NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Part cookbook, part memoir, these “rollicking, poignant, sometimes hilarious tales” (USA Today) are the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s loving tribute to the South, his family and, especially, to his extraordinary mother.Here are irresistible stories and recipes from across generations. They come, skillet by skillet, from Bragg’s ancestors, from feasts and near famine, from … ancestors, from feasts and near famine, from funerals and celebrations, and from a thousand tales of family lore as rich and as sumptuous as the dishes they inspired. Deeply personal and unfailingly mouthwatering, The Best Cook in the World is a book to be savored.
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Rick Bragg’s memoir of his mother and the wonderful meals she made. The book contains recipes, but it is not just a cookbook. Bragg packs in loads of family history and loving memories. It will make you want to sit down with your own mama, or maybe try to pass on some family favorites to your offspring.
Rick Bragg shares stories from his family clear back to his GreatGrandparents. He brings to life how it was to grow up dirt poor in Appalachia Alabama. Sitting down to a good meal was for most of these hardworking folks, the only enjoyment in life they had. It was a matter of life and death both physically and emotionally. The recipes were handed down by word of mouth and observation (hardly ever written). Rick Bragg recorded as many of his Mama’s recipes as he could from watching her and asking what she thought were dumb questions. He entertwined the recipes with true stories about his family that made you cry one minute and could make a dog laugh the next.
This author’s way of writing is so witty and genuine that this book will be one of my favorites for a long time!
Loved not only the recipes but the story of his family from days gone by.
Definitely an original. A look at Rick Bragg roots through stories and recipes. The setting goes back several generations of folks living in an extremely rural area. A treasure to reflect on life in days gone by. You will love it
Being in the South I found it interesting and truthful but much of it was rather boring.
Rick Bragg has a Wonderful way with words. His stories are funny and heartwarming. As I read, I could see his relatives and harkened back to my own childhood and supper at my great-grandmother’s house with more home grown food on the table than ten people could eat.
Would have given it 5 stars but it was rather wordy and repetitive in some spots…
Its a good read for sure, funny. The recipes are what I love. Old
The best book I read last year!
Wow! Inside here are some of the most mouthwatering dishes and entertaining stories all wrapped into one very ‘fun’ book!
Loved it! Each recipe has a great family story behind it. What a labor of love.
Writer is so creative–love his sense of humor and creative thoughts. His Grandma becomes real in my mind.
Exquisitely written. Great recipes, but the stories associated with them are alternately funny, bemusing or heart-breaking, but always make you smell the ham frying over a wood-fired stove, or the cornbread baking, or the beans simmering. The people who populate these stories become alive again on the pages. I highly recommend this book.
This book accurately acknowledges the Southern Soul is so related to the stomach comfort. Such honest humor is respectable in the way this woman’s hearth and kitchen has served so many with love served on a plate. Indeed, women ARE a higher lifeform in their quest to birth and sustain all of us in the world and certainly in the blue-collar South. This delightful book will elicit so many memories of the southern family experience and the unforgettable foods of a culture so respectful of people and work and this southern soil.
This is not your typical cookbook. It is a beautiful tribute to the author’s mother, filled with personal stories to match the recipes. Although Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg grew up in rural Alabama and my mom grew up in deep east Texas, they have much in common and I would have to debate him long and hard before he could convince me his mom is a better cook than mine. However, with that said, the similarities are striking. Mr. Bragg does an excellent job of capturing the essence of an old-fashioned Southern cook–one who learned to cook from previous generations, who cooks out of necessity more than anything else, who doesn’t measure ingredients, who knows recipes by heart, and who keeps her family coming back for more. The fact that he was able to get his elderly mom to convert her head knowledge to measurable ingredients so he could share the recipes is a testament to his love of her cooking and his determination to write a book that benefits us all. As the saying goes, “The proof is in the pudding.” I have cooked many of the recipes included in the book, and have never been disappointed. I shared the book with my elderly mom who liked it as much as I. She didn’t follow any of the recipes (she has her own recipes in her own head after all), but I think she did see a great deal of herself in Mrs. Bragg’s upbringing, lifestyle, and personality. I know she recognized many of “the old-timey ways of cooking” because she and I enjoyed talking about the book and recipes after we had both read it. Thank you, Mr. Bragg, for sharing your Momma and her recipes with the rest of us. You did good. Real good.
The recipes in this book come with wonderful real life stories.
What’s not to like about a Rick Bragg book. Always a winner.
What a wonderful tribute to his mother. There is so many neat things to be found in this story of family, food, and his mom’s wisdom.