Secret, underground, unexpected, unofficial, below the radar, hidden kitchens. Inspired by the popular and highly acclaimed NPR Morning Edition series, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More is a new book by the Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) exploring the world of street corner cooking, kitchen rituals and visionaries, legendary meals and eating traditions — a wild, poignant chronicle of American life through food.
Over a thousand listeners called the NPR Hidden Kitchens Hotline with intriguing messages and hot tips about underground kitchens at nuclear test sites, traveling circus kitchens, Burgoo picnics in Kentucky, ramp suppers in North Carolina, hippie kitchens, clam bakes, and more. Hidden Kitchens interweaves these calls with stories from the radio series. A midnight cabyard kitchen on the streets of San Francisco, makeshift kitchens crammed in the racing pits of NASCAR, a secret civil rights kitchen tucked away in a house in Montgomery, the Chili Queens of San Antonio, freighter food from the galleys of the Great Lakes, the most unexpected hidden kitchen of all, the George Foreman Grill. Hidden Kitchens journeys with The Kitchen Sisters as they travel the nation in search of unsung kitchen heroes, community cooking rituals, immersing the reader into an array of unusual and remarkable kitchen cultures.
