Southern Homecoming Traditions: Recipes and Remembrances Book

With her acclaimed historical cookbooks, such as The African-American Heritage Cookbook, Carolyn Quick Tillery has become the premier chronicler of the stories, traditions, and triumphs of our nation's great African-American academic institutions. Her books are sumptuous feasts that combine the ingredients of personal and collective history with archival photographs and hundreds of traditional and modern recipes. The results are as inspiring as they are mouthwatering-must-haves for home and school libraries as much as for kitchen bookshelves.

Southern Homecoming Traditions focuses on the food and history of one of America's most influential institutions, the Atlanta University Center, an affiliation of six schools- Morehouse, Spelman and Morris Brown Colleges, Clark-Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, and Morehouse School of Medicine-that constitute the largest, historically black educational complex in the world. For more than a century, these schools have gathered in one place the best and brightest of black America, including many of our nation's greatest civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, Whitney Young, Marian Wright Edelman, and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. The region also brought us a memorable cuisine that evokes all the tastes and flavors of a Southern home. From traditional dishes that are making a welcome comeback (Chicken and Waffles), to modern dishes and drinks (Jamaican Chicken, Georgia Peach Champagne Punch), to "forgotten soul foods" that are in danger of being lost forever (Smoked Turkey Neck and Collard Greens, "Chitlins" and Hog Maws), these recipescapture the aromas and emotions of the black experience, past and present.

A melting pot of speeches, songs, stories, and photographs, Southern Homecoming Traditions pays tribute to African-Americans who, instead of waiting for a seat at our nation's table, made that table bigger. Enhanced by inspiring African proverbs ("Teach a woman and you teach a nation") and touching remembrances, this is both a food lover's delight and a joyous living history of black America's continuing influence on American cuisine and culture.