Cookbook Review: The Southern Foodie's Guide to the Pig

I have a deep love for new cookbooks that maaaaaay border on obsession. I love new recipes, new ideas, and the pictures. Oh the delectable and mouth-watering pictures! I also have a thing for southern food. I love BBQ, any variety of cobbler, and of course, bacon.

The Southern Foodie's Guide to the Pig (A Culinary Tour of the South's Best Restaurants and the Recipes that Made Them Famous) by Chris Chamberlain is part travel guide, part cooking reference, and part amazing cookbook. The book begins with explaining the anatomy of a hog, how to cook each individual part of the pig, and recipes for preparing each part. In this chapter, the book also does write-ups of some of the most famous and well-respected grill masters (or pit masters) in the country. 

The next chapter includes over 50 restaurant profiles (including their history and what dishes they're best known for) of the top BBQ restaurants in the South.

Part 3 begins the real fun. The recipes. I tried 4 different recipes from The Southern Foodie's Guide to the Pig. My recipe reviews follow.

The recipe categories in this cookbook include Drinks, Breakfasts, Soups and Salads, Side Dishes, Entrees, and Desserts. There are a wide variety of recipes for any occasion.

Here are the recipes I tried (for more details on how I used the meat, see my post "How An $11 Roast Lasted Us 4 Meals")

• Carolina Pork Shoulder Rub (p. 54)
• This rub was absolutely delicious on our pork roast. Instead of smoking the roast, my husband grilled it. He basted it while cooking with:
• Lexington Dip (Piedmont BBQ Sauce), (p. 43)
• With the above rub and this sauce (which was thin with a slightly sweet vinegar base), the pork roast was amazing. My 6 year old said it was the best meat she'd ever had, and requested it for days! I also made...
• Central BBQ Baked Beans from Central BBQ (p. 200)
• These beans were different, but still good. They almost tasted like baked beans that were in a homemade sloppy joe base. Slightly sweet and very mustardy. My kids weren't a fan, but I liked them. For the leftover pork, I tried...
• Martin's Redneck Tacos from Martin's BBQ (p. 244)
• This recipe was ingenious, in that it called for cornbread mix made into little pancakes (which my whole family loved), and topped with pork, coleslaw, and BBQ sauce. I took the liberty of adding some leftover BBQ Beans to ours as well. I will definitely make this recipe again next time we have leftover pork.

A cookbook is only as good as it's recipes, and judging from the recipes I tried, this cookbook is a must have! I'm going to continue using it as my go-to BBQ resource!

Bottom Line: 9*/10*

*I received a free copy of this book from Book Look Bloggers from Thomas Nelson Publishers in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way.