Michael W. Twitty wants to set the record straight on Southern food: it's not just heavy fried meats and sweet tea by the pitcher-full. In his new, hefty cookbook that surveys the region, Recipes from the American South , the James Beard Award-winning author is teaching home cooks how to make food that better reflects the region's complex , messy and still-evolving history.

I recently spent the day cooking and talking with Twitty at his home in Virginia. We started out on a cool September morning in Twitty's garden, where I admired the huge variety of produce that he grows. There are peppers. Beans. Corn. Cabbage. All kinds of herbs. Plus, boxes of cotton plants and peanuts, which Twitty grows to acknowledge his enslaved ancestors.

"It's something people haven't seen," he remarked.

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