I am an avid fan of cookbooks…I have a gazillion of them. I love looking at the photos and trying new recipes. I have my mom’s old cookbooks, cookbooks I’ve picked up at thrift stores and even some I bought just for the pictures. I was recently looking for a recipe and pulled out a bunch of cookbooks. That’s when I found one I had forgotten about that my mom gave me for my birthday one year: White Trash Cooking by Ernest M. Mickler.

What is the whit trash cookbook?

Don’t let the name of the book fool you – White Trash Cooking is not a joke. 25 years ago Mickler gathered more than 200 recipes—collected from West Virginia to Key West—showcasing the cooking and hospitality traditions of the white trash way.

White Trash Cooking is warmly written, funny, and filled with traditional and unusual recipes of traditional American food. It’s not offensive, although the title might be – it celebrates the simple cooking of our rural ancestors.

Some are fun and we don’t even consider white trash food, like the Tater Tot Casserole recipe. I myself make a different version of this casserole, and it’s the #1 searched recipe on my blog. There’s a recipe for Hoppin John that I want to try too. And just about all the desserts sound yummy, or like some version of a dessert my family used to make when I was a kid. I’ll pass on this Pore Folk Soup.

Looking for recipes for possum, squirrel or gator tail? Me neither. But there are recipes in the book for them!. Read the directions…they’re funny (although they aren’t meant to be!)

White Trash Cooking also has some great photographs by the author of people, places and food throughout his life in rural and small town Mississippi. There are also short stories that will make you smile.

This book is not just a devotion to southern cooking, it’s also entertaining. You could leave it out on the coffee table as a conversation starter! Sure I’ll never make possum (I don’t even know where I’d find possum even if I wanted to try to make it!), but cheers to White Trash Cooking for showcasing real, simple, old school American food.

If you are a fan of white trash, I have a couple of fun posts for White Trash Party Ideas and White Trash Gift Ideas. Still want more white trash? Check out my Pinterest White Trash board.

This is not a sponsored review, though it might sound like one. I just love this cookbook and wanted to share!