The Southern Living Cookbook
From My Bookshelf Segment
From My Bookshelf is the part of the podcast where I share my thoughts on books, cookbooks, magazines or other print media I believe would benefit your practice of the Art of Home. Today, I have a cookbook to recommend. If you listened to our last deep dive into Kitchen Economy you heard about the importance of building your knowledge of ingredients and your ability to execute basic cooking skills and recipes.
A tool that proved invaluable for helping me build up ingredient knowledge and fundamental cooking skills in my early homemaking years was The Southern Living Cookbook. Originally published in 1987, this cookbook is a thorough introduction to all things home cooking. Here’s a little excerpt from the preface written by editor Susan Carlisle Payne:
“As the most comprehensive foods book Southern Living has ever published, it includes more than 1300 recipes, organized into 17 chapters. Within each chapter, recipes were organized to begin with the most basic and end with the most detailed.
The book is much more than a recipe book, however; it’s a complete guide to cooking. Within each food category chapter, such as vegetables or meats, you’ll find straightforward information pertinent to the food and techniques within that chapter, such as equipment you’ll need, procedure and ingredient information, [and] freezing and storing particulars.”1
A perfect description of this treasure of a cookbook. My copy, the 1992 edition, is very well loved, with some pages falling out, cooking splatters, and lots of notes. I received my copy from my husband’s grandparents for our first Christmas together. Married for over 70 years, these two were foodies before it was trendy. They taught us so much about good food and hospitality when we were young and thought fine dining was Applebee’s. His grandmother was the one who taught me the value of taking notes in your cookbooks and as soon as we were finished opening gifts that night, I sat down with her copy of the same cookbook and copied many of her notes into my pristine book.
The SL Cookbook will teach you all the basic recipes you’ll ever need to know with clear instructions and helpful photographs. Each meat section contains a full color chart picturing each part of the animal and suggestions for how best to cook them; invaluable knowledge for practicing good kitchen economy.
The vegetable chapter has a multi page chart listing each vegetable, how many servings one pound will yield, best cooking methods and compatible seasonings and sauces. The appendix has helpful substitution, storage and conversion charts.
I cannot say enough good things about this cookbook. From it I learned how to cook a delectable pot roast, make a pie crust, banana pudding, fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits & pancakes, pizza dough, chicken and dumplings, and much more. Many of these recipes I still follow today, more than 32 years later.
There have been at least two more versions (1999 and 2006) since the original ‘87 book was published. The newer versions are called The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook and The New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. These newer books are similarly arranged to the original with more updated information, utilizing modern ingredients, but all the basics are still there.
The ‘87 version will alway hold a special place for me. You can get used copies for around $10 online. Be sure you don’t confuse these with the Southern Living Annual Cookbook, which is a compilation of all the recipes from the magazine that the editors put out each year.
Susan Carlisle Payne, ed., The Southern Living Cookbook Birmingham, Alabama: Oxmoor House, 1987), vii.