Sorghum's Savor

“A brilliant blend of science and soul. This is a book that the food world has needed for a long time.”—Fred W. Sauceman, author ofThe Place Setting

“Lundy invites you to sit at the table with a good hot biscuit and some buttery sorghum syrup and meet the people who grow it, make it, and even the chefs who have discovered it. For me and other people who grew up in the Appalachians, the stories offer a taste of home.”—Belinda Ellis, author of Biscuits

“Infuses the sorghum artisan’s pride into each recipe, providing a taste of cooking with heritage.”—James Baier, executive secretary, National Sweet Sorghum Producers & Processors Association

“Everyone who appreciates the storied intersection of food and culture deserves to savor this book. The recipes are a combination of reliable favorites and brilliant innovations.”—Sheri Castle, author ofThe Southern Living Community Cookbook

“Whether offering authentic hill country classics or twenty-first-century novelties, Lundy’s recipes and meditations explore the full range of sorghum’s flavorsome possibilities. She reveals the affinities of sorghum with New Mexico’s red chiles and West Indian ginger, citrus, and cardamom, as well as its long-cherished harmony with cornbread, buttermilk, sweet potatoes, and bacon.”—David S. Shields, author ofSouthern Provisions

“Lundy not only showcases the rich history of sorghum, she goes deeper, showing how much southern chefs truly value the history and traditions of where we come from.”—Travis Milton, chef de cuisine, Comfort Restaurant (Richmond, VA)

“Sorghum has been a culinary fixture for half of my life, but this book explains its significance, its community, its lore, and its place so eloquently that I feel remiss in not discovering it even sooner. In a world of rapid loss of rural food staples,Sorghum’s Savor implores us to pay attention.”—Hugh Acheson, author of A New Turn in the South

“With the confidence bred in her Kentucky bones, and with an intellect honed through wide travels and studies, Lundy gives sorghum its long delayed due in this smart and lyrical book.”—John T. Edge, coeditor ofThe Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South

“A celebration of one of the unsung essentials of the Southern table. Resonating of warm earth and soft summer nights, of hearth fires and crisp mountain autumns, Lundy’s voice is one of the most lucid and lovely in all of southern food writing.”—Damon Lee Fowler, author of Essentials of Southern Cooking

Recently rediscovered by progressive chefs across the nation, sorghum is prized for its distinct umami taste—a blend of sweet and savory with a hint of nutty tang. The lingering complexity of sorghum makes it the perfect “secret ingredient” to enhance and deepen the flavors of such innovative modern dishes as Chef Dustin Staggers’s Monkey Wrench Skillet Fried Chicken and Chef John Fleer’s Long Sweetening Sorbet.

Yet sorghum is no secret to southern home kitchens. While sorghum is an Old World grass that resembles corn and is cultivated and used as a grain in most of the world, the cane varieties were cultivated, processed and used as syrup only in North America, particularly in the South where it has been a staple in baked goods, confections, glazes, and dressings since before the Civil War. InSorghum’s Savor, Ronni Lundy showcases the endless possibilities of this unique ingredient, as well as the reasons why it has long been cherished in the South.

Ronni Lundy has been a frequent contributor to Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Esquire. She is the author of eight books, including Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes, and Honest Fried Chicken andCornbread Nation 3: Foods of the Mountain South.