Deep Run Roots: A Big Southern Book With a Bigger Heart

There are cookbooks you cook from—and then there are cookbooks you live inside for a while. Deep Run Roots is very much the latter.

This is a big, generous book with a big, generous heart. It tells the story of Vivian Howard through food—how she grew up in Eastern North Carolina wanting, like so many of us, to run away to the city… and how she ultimately ran right back home, planting herself (and her namesake restaurant) firmly in the soil that shaped her.

What I loved most is the accessibility. This isn’t a chefy, precious book. It’s organized around stories, not just recipes. You don’t feel talked at—you feel invited in. You can dip, wander, read a chapter like a short story, then decide whether or not you’re cooking tonight. And along the way, you learn things that stop you mid-page.

A few things that lodged in my brain:

• 50% of all U.S. sweet potatoes come from North Carolina.
  Sandy soil + humidity = sweet potato magic. (Also tobacco, historically—but that’s another story.)

• Muscadine grapes grow wild here and are the official state fruit.
  I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly eaten one as a Midwesterner, but the description—honeysuckle-like—hit me straight in childhood. I used to pull honeysuckle flowers from the grass, pinch off the end, and suck the sweetness out. If you know, you know.

• North Carolina breaks into three very clear regions:
  Appalachia, the hilly Piedmont, and the flat Coastal Plain.
  And if you’re east, close to the water, here’s a detail I loved: locals prefer sausage to ham. Small fact. Big signal. Food tells you everything.

So… what am I cooking?

I needed a recipe that:

1. I can actually make, and

2. Feels like a signature.

Drumroll, please:
Big Bone-In Pork Chops with Pickled Peanut Sauce.
Try saying that three times fast.

This dish is iconic—straight from her restaurant—and the second I read it, I knew: that’s the one. Pork, peanuts, acid, heft, confidence. It’s unapologetically Southern and totally grounded.

I’ll be cooking it here in Chicago (far from Eastern Carolina, but with full respect), and I’ll report back with how it turns out—successes, missteps, and all.

If you want to pick up the book yourself, I’ve linked it below so you can explore Vivian’s world directly. This is one worth owning, reading, and returning to.

Shop the story the here: Deep Run Roots or check everything she has to offer vivianhoward.com

Stay tuned 🍽️