Southern food and Korean art
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50books_pocGullah Home Cooking the Dafuskie Way by Sallie Ann Robinson with Gregory Wrenn Smith
Dafuskie is a small island off the coast of Virginia, and this is a very local cuisine. It's clearly recognizably related to the food of the mainland, but from the food and the author's descriptions of her childhood that begin every chapter, it's clear that Dafuskie was its own little world for quite a while. The food sounds good, though the extreme local nature of some of the ingredients might make it difficult to prepare (even setting aside the recipes for things like raccoon, her pork dishes are all flavoured with various smoked cuts of pork that aren't available to me afaik.) I knew basically nothing about Gullah culture or Dafuskie, however, so this was interesting on that front more than as a usable cookbook.
Silla: Korea's Golden Kingdom ed. Soyoung Lee and Denise Patry Leidy
A book of essays intended to accompany an exhibition of art from Silla-era Korea. The kingdom of Silla lasted from 57 BCE to 935 CE and covered a large chunk of the Korean peninsula. Most of the essays here focus on comparing the various Silla-era historical finds to their contemporaries from elsewhere in Asia and drawing conclusions about the reach of trade (right down to Byzantium in several cases) and various kinds of cultural mixing. Super interesting and with great photos of the various pieces.
Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens ed. Byungmo Chung and Sunglim Kim
A much more focused Korean art history book, also intended to accompany an exhibition. Chaekgeori are screens painted with still life pictures mostly focusing on books. This volume starts with essays that discuss the history of chaekgeori, their rise in popularity, how they changed from trompe l'oeil images of bookshelves with art objects to fanciful pictures of books accompanied by mythical creatures, and their various influences, and then has large photographs of all the screens included in the exhibition with close-ups of their more interesting features. I really liked how well the essays connected to the specific pieces in the exhibition and explained why all of them are interesting, though this really is a very, very focused book that's only talking about one type of art that was popular in one specific time period. It was reasonably accessible to me, who knows very little about Korean history and art, and the photos are very good.
Dafuskie is a small island off the coast of Virginia, and this is a very local cuisine. It's clearly recognizably related to the food of the mainland, but from the food and the author's descriptions of her childhood that begin every chapter, it's clear that Dafuskie was its own little world for quite a while. The food sounds good, though the extreme local nature of some of the ingredients might make it difficult to prepare (even setting aside the recipes for things like raccoon, her pork dishes are all flavoured with various smoked cuts of pork that aren't available to me afaik.) I knew basically nothing about Gullah culture or Dafuskie, however, so this was interesting on that front more than as a usable cookbook.
Silla: Korea's Golden Kingdom ed. Soyoung Lee and Denise Patry Leidy
A book of essays intended to accompany an exhibition of art from Silla-era Korea. The kingdom of Silla lasted from 57 BCE to 935 CE and covered a large chunk of the Korean peninsula. Most of the essays here focus on comparing the various Silla-era historical finds to their contemporaries from elsewhere in Asia and drawing conclusions about the reach of trade (right down to Byzantium in several cases) and various kinds of cultural mixing. Super interesting and with great photos of the various pieces.
Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens ed. Byungmo Chung and Sunglim Kim
A much more focused Korean art history book, also intended to accompany an exhibition. Chaekgeori are screens painted with still life pictures mostly focusing on books. This volume starts with essays that discuss the history of chaekgeori, their rise in popularity, how they changed from trompe l'oeil images of bookshelves with art objects to fanciful pictures of books accompanied by mythical creatures, and their various influences, and then has large photographs of all the screens included in the exhibition with close-ups of their more interesting features. I really liked how well the essays connected to the specific pieces in the exhibition and explained why all of them are interesting, though this really is a very, very focused book that's only talking about one type of art that was popular in one specific time period. It was reasonably accessible to me, who knows very little about Korean history and art, and the photos are very good.
