Asheville 'Top Chef' contestant to release debut cookbook 'Our South': Sneak peek

ASHEVILLE - Spice up your meal rotation with a new collection of recipes that tells a tale of innovation, cultures and traditions by local chef Ashleigh Shanti.

Owner of Good Hot Fish, a modern-day fish camp restaurant that opened earlier this year, Shanti has compiled 125 recipes that reflect her personal and culinary journeys and Black foodways in her cookbook debut.

“Our South: Black Food Through My Lens” will be released Oct. 15, published by Union Square & Co.

Shanti, a native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, puts her life’s experiences and skills on the plate, and now on the pages of the cookbook that features dishes like hot collard and oyster dip with fried saltines.

Last fall, Shanti told the Citizen Times she worked on the cookbook for two years before submitting the manuscript.

“It is a cookbook highlighting the microregions of the South that have been incredibly special to me,” Shanti told the Citizen Times. “My paternal side hailing from Charleston, South Carolina, my maternal side from Southwest Virginia and then my upbringing in Coastal Virginia being raised in Virginia Beach, it highlights all of those different places.”

In the introduction, Shanti wrote that “Our South,” isn’t merely an Appalachian or Southern cookbook or “chef” book that solely focuses on her family’s soul food recipes but an all-encompassing book to amplify the reader’s understanding of the complexities of Black food and “dispel the myths of what America thinks Black cooking is and is not.”

Shanti, who said she is a Black, queer, woman chef who found her identity in cooking, focuses on the microregion of the American South with recipes inspired by the Lowlands ― dishes from Ashleigh’s coastal Virginia childhood ― and what she called the Homeland ― the food she cooks today. Shanti takes readers through the Backcountry to learn about Black Appalachia South styles, the Lowcountry to unearth Gullah-Geechee food traditions and the Midlands, referred to as “the Black Agricultural Mecca.”

“Our South” begins with the chef’s family history and storytelling accompanied by photos, and continues with recipes like classic cornbread, Carolina Gold rice, rice middlins and potlikker.

Other recipe highlights include turmeric-spiced roasted cauliflower with green olive-golden raisin gremolata, grilled sorghum chicken on a stick and a rice custard brulee with strawberries.

Also, she'll teach you how to make her popular fish camp hush puppies with sour corn ketchup that’s been featured on Good Hot Fish’s menu, and the kitchen pepper chicken wings using the chef’s signature spice blend.

Shanti, former chef at Benne on Eagle downtown where she was named a James Beard Award Finalist for Rising Star Chef in 2020, has worked in establishments including Minibar in Washington, D.C.

She cooked her way to become a top five finalist in season 19 of Bravo’s TV series “Top Chef” and was featured in season two of Hulu’s “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi” starring the former “Top Chef” host.

“Our South: Black Food Through My Lens”

Release date: Oct. 15

Info: The hardcover is $40 and will be sold at major bookstores, including Barnes & Noble. Preorder a copy via Union Square & Co. publishing company at unionsquareandco.com. For more, follow Ashleigh Shanti on Instagram at @foodordeath_.

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Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at [email protected] or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: 'Top Chef' contestant Ashleigh Shanti to release cookbook 'Our South'