So last night I had Chef Paul Fehribach over for dinner.

Sort of.

To be more precise—I was so impressed by my recent meal at Big Jones that I picked up a copy of Chef Paul Fehribach’s new cookbook before I left his restaurant. (I wasn’t the only one of us who did that.) And last night was my first attempt at turning one of his recipes into reality.

Before I used The Big Jones Cookbook that way for its intended purpose, I read it from cover to cover and found it the most interesting cookbook since James Beard’s American Cookery, which is perhaps the first I ever bought. Both are entertaining to read, and I even saw parallels in each chef’s defense of quality ingredients and sadness over the sorry state of what we have to put up with when it comes to food these days. And though 43 years separate the “these days” of Fehriback and Beard, I sensed a kinship between them.

Here’s Beard writing in 1972 about what factory farming has done to chickens.

Chicken raising now constitutes a major industry in this country, and millions of the birds are conducted through a scientifically controlled cycle of nine to twelve weeks before being sacrificed to the American menu. Few have the delicate, delicious flavor of the old barnyard chicken, which may not have been raised so pristinely and plucked so cleanly but tasted of chicken and had excellent texture … Today’s chickens are “design bred.” They are taken from hatcheries to growing farms, where for nine weeks they are fed scientifically and watched carefully so they all develop in exactly the same way. They come to the market uniform in size, uniform in color, and uniform in lack of real flavor. They require a good deal of seasoning to give them any character, and they fail to produce a rick broth.

While here, from 2015, are Fehribach’s comments on the lamentable chicken salad most are forced to eat.

My reticence to serve chicken salad stemmed primarily from the modern state of the dish—it’s sold almost exclusively in diners, cafeterias, bad delis, and supermarket ready-to-eat sections, and is invariably a wretched abomination made from bland, dry, even stale-tasting chicken breast dressed in some congealed, drab industrial mayonnaise with scarcely enough seasoning to distinguish itself from cold pap. If it’s seen primarily as a “light” or diet food, it’s only because chicken salad as we know it today will surely destroy any healthy appetite.

Fehribach’s personality shines through in The Big Jones Cookbook, and is worth picking up for far more than when he entertainingly bemoans culinary excrescences. I enjoyed his insight into the history of Southern cooking, his anecdotes about his family, and … oh, yes, the recipes.

So the first I attempted was Chicken and Dumplings, circa 1920, which was to begin with a 3-3½ pound chicken brought to a low boil in a 4-quart stockpot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fulfill either of those requirements. (Sorry, Chef!) I couldn’t find a fryer that small, and ended up with one that was 4⅓ pounds, which when added to the required two quarts of cold water resulted in a stockpot so full that no boiling could have taken place without spillover.

And so I pulled out my 8-quart pot, transferred everything, and began.

While this may have resulted in a higher chicken-to-dumpling ratio than Fehribach intended—and perhaps more evaporation over the 90 minutes of cooking time due to the greater surface area—it seemed to work out fine.

Here’s the broth filled with the meat pulled from the bones and the skin discarded (though after boiling, not much pulling was needed), plus two cups of finely diced onions.

Then, tablespoons of dumpling dough were dropped into the broth, where they immediately puffed up and hid everything else.

But after 10 further minutes of simmering to fully cook the dumplings, a stir, and a couple of teaspoons of coarsely ground black pepper … voilà! Chicken and Dumplings!

Fehribach recommends serving the meal straight from the pot, and perhaps next time I cook it up I will, but last night I couldn’t resist transferring it to a serving dish.

Chicken and Dumplings, anyone?

As for the taste, the moment my wife and I each spooned some of this into our mouths, we both smiled and said exactly the same words at exactly the same moment … “Very nice!”

I look forward to preparing this dish on some future date when friends are over, since the recipe certainly yielded enough for six people, maybe even eight, because, wow, those dumplings sure do expand!

I’ll likely have Chicken and Dumplings for both lunch and dinner today, once I figure out the best way to reheat the leftovers without damaging the texture of those dumplings.

As for the next dish I’ll attempt from The Big Jones Cookbook, I’m thinking Potted Duck. Though the Charred Brussels Sprouts with Shallots and Pecans sounds tempting, too. Or maybe … the Black Walnut Sorghum Pie?

Whatever I make up my mind, you’ll be the first to know.