cover image A Taste of the Gulf Coast: The Art and Soul of Southern Cooking

A Taste of the Gulf Coast: The Art and Soul of Southern Cooking

Jessie Tirsch. MacMillan Publishing Company, $25 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-02-860356-8

Hugging the coastlines of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, Tirsch collects 200 frankly down-home recipes. ""Far from the ritz and glitz of L.A. and New York, the Gulf Coast is home to real people,"" she writes, and most recipes are attributed to locals limned in thumbnail sketches, though some come from restaurant chefs. Many dishes exploit enviable supplies of seafood. There's Everett's Broiled Flounder in Milk Gravy or Judy Arceneaux's Smothered Crabs, which even tells tyros how to clean hard-shell blue crabs. A heavy hand with fats earmarks much traditional food, an indulgence gratified when Paper Bag Fish with Leeky Wine Sauce specifies two sticks of unsalted butter in a meal for four. The coast's splendid marriage of cultures is reflected in the Egyptian-influenced Galila's Seafood Rice; Greek-inspired Tarpon Springs Stifado, a richly spiced stew of meat, onions, carrots and kalamata olives; and the Cuban Boliche, a luxurious ragout of beef, chorizo, ham, onions and olives. Lorena's Nacatamals are Honduran tamales wrapped in banana leaves. Tirsch has something for every course from appetizers to desserts, including even San Coche, a wedding cake laden with dried fruit and nuts soaked in rum and red wine. The book itself is a rich gumbo of robust recipes for bold palates. Photos not seen by PW. (May)