cover image Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins

Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins

Ernest Matthew Mickler. Ten Speed Press, $19.95 (158pp) ISBN 978-0-89815-269-2

Mickler's White Trash Cooking helped lead the backlash against nouvelle cuisine fussiness: his ``rococo-cola'' recipes and southern-fried anecdotes re-enthroned the tackier aspects of American cooking and redneck life in general. Thanks to him, we don't question the value of good-old-boy-style eating as we once didand this seems to have put Mickler in a quandary. His new cookbook tries to carry on the White Trash tradition, focusing on both the eats and the human parade that accompany funerals, quilting bees, family reunion picnics and other ``sacred and secular ceremonies.'' But the proud provincialism and hillbilly humor that propelled White Trash Cooking now seem stale, and the author's attempt to mimic regional argot palls quickly. Perusing the recipes, one suspects that cooks of the rural South deserve better than an extended joke on their fondness for Cool Whip. Recipes from the ``Hawg Killins'' chapters are the best; they return to a cooking heritage that thrived before the age of nondairy toppings and canned soups. (Dec.)