Southern secrets from Edna Lewis - Cuisine

American Visions, Feb-March, 1997 by Gwendolyn Glenn

During those two years, Lewis traveled to Atlanta often -- once to receive an award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals and on several occasions to attend Southern food festivals. When she decided to move to Atlanta to prepare Southern dishes at a friend's restaurant, she was surprised that she could find only two restaurants that served what she considered "pure" Southern food. "I was amazed!" she exclaims. "I said, `Where are the Southern restaurants?'"

Lewis is adamant about preserving traditional Southern cooking, because, she explains, "it's what I grew up on and I thought it was good." Cookbooks are one way to preserve the heritage, and so for the next couple of months, Lewis will be in New York City, working with her editor and co-author, Scott Peacock, on her fourth book, which will feature updated traditional Southern recipes.

But books alone won't suffice for Lewis. Insisting that "cooking is not something you just put aside," Lewis is looking for land in Georgia for a Southern cooking school. "It won't be a place where you go and talk and cook for an hour and then eat, but all-day cooking," she warns. "We will have a garden and will pick the food that we cook."