-- This is a preorder title and will ship on or after May 05, 2026 --
A stunning 50th anniversary edition of one of the most beloved cookbooks of all time, by “the empress of Southern cooking” (The New Yorker), beautifully repackaged and redesigned, with a new foreword by Toni Tipton-Martin
With the publication of The Taste of Country Cooking, Edna Lewis proclaimed the food of the American South as one of the world’s great cuisines. From Baked Virginia Ham and Corn Muffins to Oyster Stew and Lemon Meringue Pie, Miss Lewis (as she was almost universally known) extolled the virtues of the good food of her childhood, spent in a Virginia farming community founded by her grandfather and his friends after emancipation. A celebration of eating locally—decades before “farm to table” became common parlance—the book catalogs the joys of cooking with the seasons: the field greens and salads of spring, pan-fried chicken and crushed peaches in summer, baked ham and sweet potatoes for fall, and hearty soups and stews during the cold winter months. An affirmation of a distinctly American way of eating, half a century after its publication, it remains the definitive book on Southern cooking.
BIO
Edna Lewis was born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia, a farming community founded after the Civil War by freed slaves (among them her grandfather) and for many years lived and cooked in New York City. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the inaugural James Beard Living Legend and Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) Lifetime Achievement Awards, the Grande Dame des Dames d’Escoffier International, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Lifetime Achievement Award. Her books were inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame, and she was commemorated with a United States Postal Service postage stamp. Miss Lewis was the author of The Edna Lewis Cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking, In Pursuit of Flavor, and, with Scott Peacock, The Gift of Southern Cooking. She died in February 2006.
REVIEWS
“[A] masterpiece of Southern cuisine . . . widely hailed as one of the most important cookbooks of the 20th century.” -- Saveur
“[An] indispensable classic of a cookbook. . . . Thanks to this book, a new generation was introduced to the glories of an American tradition . . . of simplicity and purity and sheer deliciousness that is only possible when food tastes like what it is, from a particular place, at a particular point in time.” --Alice Waters (from the Foreword)
“Known as the Grande Dame of Southern Cooking, Lewis is responsible for shining a light on Southern cooking as the basis for American cuisine.” -- Food & Wine
“[A] seminal cookbook.” -- San Francisco Chronicle
[H] Knopf Publishing Group / May 05, 2026