Grain and Fire

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344 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 29 halftones, notes, bibl., index

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-6836-9
Published: June 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4696-6837-6
Published: March 2022

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While a luscious layer cake may exemplify the towering glory of southern baking, like everything about the American South, baking is far more complicated than it seems. Rebecca Sharpless here weaves a brilliant chronicle, vast in perspective and entertaining in detail, revealing how three global food traditions—Indigenous American, European, and African—collided with and merged in the economies, cultures, and foodways of the South to create what we know as the southern baking tradition.

Recognizing that sentiments around southern baking run deep, Sharpless takes delight in deflating stereotypes as she delves into the surprising realities underlying the creation and consumption of baked goods. People who controlled the food supply in the South used baking to reinforce their power and make social distinctions. Who used white cornmeal and who used yellow, who put sugar in their cornbread and who did not had traditional meanings for southerners, as did the proportions of flour, fat, and liquid in biscuits. By the twentieth century, however, the popularity of convenience foods and mixes exploded in the region, as it did nationwide. Still, while some regional distinctions have waned, baking in the South continues to be a remarkable, and remarkably tasty, source of identity and entrepreneurship.

About the Author

Rebecca Sharpless is professor of history at Texas Christian University. Her most recent book is Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865–1960.

For more information about Rebecca Sharpless, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"This deep-dive nonfiction food narrative shows painstaking research into the foodways of our past, tracking the movement of the people and ingredients that shaped our region’s baking past."—Local Palate

"Within these eight chapters, Sharpless makes a persuasive case for why baking matters and how it both unites and divides people. . . . Recommended."—CHOICE

"Grain and Fire is a masterpiece, putting the author in the same company with influential, award- winning food scholars such as Marcie Cohen Ferris, Donna R. Gabaccia, John T. Edge, Michael W. Twitty, John Egerton, and Robert Ji-Song Ku. The book belongs in the pantheon of scholarly works on food history and critical food studies."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"As Sharpless traces the influences of Indigenous, American, and African techniques, she reveals the hidden meaning behind everything from the proportion of ingredients to the ingredients themselves."—Food Tank

“What a fine book! Rebecca Sharpless’s deep historical approach—beginning with the breads of the American South created by Native American groups—and graceful and consistent interweaving of the African American experience must be congratulated. This book’s clear voice and style reads like a good long story, told by a real southerner.”—Dr. Leni Sorensen, founder-director of Indigo House Culinary History and Rural Skills Center

“In the hands of a deft baker, grain and fire can be made into a multitude of nourishing viands, but here Rebecca Sharpless uses them to thoughtfully fashion a lens that also reveals the history, politics, and culture of the American South. A work of sustenance rendered with delicious prose.”—Ronni Lundy, author of Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes