Quest to Preserve America's Food Heritage is Complete . . .
Best of the Best State Cookbook Series Now Covers the Entire United States!
(Brandon, MS) In 1982, when Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley published their first cookbook of the best recipes from Mississippi's best cookbooks (Best of the Best from Mississippi), publishing a cookbook for every state in America seemed only a dream. But now they can finally say, "We did it!"
The Best of the Best State Cookbook Series now covers all fifty states (some books include more than one state). The Series
contains more than 17,000 recipes hand-picked from the hundreds of
thousands of recipes they discovered. In the process, Gwen and Barbara
visited every single state, selling over 2 million cookbooks, and making
lifetime friends along the way.
What Gwen and Barbara found in their travels wasn't
only the best banana pudding recipe, but the charming woman in Alabama
who invited them into her home to sit down and have a taste. It was the
clerk in the local bookstore in Oregon who so proudly showed
them the great cookbooks from the Northwest. It was the helpful people
at the visitors bureaus across the country who dug through the
archives for photographs and interesting facts that truly depicted their
hometowns. It was America at its finest that Gwen and Barbara found,
and theirs is an American history that is told through the treasured art
of cooking. "Once we had published a few books, our goal for the Best of the Best State Cookbook Series was
not just to define the flavor and diversity of each region, but also to
record American culinary traditions for future generations," says Gwen,
"in fact, Preserving America's Food Heritage has become our
motto and our mission."To accomplish this, Gwen, Barbara, and the Quail
Ridge Press staff poured through more than 10,000 cookbooks to find
recipes worthy of being included and preserved for future generations.
Finding these cookbooks was no easy feat. In the days
before the Internet, the two would spend hours sitting on a bookstore
floor pouring through cookbooks, making pages and pages of copious
notes--not to mention the thousands of phone calls they made and the
miles they traveled from town to town, sometimes literally knocking on
doors asking about local cookbooks. "We choose each recipe based foremost
on taste, but each recipe must also be easy enough for the everyday
cook to prepare, using ingredients that are easy to find," Barbara
says. Contributing cookbooks to the Series
include a sampling of community and church cookbooks that rarely gain
recognition beyond their own communities, as well as contributions by
popular junior league cookbooks, renowned chefs, and four-star
restaurants. Each cookbook in the series contains a special section that
provides a description and ordering information for the contributing
cookbooks.
Since many of these cookbooks go out of print, recording
their best recipes before they are lost forever takes on even more
meaning.Seeking out the best of America's food and cooking has been a
learning experience. "We found with few exceptions, food preferences
don't stop at state lines, so largely, dishes are regional," Gwen
said.For example, Louisiana has its Cajun flavors, New Mexico its spicy
chiles, and New England its regional cuisine of maple-flavored treats
and clam chowders. Additionally, certain dishes originate in specific
places, and become part of the overall state cuisine. Try Burgoo, Derby Pie, and
Mint Juleps which are decidedly from Kentucky; Maryland features crab
cakes; Cincinnati Chili; Kansas City Barbecue; Mississippi Mud Pie;
Georgia Peach Cobbler; California Cobb Salad; Michigan Cherry Pie;
Louisiana Pralines? and the list goes on and on!
For more information, to request a review copy, or to schedule an interview with the editors, contact 1.800.343.1583 or emily.quailridgepress@gmail.com
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