Serve Chilled

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love

Three Rivers Press, 228 pp., $12.95 (paper)

God Save the Sweet Potato Queens

Three Rivers Press, 261 pp., $12.95 (paper)

On the off chance I wasn't absolutely the last woman in America to read failed Mississippi belle Jill Connor Browne's outrageous Sweet Potato Queen books, I heartily recommend them as perfect light summer reading. Browne will have you snickering, giggling, and laughing right out loud. You may even forget about the heat for minutes at a time.

The Sweet Potato Queen saga begins in the early Eighties when Browne anoints herself the "Sweet Potato Queen" so that she and her closest friends can have their own float in the annual Jackson, Mississippi, St. Patrick's Day parade. The stunt was so well-received, it seems, that the Sweet Potato Queens were born, a kind of ersatz sorority for failed southern belles and beauty queens. To the delight of thousands, they ride a flat-bed truck in the parade every year, dancing and giving a "pageant wave" in voluptuously formed sequined costumes, elbow-length gloves, matching majorette boots, and long, red wigs. Before long, Browne and her friends had come up with all kinds of rules for queenly behavior and a cult of devoted followers. Men who service them are the Spud Studs, their kids are, of course, known as Tater Tots, and women who desire to become one of the seven Sweet Potato Queens are simply the Wannabes. They made talk-show appearances and the books became bestsellers.

Browne recounts all of this in hilarious detail, sharing queenly words of wisdom about the five kinds of men women need in their lives, lingerie tips for dating, and the top-secret magic words of the Promise, guaranteed to entice men to do a woman's bidding every time. Though including these books in a section about food writing is a bit of a stretch, each book does include a chapter of recipes, and that's close enough for me. Like any good southern woman, Jill Browne is well-versed in the art of appropriate funeral food, so there are chapters entitled "What to Eat When Tragedy Strikes" (SPQBOL) and "More Death Defying Recipes" (GSTSPQ). The Queens recognize four major food groups: salty, sweet, fried, and au gratin, and offer recipes accordingly. Her famous "Chocolate Stuff," a sort of pudding cake, can be eaten raw or undercooked if you're too overcome with grief to wait the entire cooking time. Danger Pudding, a can of sweetened condensed milk boiled until the filling caramelizes, is simplicity itself. All the recipes, it seems, begin with at least a stick of butter, and one of them, a casserole made with crushed pineapple, butter, cracker crumbs, and cheese takes care of three of the major food groups in one sitting. There are dips and snacks, a recipe for the Queens' favorite margaritas, and mail-order sources for packaged items. For more information about the queenly life and how to cook for it, read the books and also check out the Web site at www.sweetpotatoqueens.com. These books made me laugh so hard I about fell out of bed.