In Rebecca Lang’s Pimento Cheese, the storied food writer and ninth-generation Southerner gives readers a taste of the famed spread’s history and versatility. The collection includes more than sixty-five recipes: over thirty-five for making pimento cheese and thirty recipes that include pimento cheese to make creamy and comforting favorites. In Lang’s beloved writing style, her recipes are served along-side rich storytelling. Readers will learn the origin story of pimento cheese as a textile workers’ staple in South Carolina during the 1920s and how Georgia became the largest grower of pimentos in 1929 after the boll weevil ravaged the state’s cotton economy. The book expands the recipe repertoire of pimento cheese lovers with recipes that incorporate unexpected ingredients like lemon, goat cheese, honey, and horseradish in dishes like Pimento Cheese Buttermilk Biscuits, Adair’s Tomato and Pimento Cheese Pie, and First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s “Plains Special” Cheese Ring. But Lang stays true to her roots as well, encouraging us to stack up the white bread and make a sandwich worthy of a meal—or the Masters.
