EP 55 Refinding Home: Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking, and Me

<p>Season 3 kicks off with a cookbook with a heartfelt message of seasonality. The Taste of Country cooking by Chef Edna Lewis provides a beautifully written canvas for Kim and Leigh explore what it means to eat seasonally, and what it means to be home.</p><p>Despite growing up in a figurative cornucopia of produce in California, Kim struggled to feel a connection between herself, the food she ate, and the place she lived. It wasn’t that the luscious fruits and vegetables were bad - it just was that the easy availability and agricultural homogeneity made everything less vibrant, less succulent, and less special. </p><p>Reading Edna Lewis’s seminal work <em>The Taste of Country Cooking</em> helped Kim to break through a false dichotomy between the stereotypes of “city” and “country” and encouraged her to examine the development of her own foodways and traditions grown while living in seven different U.S states.</p><p>In the pages of this loving tribute to Chef Lewis’ childhood home in Freetown, Virginia and its rich traditions, Kim found inspiration to embrace the place in which she lives now and to nurture roots in her home community by exploring new foods grown locally in season. </p><p>Together Kim and Leigh explore both the fascinating life of Chef Edna Lewis, how she came to write this marvelous book, and the enduring legacy that <em>The Taste of Country Cooking</em> plays in defining not only a key element of American food culture, but also how it loving marks an important time and place in the author’s life.</p><h4><strong>Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode</strong> </h4><h4><a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/edna-lewis" rel="nofollow">Biography: Edna Lewis</a></h4><p><a href="https://ednalewisfoundation.org/chef-edna-lewis/" rel="nofollow">Edna Lewis Foundation: “About Chef Edna Lewis”</a></p><h4><strong>Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading</strong></h4><p><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/84555/9780307265609" rel="nofollow">The Taste of Country Cooking</a> by Edna L