The British exposure to Southern US cooking is basically KFC, mac and cheese and fancy varieties of BBQ sauce in Sainsbury’s where they charge an extra couple of quid to claim it’s from a specific state. My point is that I just don’t have much of a clue. So I bought myself a copy of Sweet Potato Soul for a bit of an education. Which, as it turns out, was a pretty good plan. Here is what we’ve been eating.

I started with breakfast, because it’s the most important meal of the day. I served up Sweet Potato Skillet Home Fries with Tempeh Bacon. The sweet potatoes browned up beautifully and the spices worked perfectly. The bacon leans a little sweet but it goes amazingly on top on the home fries. Or on it’s own. I can never say no to Tempeh Bacon.

Next up is the Peach-Date BBQ Jackfruit Sliders. This involved cooking up a batch of Peach-Date BBQ sauce. I thought it tasted a little flat but I think that had something to do with buying the only peaches I could find; it’s not a great time of year. It also involved a batch of Rainbow Root Slaw which I’ve basically been eating out of the bowl. Combined with Jackfruit and stuffed in a bun it was pretty good, though I think it would have been better with in-season fruit and hot sauce.

Bootylicious Gumbo is another recipe with a recipe inside. It calls for Creole Red Bean Sausages which are deliciously soft cooked in the gumbo. It’s silky, warming, spicy and perfect. And this is another recipe where I couldn’t help but go back for more.

Time to finish up where I started, in the breakfast section. This time with Chive & Cheddar Drop Biscuits. They came together incredibly quickly. Far too quickly to taste this good. It’s like alchemy. And I’m proud to say that I’ve so far resisted from eating a whole batch myself but that’s because I promised myself I’d finish this review first. So should you buy Sweet Potato Soul? Yes. Now.