography of Chef Edna Lewis
Edna Regina Lewis was born in a small, unincorporated community called Freetown, Virginia in 1916. Starting in 1865, the community formed from a group of emancipated slaves - Edna’s grandfather Chester Lewis among them - who built houses and planted orchards on acreage ceded to them by a former master. Life in Freetown was full of farming, fishing, and foraging, but the work was made sweeter in that the people owned the fruits of their own labor. One of eight children, Edna lived in Freetown until she was 16.
Part of the Great Migration, Edna headed north first to Washington, DC and then to New York. In the Big Apple, she gave renowned dinner parties where she earned her reputation as an excellent cook. These dinner parties brought her to her first restaurant with the opportunity to cook at Café Nicholson for her friend Johnny Nicholson starting in 1948. The restaurant drew bohemians and artistic luminaries like William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, and Diana Vreeland who gathered regularly for Edna’s simple Southern-inspired dishes.
Creating The Taste of Country Cooking
Some years later, and while recovering from a broken ankle, Edna agreed to work on a cookbook with her friend Evangeline Peterson, a socialite, on a book of Edna’s recipes called “The Edna Lewis Cookbook.” That manuscript was about to be published when Evangeline and Edna first met Knopf editor Judith Jones - the woman behind the publication and success of Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
Jones saw the potential for Edna’s unique voice and vibrant personality to bring attention to American cooking, but although the tone of “The Edna Lewis Cookbook” was fashionable, it ultimately lacked Edna’s spark.
Jones convinced Edna to refocus on telling her truth about food, and Edna responded by returning to her roots in Freetown with an elegant, heartfelt meditation on the importance and value of approaching food, cooking, and eating with intention and mindfulness.
The 1976 “The Taste of Country Cooking” is a beautiful tribute to Edna’s personal food philosophy and her memory of cooking alongside her family. She writes with great clarity about both common and special moments in their lives - from churning butter to the family’s seasonal hog butchering.
The book is divided into four seasons - each section full of menus, recipes, and Edna’s short stories that bring vivid color to her memories. She lived a unique life as a young person - one that isn’t likely to ever be repeated - and yet this book allows the reader the opportunity to try a few steps in Edna’s shoes.
Why Seasonality and Locality Matter
I grew up in a metropolitan area of Southern California where every grocery store was full of produce carefully formed and harvested to be shelf perfect and to ripen just after purchase. It was an embarrassment of riches - any number of seasonal fruits and vegetables available 24/7 all year around - that lacked true flavor. It was food divorced from its season and its ideal growing location, and this is the food from which I first developed my palate and my personal foodways.
Like many, I didn’t think about where my food came from, or why I ate the foods and meals that I made until Edna’s words suggested that perhaps I spend some effort contemplating the rationale of buying summer vegetables in the middle of winter.
“The Taste of Country Cooking” challenges me to reconsider whether the foods that I eat and the ways that I cook create food that is good for my body, mind, AND soul. As someone who travels a great deal for work and pleasure, I often find myself feeling deeply disconnected to the community in which I live, and I’d like to change that. After all, a community can find some roots of its identity in the shared experience of eating foods grown in its terroir - much like Edna discovered in her Freetown youth. Therefore, I am making a point to frequent my local farmers’ markets and to try as many new foods grow locally and seasonally as possible.
Please join us next week as we dip deeper into the life of Edna Lewis, her contribution to American gastronomy, and our experiences with the fabulous “The Taste of County Cooking.”
What is your favorite season for food - is there a time of year where the ingredients inspire you more than others?
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To Everything There is a Season
Summer-here in New England Summer is the time for fresh everything- from fresh basil I grow in big pots, to tomato’s and eggplants(for the best Eggplant Parmesan), to zucchinis...strawberries, blueberries-I could go on and on. In the summer my body is on autopilot and drives me to all the wonderful farmers markets and road side stands for the freshest produce! 😌💛🍆🥒🌽🍅
This story reminds me of the book by Barbara Kingsolver called “ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” she definitely made me aware of the importance of food sources.