Authentic Gullah Geechee Cookbook: Traditional Edisto Island Recipes from the Matriarch | Southern Soul Food & Heritage Cooking | Perfect for Cultural Food Enthusiasts & Home Chefs

Emily Meggett offers a window into the world of coastal South Carolina via the food and culture of Black southerners who made the low-lying Sea Islands their home. There the Gullah Geechee, descendants of enslaved people from West Africa, created a distinctive community with its own traditions.

On Edisto Island, south of Charleston, Meggett has entertained and fed friends, family and neighbors for decades with familiar southern favorites like hoppin' john and shrimp and grits but also plenty of recipes that could only have come out of a Gullah Geechee family kitchen.

Her and her family's pride in "Saturday Poor Man's Meal", "Tomato Casserole" and "Deviled Crab" shine through. Meggett's recipes exude a deep sense of place in their use of ingredients and methods including Charleston's famous seafood as well as once-caught-now-bought quail and venison. 

In a unique voice and with homeborn, friendly certainty Meggett conjures a past and a present that are remarkable for their immediacy. She is a cook who assuredly doesn't need recipes anymore. Luckily for us, she wrote them all down. 

Hardcover. Color throughout.