Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting-Pot Cuisine

Winner, 2019 James Beard Award for Best Book of the Year in Writing

Finalist, 2019 IACP Award, Literary Food Writing

Named a Best Food Book of the Year by the Boston Globe, Smithsonian, BookRiot, and more

Semifinalist, Goodreads Choice Awards

"Thoughtful, well researched, and truly moving. Shines a light on what it means to cook and eat American food, in all its infinitely nuanced and ever-evolving glory."
--Anthony Bourdain

American food is the story of mash-ups. Immigrants arrive, cultures collide, and out of the push-pull come exciting new dishes and flavors. But for Edward Lee, who, like Anthony Bourdain or Gabrielle Hamilton, is as much a writer as he is a chef, that first surprising bite is just the beginning. What about the people behind the food? What about the traditions, the innovations, the memories?

A natural-born storyteller, Lee decided to hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating narratives from every corner of the country. There''s a Cambodian couple in Lowell, Massachusetts, and their efforts to re-create the flavors of their lost country. A Uyghur caf in New York''s Brighton Beach serves a noodle soup that seems so very familiar and yet so very exotic--one unexpected ingredient opens a window onto an entirely unique culture. A beignet from Caf du Monde in New Orleans, as potent as Proust''s madeleine, inspires a narrative that tunnels through time, back to the first Creole cooks, then forward to a Korean rice-flour hoedduck and a beignet dusted with matcha.

Sixteen adventures, sixteen vibrant new chapters in the great evolving story of American cuisine. And forty recipes, created by Lee, that bring these new dishes into our own kitchens.

Edward Lee is the chef/owner of 610 Magnolia and Nami in Louisville, Kentucky, and the culinary director for Succotash Restaurants in Washington, DC, and Maryland, for which he was awarded a Bib Gourmand from the Michelin Guide. He is also the cofounder of the LEE Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to diversity and equality in the restaurant industry. He operates the non-profit restaurant M. Frances in Washington, DC, as part of the LEE Initiative’s overall mission. He was awarded the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award in 2021. Chef Lee was the recipient of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for his book Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting Pot Cuisine. His first book was Smoke & Pickles. He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for his role as host of the Emmy-winning PBS series TheMind of a Chef. He has hosted and written a feature documentary called Fermented.