CULTURE
Off the Shelf
Culinary Classic The Hot Brown: Louisville’s Legendary Open-Faced Sandwich By Albert W.A. Schmid, Indiana University Press, $15 (H)
(P)-Paperback (C)-Clothbound (H)-Hardback
A Tasty Tour The Basics The Essential Pantry: Streamline Your Ingredients, Simplify Your Meals By Maggie Green; photos by Sarah Jane Sanders, Indiana University Press, $30 (H)
This diminutive book celebrates the delicious, hearty, cheesy concoction created at the famous Brown Hotel in the 1920s. The Hot Brown has become as synonymous with Kentucky as Thoroughbred racehorses and bourbon. Basically, it is an opened-faced turkey sandwich, covered in Mornay sauce, bacon and tomatoes, but there are different versions and different ingredients, depending on whom you ask. In The Hot Brown: Louisville’s Legendary Open-Faced Sandwich, Albert W.A. Schmid relates the history of the dish and features the recipe from the Brown Hotel. As with most recipes, things evolve, and chefs like to put their own spin on them. Schmid includes ways to serve the Hot Brown cold, with pasta, over cornbread and various other options. Schmid, a chef and educator as well as a writer, is formerly a professor at Louisville’s Sullivan University. He has written several books, including The Kentucky Bourbon Cookbook, Burgoo, Barbecue, and Bourbon: A Kentucky Culinary Trinity, The Old Fashioned: An Essential Guide to the Original Whiskey Cocktail and The Manhattan Cocktail: A Modern Guide to a Whiskey Classic.
If your pantry is stocked with the right ingredients, you can make anything. Food and nutrition expert Maggie Green starts of her cookbook, The Essential Pantry: Streamline Your Ingredients, Simplify Your Meals, with a list of essentials such as spices, dry goods, canned goods, dairy items and frozen foods, and then goes on to show what you can make when you have all the fixings. Green’s easy-to-follow recipes and light, conversational writing style teamed with beautiful color photos can help anyone get a meal on the table. Sectioned into categories like soups, salads, sides and suppers, the book also includes a list of basic equipment every kitchen needs. From pan-charred corn to zucchini and carrot pancakes, to oven-fried Sriracha honey hot chicken, the dishes certainly aren’t boring, even when the ingredients are common ones. Green, who lives in Fort Wright, is a professionally trained chef and a registered and licensed dietitian. She has written several cookbooks, including The Kentucky Fresh Cookbook and The Essential Plant-based Pantry, companion to this cookbook. Additionally, she was the lead editor of 75th anniversary edition of Joy of Cooking.
DEBORAH KOHL KREMER
DEBORAH KOHL KREMER
Editor’s Note: For more on Kentucky’s famed Hot Brown, see page 12. 40
K E N T U C K Y M O N T H LY • M AY 2 0 1 9
Famous Kentucky Flavors: Exploring the Commonwealth’s Greatest Cuisines By Cameron M. Ludwick and Blair Thomas Hess; photos by Elliott Hess, Indiana University Press, $15 (P)
Kentucky has plenty to explore—historic sites, scenic landscapes, natural wonders, famous venues and unique cuisine. In Famous Kentucky Flavors: Exploring the Commonwealth’s Greatest Cuisines, authors Cameron M. Ludwick and Blair Thomas Hess take readers on a journey that highlights the Commonwealth’s most appetizing foods, including specialities such as beer cheese, spoonbread, burgoo, Hot Browns, barbecued mutton, Derby day pies, bourbon balls and more. For each dish spotlighted, the authors include its history, a recipe and suggested eateries that serve it. Many of the dishes originated in Kentucky, and there are numerous festivals across the state that pay homage to them as well as other favorite local foods. Ludwick and Hess focus on these as “road trip” destinations within the chapters and also list them in a handy food festival calendar. Elliott Hess’ photos of the featured foods and festivals add visual interest to the book, which is part of the authors’ My Old Kentucky Road Trip four-book series. In addition to writing books, Ludwick—a Kentucky native now living in Austin, Texas—and Hess, a Frankfort resident, blog about their excursions. Check them out at myoldkentuckyroadtrip.com. PATRICIA RANFT