Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers on Food is a contemporary anthology of essays on regional cuisine.
With meditations on comfort food, confessions from chefs, surprises from the far corners of the region, famously funny adventures at state and county fairs, and reflections on our culinary extremes, Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie assures us that the bigger picture of food throughout our lives is not just about mere sustenance.
Praise
“Heartland natives will embrace the recipes, if not the remembrances of State Fair corn dogs and Lake Michigan fish boils, German kuchen and tamales eaten on Chicago’s Maxwell Street, a.k.a. 'the Ellis Island of the Midwest.'”
--Jenny Rosenstrach, The New York Times [full review]
“'Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie' skips sugary sentimentality for matter-of-fact portraits of the region and its people. [Wolff’s] contributors' thoughts fall not on modernist wonders... but on memories, sweet, bitter and odd. …thoughtful, addicting…”
--Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
"Midwestern writers pay tasteful tribute to an ever-changing region and its fluid bill of fare...A grand culinary--and cultural--stew. Check, Please, Indeed!"
--Martha Bayne, The Printers Row Journal, Chicago Tribune Sunday book section
About the Book
Many years ago, working on a story for the Chicago Tribune, I noticed that a farm stall at the market near Northwestern University was selling out of their greens by 8 a.m. Farming is tough in any case, but Kinnikinick farm 90 miles west of Chicago was growing organic heirloom Italian vegetables in clay soil. Puntarelle, Treviso, cavolo nero, arugula—not exactly the regional foods that come to mind when you think of the Midwest.
The wheels in my head began to spin. Clearly, there was a change in our food landscape and I was looking at its nerve center. Beyond Illinois, a fast-growing regional food movement had taken root: Dairyland Wisconsin Cheddar had entered a new era; Hmong farmers had settled in the upper Midwest; the new-butchering trend of purchasing sustainably raised whole animals was popping up all over the place. The Midwest was clearly not the epicenter of average, a moniker we had been wearing for a long time.
About the same time, I noticed a seemingly bottomless appetite for books on the subject of food. Not conventional cookbooks, the ones with recipes and photos. The publishing world had moved on to the literature of food —to autobiographies of chefs, confessions of food critics, memoirs of restaurant owners. Instead of meal plans, these books had themes.
And so, Fried Walleye and Cherry Pie: Midwestern Writers on Food began to take shape. It became my labor of love: to look at the arc of Midwestern food through the lens of the most reputable writers from the Midwest. Authors who could write about our region’s food through memoirs or personal essays that would, collectively, give a voice to the region.
The Contributors
TIMOTHY BASCOM on peach cobbler | Kansas
DOUGLAS BAUER on agrarian work and kitchen chores on his family farm | Iowa
MELANIE BENJAMIN on fried biscuits and the Indy 500 | Indiana
ELIZABETH BERG on the disappearance of meatloaf and family dinnertime | Minnesota
BONNIE JO CAMPBELL on the evening milking chores and homemade fudge | Michigan
ANNE DIMOCK on the appetite for rhubarb kuchen | Minnesota
STUART DYBEK on the Chicago stockyards unmasked | Illinois
SHERRIE FLICK on friendships and bar food in the conservative middle of the Plains | Nebraska
PHYLLIS FLORIN on the immigrant’s farm kitchen | Minnesota
GALE GAND on Judy Schad, master cheese-maker | Indiana
CAROL MIGHTON HADDIX on Midwestern tamales | Illinois
SUE HUBBELL on the overland quest for pie | Missouri
JEREMY JACKSON on lemon pie and church basement suppers | Iowa
THOM JONES on the General Mills cake-mix line | Illinois
LORNA LANDVIK on dieting the State Fair way | Minnesota
JOHN MARKUS on fried foods-on-a-stick at the county fair | Ohio
ROBIN MATHER on old-time apples and simple values | Michigan
PETER MEEHAN on modernist cuisine and Kraft Mac and Cheese | Illinois
JACQUELYN MITCHARD on sweet corn | Wisconsin
ROBERT OLMSTEAD on Cincinnati 5-way chili and the Aztec civilization | Ohio
MOLLY O’NEILL on the heartland as the center of the next food revolution | Ohio
HARRY MARK PETRAKIS on the sorrows of a short-order cook | Illinois
DONNA PIERCE on the Black Migration and cooking soul food | Missouri
PETER SAGAL on the foie gras ban | Illinois
MARY KAY SHANLEY on the ritual of Thanksgiving on the family farm | Iowa
MICHAEL STERN on craving Chicago Italian beef | Illinois
JULES VAN-DYCK DOBOS on running a food truck in a Big Ten town | Michigan
BONNY WOLF on the made-in-Minnesota Bundt pan | Minnesota
PEGGY WOLFF on Scandinavian fish boils | Wisconsin
JON YATES on the fried pork tenderloin sandwich | Iowa
