Bill Neal's Southern Cooking

If you are looking for some of your grandmother's favorite recipes...this is where you will find them!

Bill Neal's Southern Cooking is a great cookbook for Southern foods. These are recipes to make in a cast iron skillet, not a microwave. The recipe for shrimp and grits, the signature dish at the late author's restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC, is itself worth the cover price. Somewhat like Carol Field's "Italian Baker," this book offers some insight into the history of the recipes but is not full of fluffy digressions. My copy is dog-eared and bears a few sauce stains after years of use. It is nicely organized into sections such as soups, breads, rice, vegetables, fish and shellfish, meats and desserts. Besides shrimp and grits, I'm very fond of the recipes for chess pie and Sally Lunn bread. Like THE JOY OF COOKING, this book offers precise directions on the finer points of cooking that make a difference between a good dish and a great one. Highly recommended.

No sense going into a long, elaborate and flowery review of this well-educated, native southern boy's book. If you're really interested in doing authentic, down-home southern cooking -- not the Yankeefied stuff some try to foist off as southern food -- then just buy this book.Trust me, I know real southern cooking when I taste it: My mother learned to cook from my grandmother, who was born and grew up in Kentucky. I grew up on their cooking, but didn't have sense enough to record the recipes. Wasted a small fortune on wantabe southern cookbooks. Then I found this book, cooked a bunch of the recipes and they were exactly like back home at my mother's and grandmother's tables.Just buy Bill's book. The price is right. You'll never regret it.

My husband and I have had this cookbook for several years, and given many copies of it as gifts. Bill Neal hasn't simply listed recipes, he has written a historical summary of many traditional southern foods. All are interesting, and most shed light on how certain recipes came into being. That said, the 150+ recipes themselves are terrific! Our favorites are Herb Crust Pork Loin with Onion Gravy (much requested by frequent visitors!) and the famous Shrimp and Grits, Crook's Corner Style... Crook's Corner was Bill Neal's restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC. Living ten minutes from it means we have been able to enjoy the "original" Shrimp and Grits, which is unique and outstanding. Neal claims the restaurant serves that dish 10,000 times each year! Fortunately, the recipe is fairly easy to make at home as well, and just as tasty.The book includes such southern basics as spoonbread, Brunswick Stew, gumbo, peanut soup, crab cakes, and fried chicken. Most of the recipes are not complicated, but some do require effort and time. Devoted cooks will recognize that the results are well worth the effort! Some of the recipes are quite simple, however, like the Raspberry Fool... with divine results! Neal is quite detailed in his instructions, so they are not hard to follow, as well as including some serving suggestions and recommended equipment.There are no photographs in this cookbook, but they are not needed. (This from a die-hard "all my cookbooks must have color photos" fanatic!:) Bill Neal paints a complete picture of what the dish should be. Your imagination and taste buds will do the rest.Happy Eating!

Check out Bill Neal's first book for simple, precise, and complete instructions on making biscuits. This book also includes recipes for standards, such as pecan pie, and shrimp creole. The historical notes are good, too