Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are a lot of 5 star reviews of this book on Amazon, and if you wish to peruse them, I guarantee that about half of them feature the words "I haven't had the opportunity to try any recepie yet." I bought the book on Amazon because of the glowing reviews that oddly don't mention any favorite recipes and are obsessed with the weight of the paper and the full page color photos. reviews that talk about "spelling and grammar errors" as if we should hold that against the author of a southern cookbook? Anyway, I agree with all of them. The paper is very heavy, the book is very heavy and in true southern style, the "NOLA Oyster Stew" is heavy, Oh boy. My problem with the book and the thing omitted from the author's description is that this isn't a book for the down-home southern cook, and in fact, I'm not really sure who its for. Perhaps a collector of cookbooks? The problem with this recipe book, it doesn't have enough food in it. You can't make a meal of dark chicken stock, garlic infused olive oil, tomato jam and brown sugar black pepper bacon(or maybe you could, but that recipe certainly doesn't appear in this book.) What little star of the show main course food that does appear (which is maybe 30-40 real recipes at best) are usually overly complicated takes on southern classics that rather miss the point of southern cooking. Things like "deep south (pho') "ramen" with fried then poached eggs" or "homemade shrimp and lobster corn-dogs" and just what is "country style pork pate'?" This book feels like it is about the pantry filler, more about the pickles than the pigs(more about ducks than pigs too). Don't get me wrong, this book would be great next thanksgiving if you feel the need to up your game. Almost every dish in here would make an excellent side dish or add in. What is a BBQ without a good chicken salad? And I'm sure that the "chicken skin cornbread" would compliment any proud dad's world famous chili. You may never make your pan seared chicken the same way once you pair it with an "english rosemary and pea risotto" and it never hurts to have a jar of "pickled Soy-shitaki mushrooms" on-hand, just in case. Oh, and BTW, if you like me bought this book hoping to have a little fun incorporating whiskey into your cooking, you can forget about that too. there are 10 chapters in this book including one on "slathers and spreadables" and yet, if you ignore the section on bartending(which I do) I think there might be 3-5 actual liquor infused recipes. The author missed some amazing opportunities to include classics like a coq au vin or a whisky bbq sauce (which let's be honest is a glaring omission from a cookbook with whiskey and pork in the title and an entire section devoted to slathers, I mean really?) or even a nice beer or whiskey (beer and whiskey?) chili. My advice to the owners of this book is to read it thoroughly, pull out the various sauces, pickles, preserves, jams and jellies and use them to cook the simple southern food that you (hopefully) know how to make and if you are like me, a 20-something Texas man who thinks that campfires and stove tops are interchangeable heat sources in the culinary world, you should probably stay away from any books that mention the words "duck confit." So, to sum up I would give this book 4-5 stars if we had another dozen (or more) pork/whiskey recipes, a section on BBQ, a little more focus too (if you are going to do a section on slathers and sauces, include 2-3 hotsauces a couple of amazing bbq sauces for instance, same with pickles, same with, well, you get the idea) a more complete table of contents, and didn't ignore the classics like Steak, BBQ Pork Ribs, Coq Au Vin and Chili(either that or just skip the gratuitous invocation of southern culture and call it something like John Currence's Cornucopia and be done with it).