The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg

Sis is also known among the family for shooting her husband in the teeth (“They was real big teeth,” Bragg’s Aunt Juanita explained, not very helpfully) and for her chicken and dressing, one of several dozen recipes included in the book. Bragg bears this out in the stories about his grandfather’s cousin Sis, a large woman with a larger-than-life presence, about whom he writes, “She lived just slightly this side of folklore, and people, of course, built on her legend.” So it goes: Bragg’s family stories are not outrageous enough to wonder if they are flat-out lies, but as is the case with most family stories, they seem to grow to legendary stature over time. The old man agrees, begrudgingly and wordlessly, to follow his son home from Georgia to teach the young bride how to cook. Charlie’s only remedy is to go find his father, Jimmy Jim Bundrum, who has deserted his Alabama family in the aftermath of a knife fight in which he may or may not have killed another man.

Ava has no skill for cooking or baking, and in 1924 that rendered her basically unfit for marriage.

The family history begins in 1924, when Bragg’s grandfather Charlie is hoodwinked into marrying the bewitching Ava, who serves dinner and pie prepared by her sisters, hoping to match her with a gullible and hungry young man. If you’ve never met a cantankerous, strong, old Southern woman who can cook until the cows come home, meet Margaret Bragg. She protests against her son’s request for a temperature at which to set the oven, concerned that she cannot provide a good answer since she doesn’t know anything about the oven of any (let alone every) person who might try out one of her recipes. She knows when something is done baking because it smells right. This provides one thread of humor throughout the book: once Bragg has secured his mother’s willingness to share her cooking techniques, he must find ways to quantify dabs, smidgens and three different measures of handful: part of a handful, a handful and a real good handful. His writing is informed by both his upbringing in Possum Trot, Alabama and his career as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote for the New York Times and several other newspapers.Ĭentral to Bragg’s storytelling is his mother, the eponymous cook who has never used a recipe but has mastered Southern cuisine. Rick Bragg begins big, with a fresh pot of ingredients that brim with Southern nostalgia.

There’s a bit of Jack Kerouac and a bit of James Agee in the breathless opening recitation of The Best Cook in the World, which also calls to mind the opening monologue of Trainspotting.

The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg