White Trash Cooking (It’s A Real Cookbook!)

I am an avid fan of cookbooks. I love reading through the pages, looking at the photos and trying new recipes. I have my mom’s old cookbooks, cookbooks I’ve picked up at thrift stores and even some of my grandmother’s. By far, one of my favorite cookbooks to flip through – though I have yet to cook from it – is White Trash Cooking by Ernest M. Mickler.

Don’t let the name of the book fool you – this book is not  a joke. It’s warmly written, funny, and very real cookbook filled with traditional and unusual recipes of traditional American food. It’s not offensive, although the title might be – it celebrates the simple cooking of our rural ancestors.

Some are fun and we eat without even considering it white trash food, like the Tater Tot Casserole recipe. I myself make a different version of this casserole, and it’s the #1 searched recipe on my personal blog! Looking for recipes for possum, squirrel or gator tail? Me neither. But there are recipes in the book for them!

White Trash Cooking also has some great photographs by the author of people, places and food throughout his life in rural and small town Mississippi. There are also short stories that will make you giggle.

This book is as entertaining as it is devoted to Southern cooking. Sure I’ll never make possum (I don’t even know where I’d find possum even if I wanted to try to make it!), but there are some recipes that I have tried and they are YUMMY (the biscuit recipe is phenomenal!). This is real, simple food.

Have you seen this book before? What do you think of it?

Photo Source: amazon.com