Edible North Carolina

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296 pp., 7.5 x 10, 105 color plates

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-6779-9
Published: May 2022
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-6780-5
Published: March 2022
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-5837-5
Published: March 2022

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Hardcover $35.00
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Marcie Cohen Ferris gathers a constellation of leading journalists, farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, scholars, and food activists—along with photographer Baxter Miller— to offer a deeply immersive portrait of North Carolina’s contemporary food landscape. Ranging from manifesto to elegy, Edible North Carolina’s essays, photographs, interviews, and recipes combine for a beautifully revealing journey across the lands and waters of a state that exemplifies the complexities of American food and identity. While North Carolina’s food heritage is grounded in core ingredients and the proximity of farm to table, this book reveals striking differences among food-centered cultures and businesses across the state. Documenting disparities among people’s access to food and farmland—and highlighting community and state efforts toward fundamental solutions—Edible North Carolina shows how culinary excellence, entrepreneurship, and the struggle for racial justice converge in shaping food equity, not only for North Carolinians, but for all Americans.

Starting with Vivian Howard, star of PBS’s A Chef’s Life, who wrote the foreword, the contributors include Shorlette Ammons, Karen Amspacher, Victoria Bouloubasis, Katy Clune, Gabe Cumming, Marcie Cohen Ferris, Sandra Gutierrez, Tom Hanchett, Michelle King, Cheetie Kumar, Courtney Lewis, Malinda Maynor Lowery, Ronni Lundy, Keia Mastrianni, April McGreger, Baxter Miller, Ricky Moore, Carla Norwood, Kathleen Purvis, Andrea Reusing, Bill Smith, Maia Surdam, and Andrea Weigl.

About the Author

Marcie Cohen Ferris, author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region and Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South, is professor emerita of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more information about Marcie Cohen Ferris, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"The book's appeal transcends any one state. It's a gorgeous collection of articles, photographs and recipes that capture and celebrate the distinctiveness of regional culinary traditions, and it's an epicurean voyeur's delight."—Frank Bruni, New York Times

"North Carolina's food scene is shining bright, and here's the book for the moment."—News & Observer

"This richly researched body shows how centuries-old food traditions still have the muscle to engineer how a place informs tastes, and how shifting tastes can also inspire a place. . . . Required reading for anyone who calls this place home."—Our State

"In essays, photographs, and recipes, Edible North Carolina honors contemporary efforts to chart an abundant path forward."—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Edible North Carolina pulls together many voices from across the state. Each offers a thoughtful essay that, together, shapes a story of the state's modern food movement, complete with recipes. . . . Teem[s] with wisdom and flavor."—Local Palate

"The writers Ferris unites demonstrate the complexity, reach and significant impacts of local food in North Carolina . . . [and] presents a panorama that encompasses the state's food history, heritage and Indigenous and regional tastes."—Coastal Review