The flavors of her mother’s kitchen are the flavors she chased for the rest of her life.

Like the cookbook that preceded this one, The Taste of Country Cooking, published in 1976, In Pursuit of Flavor leans heavily on her upbringing. She wrote in In Pursuit of Flavor: “I grew up in Freetown, a small farming community in Orange County, Virginia, which was founded by my grandfather and his friends shortly after his emancipation from slavery.” For her role in that there are no plaudits too great. Lewis, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 89, is renowned (sainted, even, and deservedly so) as the cornerstone of African-American cooking and Southern foodways. The recipe for Brunswick Stew (which calls for squirrel, but allows that you might simply use more chicken in its place), is right next to the recipe for Roast Pheasant with Currant or Gooseberry Sauce. Instead of “meat,” the section is “From the Farmyard,” and therefore includes eggs. Originally published in 1988, the book is composed of six chapters, each focused on the source of the food.

I have seen no better representation of open-mindedness and the all-embracing impulse than in Edna Lewis’s cookbook In Pursuit of Flavor, which was recently reissued by Knopf.

I thought people ate that way not because they liked to cook that way, but because they didn’t know how to cook. In the arrogance of my youth, I’d simply thought that people who liked green beans that way didn’t know any better.

The taste of country cooking recipes