Last Updated on August 8, 2023
We enjoy perusing Florida cookbooks, searching for tasty, fresh recipes that inspire my love of cooking. But we especially like to find cooking guides and recipes that favor Florida foods and ingredients – particularly seafood, produce, and citrus.
For instance, when ordering seafood, we try to order locally caught Florida fish. We also believe Florida avocadoes are just as good, if not better, than those from California. And we always prefer sweet Florida lobster to imported crustaceans. And citrus? We still can’t bring ourselves to buy an out-of-state orange.
Good Catch: Recipes & Stories Celebrating the Best of Florida’s Waters
Florida is blessed with a bounty of fresh food. So, when we read Good Catch: Recipes & Stories Celebrating the Best of Florida’s Waters, we knew we had found an authentic Florida cookbook that takes the guesswork out of preparing the “best of Florida”.
Yep, there’s no “catch” with this cooking guide. It’s all about Florida seafood coupled with local ingredients.
Good Catch shares recipes ranging from blue crabs to scallops, frog legs to catfish, mullet to mahi-mahi, but also side dishes featuring Florida-grown produce from blueberries to okra and tomatoes, to kale. The guide is also filled with interesting tales of historic fishing villages, along with profiles of the hard-working fishermen (and women) who bring “freshness” to our tables.
Veteran food writers Pam Brandon, Katie Farmand, and Heather McPherson expertly organized this guide around the four seasons, highlighting recipes complementary to what is available during that time of the year.
What a concept. Of course, Florida’s produce is seasonal. Citrus is picked from winter through spring, strawberries are spring crops while black-eyed peas, mangoes, and watermelon are summertime favorites. And, as any fishing expert will tell you, seafood is seasonal too.
There’s a cobia season, a snook season, a redfish season, a scallop season, and a lobster season. Matching these up produces some excellent dishes.
Readers even get to follow a picture guide identifying Florida fish; tips for buying fish; a primer on sustainable seafood; and steps to cracking delectable stone crab claws and cleaning shrimp.
And best of all, Good Catch highlights some of the best authentic Florida seafood food shacks and restaurants, including their prize recipes. Even if you don’t cook, you’ll find an assortment of dishes from Florida’s best seafood restaurants.
And just to tease you, here are some of our favorite eateries included in Good Catch:
- Ted Peters in St. Petersburg – famous for the smoked fish spread
- St. Augustine’s Osteen’s for Fried Shrimp
- Sweet corn hushpuppies with guava jelly from Deal’s Famous Oyster House in Perry
- Pensacola’s Joe Patti’s Hot Crab dip
- Weeki Wachee Springs Becky Jacks for fish tacos
- Mayport’s Singleton Seafood Shack for Minorcan Clam Chowder
- Islamorada’s Cheeca Lodge for Guava Glazed Mahi Mahi with Coconut Curry Sauce
- Punta Gorda’s Peace River Seafood for Gator Gumbo
- Apalachicola’s Boss Oyster Stew
- Miami’s Garcia’s Seafood Grill & Fish Market for Florida lobster
- Indian Pass Raw Oyster bar for what else, fresh oysters.
We also enjoyed their other recipes including Aunt Glo’s Fried Green Tomatoes, Orange-Sour Cream Coffee Cake, Blueberry Cobbler, Grilled Lemon Okra, Kale Slaw with Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Key Lime Mousse, and yummy sauces.
Their previous book Field to Feast, highlighted Florida’s farms, farmers, chefs, and artisan recipes. They did an excellent job with that one, but Good Catch has become our personal favorite.
To purchase a copy go to Good Catch Recipes & Stories Celebrating the Best of Florida Waters.
Florida Bounty: A Celebration of Florida Cuisine and Culture
Another Florida cookbook, Florida Bounty: A Celebration of Florida Cuisine and Culture follows a similar “local” theme, celebrating Florida’s food culture. Historically, Florida cuisine is a fusion of many heritages including early Native Americans, Spanish, French, English, Cuban, Caribbean, and also Latin American.
Florida Bounty shares a cornucopia of cultural recipes while keeping all of the menus “Florida fresh.”
Florida Bounty features “regional menu” ideas beginning with a Florida Thanksgiving. Just as Native Americans served indigenous foods to newly-arrived Europeans for the first Thanksgiving, authors Eric and Sandra Jacobs support the “serve local” philosophy.
A Florida Thanksgiving menu also includes appetizers of Big Money Oysters Rockefeller and Stone Crab Claws followed by Turkey with Blue Crab Stuffing, Grouper in Orange Sauce, topped off by Tallahassee Lassie Pecan Tassies.
Another creative menu featured is The Panhandle Fry Fest suggesting Oysters on the Half Shell, Dixie Fried Fish, Orange Hush Puppies, Florida Jambalaya with Grits, Sliced Watermelon, and also Southern Sweet Tea.
The Key West Fiesta menu includes Florida Lobster and Blue Crab Salad in Avocado, Key West Pork Tenderloin with Mango Salsa, Papaya, Tomato, and Cilantro Salad topped off with Classic Key Lime Pie.
The Jacobs also provide a guide to Florida ingredients from citrus to seafood that helps the new Floridian, or even native cooks, sort out the wide number of foods grown here and available for locally prepared meals.
Even recipes for drinks and cocktails are also provided including Jubilant Orange Creams, sweet Strawberry Daiquiris, and the lime Mojo Mojito.
Appetizers that intrigued me were the Florida Citrus Salsa with tangerine, orange, and grapefruit, and the Gulf Coast Ceviche with scallops, shrimp, and grouper.
And we also plan to try the recipes for the Blue Crab Bisque, Tampa Garbanzo Bean Soup, and Oyster Stew.
Of course, if you haven’t tried your hand at a Cuban sandwich, or the quintessential Florida Blackened Grouper sandwich, you owe it to yourself to do so.
For side dishes, enjoy classic recipes for Cheese Grits, Fried Green Tomatoes, and also Mango Salsa.
And to tempt your sweet tooth, there are some interesting finds to try. Key Lime Cheesecake, Tangy Lemon Bars, and Mamma Guava Pastry for a full-circle culinary tour of Florida.
So enjoy both Florida cookbooks and the many great dishes in each. To purchase Florida Bounty, visit Florida Bounty: A Celebration of Florida Cuisine & Culture.