Lewis, Edna, and Scott Peacock. The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks. New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 2003. Grande dame of Southern food Edna Lewis and son-of-the-soil chef Scott Peacock joined forces on this seminal text of Southern cuisine. It demystifies, documents, and inspires. Ideal for those who really care about Southern foodways.

Lundy, Ronnie, ed. Cornbread Nation 3. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. The third in a series of collections on Southern food and cooking. Published in collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, which is dedicated to preserving and celebrating Southern food traditions, the Cornbread Nation collection is an ode to food traditions large and small. Topics include paw-paws, corn, and pork. Cornbread Nation 2 focused on barbecue. Cornbread Nation 1 was edited by restaurateur and Southern food celebrant John Egerton.

Stern, Jane and Michael. Southern Country Cooking from the Loveless Cafe: Biscuits, Hams, and Jams from Nashville’s Favorite Café. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2005. Road-food aficionados wrote the cookbook on Nashville’s most famous pit stop: the Loveless Cafe. Located at the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Loveless is quintessential Southern cooking: delectable biscuits, country ham, and homemade preserves. Now you can take some of that down-home flavor home with you.