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Rating: 
Summary: Charming Picture of Life and Food on Carolina Coast Island
Review: This book of recipes and remembrances by a woman, Sallie Ann Robinson, who grew up on South Carolina's Daufuskie Island is much more a work of social and culinary history than it is a work of culinary interest. The first thing which most impressed me about the book was how fascinating and charming it was to read about the author's life with her many siblings, parents, grandmother, and neighbors. The second thing, which impressed me, was how dull her recipes were from a strictly culinary point of view.An example of the monotony is the eleven salad recipes in the first chapter. The first recipe is a simple version of the Waldorf salad and the second salad is a simple cole slaw. The remaining nine recipes are simply variations on the same mayonnaise, pickle relish, celery, and sweet pepper salad combined with a protein and appropriate spices. The recipes for sweets and pastries are similarly very common versions of recipes we have all seen a dozen times over. This is not to say the recipes had no interest. As a case study of culinary anthropology, it is fascinating to compare this cuisine with the rustic Italian cuisine, which is heavily based on 'the fifth quarter' of the pig plus cured pork products. The differences are even more interesting. In spite of a life based greatly on subsistence farming, fishing, hunting, and gathering, there is no mention of curing, preserving, or cheese making or any other activity which would come to elevate Italian food to it's high place in the world's cuisines. This is not to belittle this rural South Carolina cuisine, but to point out the genius behind food in Italy. The industry, pride, and ingenuity involved in the collection of raw foodstuffs on Daufuskie are truly amazing in light of the slim resources available. Fishing nets were made by hand. Wooden hoe, shovel, and rake handles were made and placed in their metal parts by hand. Tilling was done with a plough worthy of a museum of 17th century agriculture, drawn by a steer. All cultivation and harvesting was done by hand. Iron tools were all sharpened by hand. All this takes place against a backdrop of the local business, oyster canning, being destroyed by pollution from modern industry befouling the waters of the Savannah River. A second theme is how the natives of this backwater island succeeded in living by their wits in the enforced absence of decent education up until the success of the civil rights movement of the late 1960s. I was expecting a bit more from these recipes, especially after seeing the author demonstrate some of her recipes on Sara Moulton's Food Network show. But, I will give Ms. Moulton's producers full credit for filming segments on Daufuskie Island itself, showing up that the way of life on that island is the real hero of this book. I would buy it for it's effective evocation of this way of life and it's snapshot of an unvarnished poor rural subsistence living cuisine.
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