Revised and Expanded Southern Belly
Now in Paperback

John T. Edge, " the Faulkner of Southern food" (the Miami Herald), reveals a South hidden in plain sight, where restaurants boast family pedigrees and serve supremely local specialties found nowhere else. From backdoor home kitchens to cinder-block cafés, he introduces you to cooks who have been standing tall by the stove since Eisenhower was in office. While revealing the stories behind their food, he shines a bright light on places that have become Southern institutions.

In this fully updated and expanded edition, with recipes throughout, Edge travels from chicken shack to fish camp, from barbecue stand to pie shed. Pop this handy paperback in the glove box to take along on your next road trip. And even if you never get in the car, you'll enjoy the most savory history that the South has to offer.

Donuts: An American Passion

Few can write with such gusto, imagination, and grace as everyman omnivore and cultural historian John T. Edge. His passion, irreverence, and intelligence illuminate the culinary road less traveled.

John T. celebrates America’s iconic foods. His books are quirky and spirited and delightful reads.
John T. takes readers on a pilgrimage to the land of donut legend. He pays homage to the Salvation Army’s band of World War I Donut Lassies, to a California son of Japanese immigrants who stuffs donuts with jewel-like strawberries, to a New York City baker who weeps over his donut dough. He crosses the country sampling crullers and Bismarks, paczikis and beignets at diners, dives, and donut carts. And he introduces a collection of sweet and savory recipes along the way. Donuts is a peculiar collection of on-the-road adventures and historical anecdotes that charmingly illustrates a rich and complex portrait of American life.

John T. satisfies our hunger for gastronomic history through flat-out great storytelling. The result is what John Thorne, writing in The Art of Eating calls “not a quest for recipes but a desire to connect with the passion of people.”

Hamburgers & Fries: An American Story

John T. Edge continues his critically acclaimed series on iconic foods with his third volume—Hamburgers and Fries. Our love affair with the burger dates back 100-plus years, but unlike other universal dishes, the hamburger is a purely American invention. Armed with a notebook and a hearty appetite, Edge travels across the country and selects fifteen recipes for the best burger and fries you’ve ever sunk your teeth into.

From greasy spoons to four-star restaurants to roadside stands, Edge samples the local cuisine—pimento burgers, Jucy Lucys, steamers, and bean burgers, to name a few—and sprinkles in history and gastronomy in equal measure. He follows the evolution of the burger from Depression-era days, when most hamburgers were extended with breadcrumbs, to today’s haute burgers with fois gras at their centers. Along the way, he sweet-talks the chefs into sharing recipes, burger folklore, and peculiar local knowledge. Edge traces our heritage through our favorite comfort foods in a quirky, charming, mouth-watering book. Hamburgers and Fries is part travelogue, part cookbook, and part history, and shows us just why “Edge is pure fun” in the words of Lee Smith.

Fried Chicken: An American Story & Apple Pie: An American Story

(Click here to read an exerpt)

(Click here to read an exerpt)

Fried Chicken begins the series with an immensely entertaining tale that takes us from Memphis to Manhattan, from plantation kitchens to KFC. Edge investigates the dishes origins and significance in our culture on a wild ride through the kitchens of some highly colorful characters, and emerges with not only an unforgettable portrait of America by way of our bellies, but 15 of the best regional variations on the classic dish.

Out in October 2004 from Putnam, these are the debut titles in a four book series that examines American identity by way of literate essays on iconic foods.

• A Gracious Plenty:
Recipes and Recollections from the American South

Written as a graduate student project for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, A Gracious Plenty features thematic essays on Southern identity, archival photos, and a rich treasury of recipes pulled from the region’s best community cookbooks.

Anthologized Writing

-- Magazine pieces including “Paris Through Yam Colored Glasses” and others appear in the Best Food Writing series. Also look for Edge pieces in the second and third releases of Stories from the Blue Moon Café as well as They Write Among Us (a collection of Oxford authors), the Best of the Oxford American, Cornbread Nation 1, 2, and 3, and in a number of college textbooks and writing primers.

Co-author or contributor

Edge wrote the extensive history that fronts Mrs. Wilkes’ Boardinghouse Cookbook as well as a number of essays in chef Frank Stitt’s cookbook. He has also written introductions to a number of books including a revised edition of Eugene Walters’ classic, Hint and Pinches.

Guidebooks

A long time ago while dwelling in a galaxy of penury, Edge wrote a number of guidebooks including a paean to Georgia for Compass as well as portions of three different Deep South and New Orleans guides for Lonely Planet. And way back in 1996, while still living in Atlanta and working as a corporate swine, Edge– with friends Nelson Ross and Boyd Baker – wrote and self-published Belly of Atlanta, an irreverent guide to the city.