Rereading: The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg

A delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and, especially, to his mother.

Margaret Bragg measures in "dabs" and "smidgens" and "tads" and "you know, hon, just some." Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. The irresistible stories in this audiobook are of long memory -- many of them pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next.

This is much more memoir than recipe book. There are plenty old customs, living through hard times, and personalities in Rick Bragg's family tree. I am not one who likes stories of dysfunctional families and I appreciate that the dysfunctions are smoothed out or merely hinted at because the emphasis is on how the recipe came into the family or how someone learned to cook. By listening to the stories in the kitchen we can take the good with the bad, especially when it comes with a helping of Axhead Soup or Chicken and Dressing.

I recently picked up the Kindle version when my mother was in the hospital and I needed some comfort reading. It more than filled the bill, although I read only a little here and there since I discovered that what I really longed for was author Rick Bragg's narration of the book. Now she's home again and I am still very slowly reading and listening a bit here and there as I find the time to truly savor it. It is as comforting as the food and stories it describes.

And, although I have only read the recipes, I may actually choose one or two to make. Beginning with those beans cooked with ham, a dish I dearly love.