Nashville Reads the South's Story in a Bag of Flour

Every kitchen in this town knows its way around a biscuit, but Mindy Merrell and R.B. Quinn make the case that the real story is one step earlier, in the flour itself. Their new book, "Self-Rising," argues that this everyday staple did more to shape the South than most cooks ever stop to consider. It is a modest ingredient treated with the kind of attention usually reserved for grander subjects, and that alone makes it worth a place on the shelf. For readers who take their biscuits seriously, Merrell and Quinn have given the flour underneath them its due.

With reporting from Nashville Banner.