Nothing evokes comfort, warmth, and mouth-watering hospitality like the dishes prepared by people who actually grow the food. From Susan Herrmann Loomis, author of The French Farmhouse Cookbook , The Italian Farmhouse Cookbook , The Great American Seafood Cookbook , and Clambakes & Fish Fries , Farmhouse Cookbook is the result of a 20,000-mile trek across rural America in search of the soul of the family farm. Passionate in her quest to taste the freshest corn, understand the basics of cattle ranching, and find out just how an artichoke grows, the author contacted legions of farmers who generously shared their time, their knowledge, their homes, and their recipes. Although Farmhouse Cookbook includes the best pot roast, meat loaf, and stew you're ever likely to encounter, it goes well beyond the expected meat-and-potatoes fare. Here is Chew Chang's Chicken and Mustard Green Soup, Lentil Salad with Smoked Turkey and Tarragon, Pork Loin with Coriander and Garlic Crust, a Basque Fourteen-Hour Leg of Lamb, Lemony Herbed Chicken Wings, Nate Pennell's Mulligan Stew with Blueberry Dumplings, Amish Corn Pudding, and Mary Navarette's Garlicky Enchiladas, from the Christopher Farm in Gilroy, California, the garlic capital of the world. Plus, extraordinary baking-Hot Pepper Corn Bread, Funny Cake, Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies, Rhubarb Crunch, Sour Cherry Crumb Pie, and Best Ever Chocolate Cake. With profiles of farms and farmers, tips, lore, and an almond to zucchini lexicon, Farmhouse Cookbook is as irresistible as the ring of the dinner bell over the fields. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club's HomeStyle Books and Better Homes & Gardens Family Book Service. 197,000 copies in print. To compile this cookbook Loomis has visited farms throughout the country, and the recipes come with notes on her encounters with the farmers. Since she writes well (allowing for the usual cookbook writer's effusion), this adds a nice dimension to your experience of the dish. The food is good, not necessarily low in fat (the heavy breakfasts seem particularly artery-clogging) but otherwise wholesome and often organic, and far from limited to standard American meat-and-potatoes, though there is much of that too. Loomis had Mexican posole and tamale pie on a farm in Iowa, a Finnish stuffed cabbage in Montana, a slow-cooked Basque leg of lamb in Idaho, curried catfish in Mississippi, and heaps of enticing cookies, cakes, pies, and baked fruit desserts everywhere. She visited an herb farm, a trout farm, an almond farm, and a garlic farm, and she describes operations on some of these and others in interesting two- or three-page profiles. Likely to have wide appeal. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. A SOPHISTICATED COUNTRY PALATE "Susan Loomis understands that food is made by people, not machines. In this excellent book, she shares her affection for the growers and their lives, the foods they grow and the ways they cook them . . . a culinary, social, and even political odyssey." --Barbara Kafka, author of Microwave Gourmet and Microwave Gourmet Healthstyle Cookbook Hot biscuits from a country kitchen. Duck Breasts with Honey and Thyme Sauce. Peach Pies cooling on the windowsill and Ancho Chile Pepper Puree in the larder. In a book as warm and generous and unexpected as the food it celebrates, Susan Hermann Loomis shares the fruits of a 20,000-mile adventure criss-crossing America in search of the soul of farmhouse cooking. Hear the dinner bell ringing. FROM THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN RECIPE BOX Summer Tomato Pie Pennsylvania Chicken Corn Soup Lentil Salad with Smoked Turkey Pork Loin with a Coriander and Garlic Crust Barley with Saffron and Lemon Dilled Beets and Potatoes Montana Chicken Salad Best-Ever Apple Pie Hazelnut Crisps Susan Herrmann Loomis is a European-based food writer whose work appears regularly in The New York Times; she also writes a weekly column for Conde Nast's epicurious.com. Her other books include Italian Farmhouse Cookbook, French Farmhouse Cookbook, Farmhouse Cookbook, and Clam Bakes & Fish Fries.