With authority and passion, Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart reveal the essence of food that delights, entices and satisfies, celebrating the “Mother Cuisine” of American cooking, with more than 750 recipes and 650 variations in their new book, Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking. Based on years of research, beginning with their first collaboration in 1985 for the PBS television series New Southern Cooking, the authors embrace the cookbooks and recipes of the past, enhancing them with the foods and conveniences of today.

Teachers first and foremost, Dupree and Graubart help cooks conquer fears of flour and fat, writing clear techniques so both seasoned home cooks and kitchen novices alike can produce the lightest biscuits and flakiest piecrusts. With recipes like Lazy Girl Cobbler and Bubbly Butter Bean Soup, the beginning cook is brought along from basic skills to more involved techniques, such as mastering a soufflé, frying a batch of crispy squash blossoms, and butterflying a succulent pork tenderloin.

Vegetables, the music of the Southern table, are taught in both traditional and new ways, such as grilled asparagus, creamy grits, and okra chips. This first comprehensive book on the beloved

foods of the South since the groundbreaking Southern Cooking, by Mrs. H.R. Dull in 1928, Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking is the new standard reference for cooks everywhere on how to prepare the South’s most satisfying dishes, preserving the techniques and tastes of this beloved regional cuisine.

As Pat Conroy writes in the foreword, “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking is destined, I think, to become one of those classics of the breed like the inimitable Junior League cookbook Charleston Receipts. It imparts wisdom, a dash of history, a pinch of philosophy, and a wagonload of good eating. It is a splendid achievement.”