A delicious feast, as well as a thoughtful celebration of regional culture.
Egerton assembles more than four dozen previously published pieces by writers such as Nikki Giovanni and Roy Blount Jr., offering the same serendipitous delights as time spent on a front porch of a summer evening enjoying good food and good talk.
This is the first volume in what is to be an annual series, and, divided into sections of People, Times, Things, Places, and Southern Foodways, it’s a beguiling mix of food lore, encounters with memorable characters, and, of course, the place itself, from swampy bayous to the rolling hills of Appalachia. The selections stem from Town and Country, Food & Wine, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and elsewhere, but they all reflect an abiding affection for things southern, especially the food—from boiled peanuts to Scuppernogs (a native muscadine grape) and, of course, barbecue. It is a subject that evokes passionate debate about, say, the virtues of a mustard-based versus a tomato-based sauce, or even bitter family feuds. In “A Confederacy of Sauces,” Jack Hitt relates how in South Carolina, a politically liberal brother has taken advantage of a boycott of his reactionary brother’s mustard-based barbecue sauce to put his own version in stores. The writers introduce characters like nonagenarian Moonshiner Coe Dupuis; Leah Chase, the cook at the famous New Orleans restaurant, Dooky Chase; and Dori Sanders, a peach farmer and writer. They visit farms where watermelons are grown, they stalk wild hogs, and they eat dinner in a Texas prison, where the incarcerated chef has a reputation as a great cook. There are tributes to southern food writers like Craig Claiborne and Eugene Walter, as well as memories of canning, family reunions, and Thanksgivings at which, alongside the turkey, there’s macaroni and cheese—“a vegetable in the South.” Others debate the merits of iced tea, which in this region is always sweetened; and explore the origin of vegetables like okra and sweet potatoes, as well as the influence of African-American traditions on white cooking, particularly in the way greens are cooked.
A delicious feast, as well as a thoughtful celebration of regional culture.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2002
ISBN: 0-8078-5419-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Univ. of North Carolina
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
A well-researched but dull account of the hungry, unkempt days of early television. Written by film director Ritchie (The Candidate, etc.), the book shows the chaotic beginnings that justified the once widely held belief that this gimmicky new technology had no future. A fuzzy picture was first telecast on a bulky monitor with a tiny screen in the 1920s by Philo T. Farsworth, a high school student in rural Utah. But it would be another 20 years before television was taken seriously in America. Ritchie chronicles many of TV's historic firsts. In 1927, for example, future president Herbert Hoover was the first public official to speak in front of a ``televisor'' in Washington D.C., while his wife appeared from New York. They were followed by a comedian in black-face who called his routine ``a new line of jokes in negro dialect.'' Television's first commercial was illegal, but this did not stop broadcasters from soliciting commercials. NBC earned seven dollars in 1937 for simply showing the face of a Bulova watch. Many of the early (live) commercials were more than artistic disasters: A newly invented ``automatic'' Gillette safety razor would not open on camera, and the hostess of a Tenderleaf tea commercial mistakenly lauded the quality of Lipton tea. The first television newscasts were also tentative affairs. News was considered the exclusive domain of radio, of which television was then a poor cousin; CBS's first newscast featured Lowell Thomas talking in front of a stack of sponsor Sonoco's oil cans. The BBC was technologically ahead of US companies, but it abruptly stopped transmission (in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon) when WW II broke out. A historical video would be better than written narrative for this material. The 77 black-and-white photos provided here hold the nonspecialist's attention, while the text rarely does.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-87951-546-5
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.
A doctor’s manifesto about terminally ill patients’ right to die.
While many Americans believe that the terminally ill should be able to choose to end their lives, the medical profession, the courts and the government mostly remain beholden to traditional and religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. Preston, a medical professor for more than 20 years, argues that it is time to re-evaluate those ethics in light of today’s technology and its ability to prolong life beyond its natural course. The author writes that confusion and misconception pervade most discussions about aid in dying. He distinguishes "patient-directed dying" or "aid in dying" from terms like "physician-assisted suicide” or "euthanasia." In his analysis, the word "suicide" should not apply to someone who is dying with no hope of recovery. Euthanasia, on the other hand, refers to someone other than the patient administering a lethal drug. Patient-directed dying is when a terminally ill individual is able to request and obtain a prescription for medication to end his or her life, under guidelines set to guard against abuse. Through four composite stories based on situations Preston has witnessed from counseling terminally ill patients and their families, he reveals the suffering caused by prohibitions against patient-directed dying. He adds that doctors must be more willing to care for patients when curing them is no longer possible, and recognize that exhausting every medical treatment, no matter how slim the chances of success, often just prolongs suffering. Preston states his case persuasively, illustrates the need for patient-directed dying as an option, counters arguments often made against it and suggests compromises to address concerns on both sides of the debate.
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-1-58348-461-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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