ASHEVILLE – Spice up your meal rotation with a new collection of recipes that tell stories of innovation, culture and tradition from local chef Ashley Shanti.
Shanti, owner of Good Hot Fish, a modern-day fish camp restaurant that opened earlier this year, has published her debut cookbook, 125 recipes that reflect her personal culinary journey and Black foodways. I have summarized.
Our South: Black Food Through My Lens will be released on October 15th and will be published by Union Square & Company.
Originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Shanti puts her life’s experiences and skills to the plate, appearing in the pages of a cookbook featuring dishes like hot collards and oyster dip and fried saltines.
Last fall, Shanti told the Citizen Times that she worked on the cookbook for two years before submitting the manuscript.
“This is a cookbook that focuses on a micro-region of the South that is incredibly special to me,” Shanti told the Citizen Times. “My father’s side is from Charleston, South Carolina, my mother’s side is from Southwest Virginia, and then I grew up in coastal Virginia, and then I grew up in Virginia Beach. All these different places are emphasized.”
In the foreword, Shanti writes that Our South is not an Appalachian or Southern cookbook or a “chef’s” book that focuses solely on her family’s soul food recipes, but rather to enhance readers’ understanding of the region’s complexities. I wrote that it is a comprehensive book. Black Cuisine and “Dispelling the Myths of What America Thinks Black Cuisine Is and What It Isn’t.”
Shanti says she is a Black, queer female chef who has found her identity in cooking, but her recipes are inspired by Ashley’s childhood cooking along the Virginia coast, Rolando, and the place she calls home. Recipes inspired by the United States and focused on micro-regions of the American South. What she will cook today. Shanti takes readers into the backcountry to learn about the styles of the Black Appalachian South, unearths Gullah-Geechee food traditions in the Lowcountry, and takes readers through the Midlands, known as the “Mecca of Black Agriculture.”
“Our South” begins with the chef’s family history and storytelling with photos, followed by recipes such as classic cornbread, Carolina gold rice, rice midrin, and pot licker.
Other highlight recipes include turmeric roasted cauliflower with green olives and golden raisin gremolata, grilled sorghum chicken, and rice custard brûlée with strawberries.
You’ll also learn how to make the popular Fish Camp Hush Puppies with sour corn ketchup, which is also featured on the Good Hot Fish menu, and how to make Kitchen Pepper Chicken Wings with the chef’s signature spice blend.
Shanti, a former chef at downtown’s Ben on Eagle and a 2020 James Beard Award Rising Star Chef finalist, has worked at places like Minibar in Washington, D.C.
She cooked until she was a top five finalist on season 19 of Bravo’s TV series “Top Chef” and appeared on Hulu’s “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi,” starring the former “Top Chef” host. He also appeared in season 2 of
“Our South: Black Food Through a Lens”
release date: October 15th
information: The hardcover is $40 and will be sold at major bookstores including Barnes & Noble. Pre-order through Union Square & Co. Publishers (unionsquareandco.com). For more information, follow her Ashleigh Shanti (@foodordeath_) on Instagram.
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Tiana Kennel is a food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow us on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this kind of journalism.Citizen Times subscription.
