Southern Sideboards Mississippi Junior Leagues of Jackson

Southern Sideboards.
Junior League of Jackson, MS. 2001.
ISBN: 0960688609.

This is one of my mother's favorite cookbooks,ception of a Southern Living cookbook, Southern Sideboards is about the best cross-sectional view of Southern American cooking possible. It's a collection of 950 recipes submitted by members of the Jackson, Mississippi Junior League. The recipes were collected, carefully tested (each recipe was tried by three cooks) and edited, then published. The first edition came out in 1978; it's been continuously in print ever since, which means it's been reprinted with some minor updates more than twenty times.

One of the reasons I love this cookbook is that it's so very very Southern, in that it has all the sorts of things you'd want to know about Southern family style cooking. It's also broad enough in terms of the kinds of food, and the various levels of difficulty, that it's more than decent as a "first" or even "only" cookbook, though I'd probably suggest some possible alternatives, especially for a Yankee cook.

Like most cookbooks, Southern Sideboards is organized in terms of courses, from Appetizers to Desserts, but in one of the many small touches that makes this well-indexed cookbook easy to use, the Dessert section is sub-divided into cookies, candy, cakes, pies, ice cream, dessert sauces, finder desserts, and a final desserts category for everything else. Special helps include a section on techniques, and one on rainy day and other activities for kids, suggestions for making all sorts of seasoning mixes, fruit butters, and hot drinks. Other sections include metric conversion charts, and a helpful and a section on pan and baking dish sizes that convert size to volume. There are no illustrations, but the directions are generally so clear that it's not an issue. There are a lot of recipes here; 400 pages with at least two per page.

The expertise for the recipes is difficult to judge because the instructions are quite clear, but the range of dishes is enormous; there are comfort foods that are basic— how to make simple corn bread, grits, or cook rice, to the esoteric (frog legs, escargot, and a detailed section on wild game of all sorts). For all the "Southern" of the title, international (as well as both Creole and Cajun) dishes are amply represented here. The recipes are mostly from "scratch," and there are lots of recipes for basic sauces, stocks, and soup bases. You'll find the Southern specialties you expect, like Gumbo, Jambalaya, and Brunswick stew, along with Paella, New England Clam Chowder, and meatloaf from moose, turkey or beef.

Many of the recipes are practical in the extreme in terms of using leftovers, or freezing; I'm astonished at the range of things made with purchased biscuit mix, including a recipe for a no-knead bread that starts with biscuit mix, and adds yeast, eggs and milk to make an incredibly simply but delicious bread. It's almost impossible to look at Southern Sideboards without wanting to try something; indeed, I've yet to repeat recipes that were resounding successes because there are so many others to try.