EATING, DRINKING, AND VISITING IN THE SOUTH presents a lively, informal history of over three centuries of southern hospitality and cuisine, tracing regional gastronomy from the sparse diet of Jamestown settlers to the lavish corporate cocktail parties of the New South. His descriptions range from the groaning plates of the great plantations to the less-than-appetizing extremes that guests often confronted in the Souths nineteenth-century inns and taverns. Other accounts include the diet of the early pioneers, tells of the rounds of visitation that were the social lifeblood of the Old South, and of the starvation diet of the Confederate soldier and civilian. And then he looks at how technological advances and urbanization have in some cases enhanced, but more often diluted, the southern eating experience, finding that despite the introduction of fast-food abominations and factory-made horrors, the regions sturdy eating, drinking, and social traditions still flourish.