From Venison Grillades to Coconut Chili-Chocolate Tarts and much in between, Jay Ducote's Louisiana Outdoor Cooking features more than 150 recipes fun and easy enough to make in the backyard. It also tells the remarkable story of how this Baton Rouge-based chef achieved national culinary celebrity. Fans of the reality cooking show Food Network Star remember Jay Ducote as the runner-up in season eleven, a strong showing that led to appearances on Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, and many other programs, including an episode of Beat Bobby Flay in which he outdueled the acclaimed chef. As Ducote and coauthor Cynthia LeJeune Nobles explain, his love of all things culinary started in college, when he cooked under the oak trees on the LSU campus prior to football games. Over the years, Ducote's popular tailgate parties showcased Cajun favorites, such as chicken and andouille gumbo, crawfish hushpuppies and fritters, grilled shrimp, and jambalaya, as well as a rich array of smoked and grilled meats. He has gone on to create specialty dishes, including Barbecue Popcorn, Crawfish Arancini, Loaded Barbecue Cheese Fries, Pimento Cheese-Stuffed Jalapenos, and his award-winning Blackberry Bourbon Bone-In Boston Butt. Now a popular radio host, caterer, and restaurant owner, Ducote provides readers with a wealth of surefire recipes for dishes and drinks to enjoy at a tailgate, a family get-together, or whenever the weather feels right for cooking outside. Celebrating the world of barbecue pits and cast-iron cauldrons, Jay Ducote's Louisiana Outdoor Cooking conveys a passion for the cultures, foods, and flavors of south Louisiana.

Memere's Country Creole Cookbook showcases regional dishes and cooking styles associated with the ""German Coast,"" a part of southeastern Louisiana located along the Mississippi River north of New Orleans. This rural community, originally settled by German and French immigrants, produced a vibrant cuisine comprised of classic New Orleans Creole dishes that also feature rustic Cajun flavors and ingredients. A native and longtime resident of the German Coast, Nancy Tregre Wilson focuses on foods she learned to cook in the kitchens of her great-grandmother (Memere), her Cajun French grandmother (Mam Papaul), and her own mother. Each instilled in Wilson a passion for the flavors and traditions that define this distinct Cajun Creole cuisine. Sharing family recipes as well as those collected from neighbors and friends, Wilson adds personal anecdotes and cooking tips to ensure others can enjoy the specialty dishes of this region. The book features over two hundred recipes, including dishes like crab-stuffed shrimp, paneed meat with white gravy, red bean gumbo, and mirliton salad, as well as some of the area's staple dishes, such as butterbeans with shrimp, galettes (flattened, fried bread squares), tea cakes, and ""l'il coconut pies."" Wilson also offers details of traditional rituals like her family's annual November boucherie and the process for preparing foods common in early-twentieth-century Louisiana but rarely served today, such as pig tails and blood boudin. Pairing historic recipes with Wilson's memories of life on the German Coast, Memere's Country Creole Cookbook documents the culture and cuisine of an often-overlooked part of the South.

For over four decades, John Coykendall's passion has been preserving the farm heritage of a small community in rural southeastern Louisiana. A Tennessee native and longtime master gardener at Blackberry Farm, Coykendall has become a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine with locally sourced, organic, and heirloom foods and flavors. While his work takes him around the world searching for seeds and the cultural knowledge of how to grow them, what inspires him most is his annual pilgrimage to Louisiana. Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student, Coykendall forged long-lasting friendships with local farmers and gardeners. Over the decades, he has recorded oral histories, recipes, tall tales, agricultural knowledge, and wisdom from generations past in more than eighty illustrated and handwritten journals. At the same time, he has unearthed and safeguarded rare varieties of food crops once grown in the area, then handed them back to the community. In Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories, Coykendall shares a wealth of materials collected in his journals, ensuring they are passed on to future generations. organised by season, the book offers a narrative chronicle of Coykendall's visits to Washington Parish since 1973. He highlights staple crops, agricultural practices, and favourite recipes from the families and friends who have hosted him. Accompanied by a rich selection of drawings, journal pages, and photographs, along with over forty recipes, Preserving Our Roots chronicles Coykendall's passion for recording foods and narratives that capture the rhythms of daily life on farms, in kitchens, and across generations.

Every year on March 19, Roman Catholic churches and households in and around New Orleans celebrate St. Joseph's Day. As centerpieces of these celebrations, the elaborate tiered displays of foods, prayers, and offerings known as St. Joseph Altars represent a centuries-old tradition established in south Louisiana by immigrants from Sicily. In Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars, Sandra Scalise Juneau expertly documents the stories, recipes, and religious symbolism of this rich tradition passed down through multiple generations. While the altars have adapted over time to local ingredients and tastes, most of the customary dishes still follow cooking and baking methods that remain relatively unchanged from over a century ago. Juneau traces the history and symbols associated with the St. Joseph Altar from its Sicilian origins to its establishment among Louisiana's celebrations, then its later embrace by multicultural communities across the United States. She also provides a guide for preparing an altar, complete with recommended timelines and suggestions for physical setup. She offers over sixty carefully selected recipes centered on delectable breads, fish, pasta, and spring vegetables. Pastries receive special attention, with detailed instructions for carving the intricate fig cake designs known as cuccidati. Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars chronicles a cultural tradition that continues to draw families and communities together in a generous spirit of hospitality.

From meatball po'boys to Creole red gravy, the influence of Sicilian foodways permeates New Orleans, one of America's greatest food cities. Nana's Creole Italian Table tells the story of those immigrants and their communities through the lens of food, exploring the ways traditional Sicilian dishes such as pasta and olive salad became a part of-and were in turn changed by-the existing food culture in New Orleans. Sicilian immigrants-Elizabeth M. Williams's family among them-came to New Orleans in droves in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fleeing the instability of their own country and hoping to make a new home in America. This cookbook shares Williams's traditional family recipes, with variations that reveal the evolution and blending of Sicilian and Creole cuisines. Baked into every recipe is the history of Sicilian American culture as it has changed over the centuries, allowing each new generation to incorporate its own foodways and ever-evolving tastes.

In John Kennedy Toole's iconic novel, Ignatius J. Reilly is never short of opinions about food or far away from his next bite. Whether issuing gibes such as ""canned food is a perversion,"" or taking a break from his literary ambitions with ""an occasional cheese dip,"" this lover of Lucky Dogs, cafe au lait, and wine cakes navigates 1960s New Orleans focused on gastronomical pursuits. For the novel's millions of fans, Cynthia LeJeune Nobles's A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook offers recipes inspired by the delightfully commonplace and always delicious fare of Ignatius and his cohorts. Through an informative narrative and almost 200 recipes, Nobles explores the intersection of food, history, and culture found in the Pulitzer Prize--winning novel, opening up a new avenue into New Orleans's rich culinary traditions. Dishes inspired by Ignatius's favorites -- macaroons and ""toothsome"" steak -- as well as recipes based on supporting characters -- Officer Mancuso's Pork and Beans and Dr. Talc's Bloody Marys -- complement a wealth of fascinating detail about the epicurean side of the novel's memorable settings. A guide to the D. H. Holmes Department Store's legendary Chicken Salad, the likely offerings of the fictitious German's Bakery, and an in-depth interview with the general manager of Lucky Dogs round out this delightful cookbook. A lighthearted yet impeccably researched look at the food of the 1960s, A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook reaffirms the singularity and timelessness of both New Orleans cuisine and Toole's comic tour de force.