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Louisiana has not been slighted in recent cookbook publishing, but Paul Prudhomme's blackened everything has overshadowed the basics such as red beans and rice and pralines. Justin Wilson, who has a Cajun-cooking show on PBS, has remedied that with his humorous tome, Homegrown Louisiana Cookin' (Macmillan; $19.95). Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie by Bill Neal (Knopf; $19.95) serves the same purpose for Southern baking. It is comprehensive and sparingly illustrated.
There is not a wide audience for what is usually called Pennsylvania Dutch food, which is actually a kind of Americanized German cuisine I remember from childhood as featuring at least three starches with every overcooked piece of meat. But in Cooking from Quilt Country by Marcia Adams (Potter; $24.95), this excessively hearty cuisine gets lightened up. The recipes from Amish and Mennonite families in Indiana are less daunting to the cholesterol conscious. But how can there be an Amish cookbook without shoofly pie, that gooey + concoction of molasses and brown sugar? And I still have never found a good recipe for the peach tart that Grandma Fultz used to make in late summer.