Piping hot Chicken Amandine … dramatic Blackberry-Lemon Ice Cream … Grandma Emmy’s Fried Corn … a refreshing Mountain Dew Country Cooler … simply Elegant Shrimp Salad … Creole Potato Salad … White Chili … and Spicy Pumpkin Bread.
Is your mouth watering yet? Just a glance at some of the recipes included in one of ETSU’s latest publications – An Elegant Sufficiency: More Recipes and Remembrances – will convince one to swear off fast food for all of eternity. Well, maybe not all of eternity. Just a small portion of it.
Human beings from all walks of life, share at least one thing in common: we all enjoy food. Some of us may never forget that one excellent dish that we indulged in at a family restaurant. Many of us have trouble turning down a taste of one of our grandma’s specialties.
Maybe as an independent college student you long for the sights and smells that only dinnertime at home sweet home can bring. It’s a fact of life: food isn’t merely for sustenance, it brings people together.
Another beautifully woven addition of stories and the recipes behind them are now here with the release of An Elegant Sufficiency: More Recipes and Remembrances published by ETSU. The 48-page booklet was designed as a supplement to Home and Away, the wonderful book of “recipes and remembrances” that started it all. Like Home and Away, An Elegant Sufficiency lets its readers indulge in recipes, reminiscences, stories, photographs and historical facts that warm the heart and make the stomach growl.
The booklet was compiled and edited by Fred Sauceman, a longtime employee of ETSU. As buzz circulated about Home and Away, it seems its readers became hungry for more.
“The idea for this booklet came about while we were doing a book signing for Home and Away,” said Sauceman, executive assistant to the president of University Relations.
“A woman approached us and said that her son was cooking for Rosa Parks when the Rosa Parks Library and Museum was opening,” Sauceman said. “We knew that we had to tell this story and others like it, so we put together an addition to the first book.”
As with most book titles, the title – An Elegant Sufficiency – is a strong clue as to how the different recipes in the booklet mingle with one another.
“The title suggests a mixture of sophisticated foods and common foods, which are both in the book,” he said. “It is also an expression that my uncle used to use after a meal to say that he was full and to pay respect to the cook.”
Sauceman’s idea for the book was not only to compile stories and recipes from those directly involved with ETSU, but also those who were from other parts of the United States and the world.
“The university brings in people from all over the world who all eat things from different cultures,” he said. “I wanted to show how diverse our East Tennessee community really is.”
Since its publication there have been many requests for An Elegant Sufficiency. “It has been very well received.” Sauceman said.
The booklet was designed by Sam Mays and photographs were taken by Larry Smith. It can be obtained free of charge with the purchase of Home and Away. For more information, call 439-4317 or WETS-FM at 1-888-895-WETS.

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