This event has passed.
Monday, October 7th
6 — 7:30 p.m.
Columbia Conversations | Baking in the American South
Boyd Horticultural Center : 1615 Blanding Street, Columbia, SC 29201
Join Historic Columbia for a talk and book signing by New York Times bestselling food writer and cookbook author Anne Byrn. Byrn will appear in conversation with Anson Mills founder Glenn Roberts to discuss her new book, Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories. Moderated by recent USC Press co-author Rachel Barnett (Kugels & Collards: Stories of Food, Family and Tradition in South Carolina), Byrn and Roberts will cover the traditions and techniques that tell the story of Southern baking.
Light refreshments will be served, including recipes from the book, courtesy of Anson Mills and Spotted Salamander.
About Baking in the South
The 200 recipes come from 14 states, from department stores, cafeterias, tea rooms, boarding houses, churches, synagogues, home kitchens, and even the White House. From Southern Railway’s Buttermilk Biscuits to Key West Coconut Cornbread, Byrn’s new cookbook introduces readers to “bakers of the South, from the nationally famous chef Edna Lewis and the self-made restaurant critic and businessman Duncan Hines to lesser-known but important cooks like Kentucky’s Atholene Peyton, a Black home economist who was ahead of her time, and Malinda Russell, who wrote one of the earliest Black-authored cookbooks.”
About Anne Byrn
Anne Byrn is a New York Times bestselling food writer and cookbook author based in Nashville, where she learned to cook and bake as a child alongside her mother Bebe. Every holiday shared with her large extended family of cousins offered infinite opportunities to bake. For fifteen years she was food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and she attended La Varenne École de Cuisine in Paris, receiving an advanced certificate. But while raising three children and cooking for a busy family she embraced some shortcuts and wrote the bestseller, The Cake Mix Doctor, one of Southern Living magazine’s top 100 cookbooks of all time. She is also the author of American Cake, Skillet Love, and her new book Baking in The American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories. When she isn’t baking and gardening, Anne writes a weekly newsletter called Between the Layers on Substack.
About Glenn Roberts
Glenn Roberts founded Anson Mills in 1998 in Charleston, South Carolina, to rematriate lost foods of the 18th and 19th century Southern Pantry. Today, Anson Mills grows and produces artisan landrace grain, legume, and oil seed ingredients for chefs and home cooks worldwide and provides pro bono sensory research support for chefs, pastry chefs, bakers, brewers and distillers through AM Research Initiative. Anson Mills provides pro bono seed biosecurity for the growing community of Southern organic place-based identity preserved landrace crop farmers. Glenn is the recipient of the USA Artisan of the Year, National Pathfinder, and Stitt Lifetime Achievement Awards. Glenn is a founding member of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation and a pro bono private consultant to Stone Barns Center, Mt. Vernon, National Colonial Farm, National Botanical Garden, and the Smithsonian.
Cover image courtesy Rinne Allen.
