A Country Boy's Appetite

Gresham refuses to call A Country Boy's Appetite a cookbook. He prefers to call it food-driven essays, insisting that it primarily consists of memories of many people who influenced his life and introduced him to delicious foods. However, since those people had so much to do with his enjoyment of the culinary arts, it would be a shame not to include their memorable recipes. You won't find anything about French or British royalty in these pages, nor will you find the rich, expensive foods they espouse. No truffles in here, nary a one. There might be a mention or two of mushroom soup and maybe saut ed mushrooms; that's about as close as he'll come to needing a trained sow to search the forest for toadstools. Instead, you will find solid, country recipes that began with his childhood as the son of tenant farmers in North Central Texas. Despite brief tours out of the country to visit such exotic climes as Mexico, Canada, Honduras, Belize, the United Kingdom and Cyprus, Gresham has lived his entire life in four counties of Texas - Erath, Palo Pinto, Dallas and Ellis, each location within 100 miles of the others. He turned down job opportunities through the years to various companies in northern climes, but never saw any need to leave the area he enjoys. "Why visit what you like?" he asked. "Why not live where you want and visit the rest?" He has a similar view of food - eat what you like and let the doctors worry about fats, cholesterol and triglycerides. Most of the food Gresham eats is healthy, but he can't see why a person should deprive himself of pork fat, heavy cream or salt - within reason. If one has to live with no enjoyment, why bother?