Review: ‘Back road’ cookbook is a taste-filled tour of Kentucky restaurants

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Friday, Dec. 12, 2014, 6 p.m. — Just in time for the person on your Christmas list who already has drawers full of cooking and baking gadgets from Pampered Chef or Williams-Sonoma, Great American Publishers has released its latest back road cookbook, “Kentucky Back Road Restaurant Recipes.”

The book is a page-by-page trip across Kentucky that features images and written snapshots of a wide variety of the Commonwealth’s favorite hometown restaurants and their time-honored recipes.

Locally, the book features recipes from Mammy’s Kitchen (Coconut Cream Pie), My Old Kentucky Dinner Train (Herb Roasted Baby Red Potatoes), Pat’s Place (Homemade Meatlof) and The Rickhouse (Bourbon Brussel Sprouts).

And the book does a great job of highlighting some of the state’s most well-known eateries. The list includes The Feed Mill Restaurant and Bar (Morganfield), Old Hickory Pit Bar-B-Q (Owensboro), Riley’s Bakery (Bowling Green), The Paddy Wagon Irish Pub (a Richmond favorite of EKU students) and many, many others.

The book doesn’t just feature restaurants and recipes; author Anita Musgrove also features historic points of interest that you may want to take in if you’re actually on the road en route to one of the features restaurants.

For example, the book dedicates a page to the much-maligned Civil War cannonball embedded in a building on the Elizabethtown court square. Other attractions highlighted include the Derby Clock in Louisville, the Moonbow at Cumberland Falls, the Mother Goose House in Hazard and Jefferson David memorial in Western Kentucky. It’s an interesting mix of places and attractions that make the book an interesting tour of Kentucky.

The shining star of the book — of course — are the recipes. Most of featured restaurants offer the recipes for some of their signature dishes, which are featured along with some recipes for popular classic Southern favorites.

The book includes some of my favorite Kentucky restaurants as well: The Parkette Drive-In Restaurant (Lexington), Mammy’s Kitchen and Pat’s Place (Bardstown), Bootleg Bar-b-q (Fern Creek), and The Whistle Stop (Glendale).

The beauty of the book is that no matter where travel, you will likely find yourself near one of the restaurants featured in Kentucky Back Road Restaurant Recipes. And even if you don’t travel near them, you can still enjoy the unique taste sensations they serve.

My only word of caution is that some of the recipes are word-for-word restaurant recipes designed to serve a large number of eaters. For example, the Vinegar Slaw recipe (Blue and White Grill in Hazel) begins with 10 pounds of cabbage and a gallon of vinegar. Fortunately, most of the recipes are suited to the home kitchen.

The 254-page full-color paperback is a quality publication and is an attractive, colorful read. You won’t go wrong by giving your friends or families a copy of a gift that offers truly unique — and tasty — slices of Kentucky.

“Kentucky Back Road Recipes: is available directly from the publisher, Great American Publishers, or Amazon.com.

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