Laura Taylor

What Momma Knew and Daddy Grew Laura Taylor

This cookbook is a tribute to those people who nourished and supported me over my lifetime. It is a collection of recipes carefully assembled and chosen for taste and simplicity.

Having moved around the country for work, or to experience new places and people, I have remained attentive to savory dishes and new ways to cook. There is considerable attention to the Southern fare I grew up with, but also new dishes to enjoy.

Trying to revisit and recreate recipes from my early years forced me to reexamine how we eat now. The time and preparation necessary to have a "decent meal," as the saying goes, has been replaced by a vast array of convenience foods, fast foods, home delivered raw ingredients with recipe cards, and special diets of every description, which restrict ingredients that were once basic to any recipe.

After much consideration, I looked past all of that and included only recipes I tested and photographed and wanted to share because I liked eating them. Many are from my childhood where they originated with the Appalachian Mountain cooks who nourished me. Many are gone, but none are forgotten.

Now these recipes live on for everyone to enjoy.