What do locals cook for Derby guests? Beef tenderloin, according to local cookbook author Sarah Fritschner. As former Courier-Journal food editor, Fritschner would know. She has written several cookbooks, including “Derby 101: A Guide to Food and Menus for Kentucky Derby Week,” “Derby Start to Finish,” and “Sarah Fritschner’s Holidays: Menus and Recipes for the Fall Holiday Season,” all published by Butler Books.
The recipes in Fritschner’s Derby cookbooks are tried and true. “They come from collecting recipes for people through 24 years of being food editor of Louisville newspapers, and having people call me for recipes around Derby,” she says. “The recipes are really geared to the style of party you’re taking on.”
Fritschner is now a food writer for Kentucky Living magazine and editor of Edible Louisville. She also co-authored “The Fast Food Guide” with Michael F. Jacobson (Workman Publishing) and wrote “Express Lane Cookbook” and “Vegetarian Express Lane Cookbook” (Houghton Mifflin).
Louisville was recently named one of the “Best Foodie Getaways in the World” by Zagat, and Southern Living magazine declared it one of the South’s “Ten Tastiest Towns.” Fritschner credits the Bingham family, who previously owned the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times, as part of the reason Louisville has such a great food and restaurant reputation. “For decades, the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times sent two anonymous restaurant critics out every week,” says Fritschner. She believes that people then read about good and bad food on a regular basis, and rewarded good restaurants by choosing to eat there. “Food became important,” she says. She also believes the Grisanti family of Louisville restaurant fame played a role, as well as the culinary programs offered at Jefferson Community and Technical College and Sullivan University.
Over the years, Fritschner has developed a commitment to local food. “I graduated from college with a degree in dietetics; I honestly believed that good food could cure what ails us,” she says. “I kept having to acknowledge that food that tasted good wasn’t the same as food that was good for you. When I began to eat locally grown food, I realized that food could taste good and be good for you.”
In addition to her writing, Fritschner is coordinator of the Louisville Farm to Table program, which works to bring Kentucky food into the Metro area. The program has helped the University of Louisville and Jefferson County Public Schools, for example, to find ways to use local food and get fresh fruits and vegetables into lunch programs. “The local food issue is about more than taste; it’s also about economics,” she says. “Eating locally is such a problem solver on many, many levels.”
Fritschner says that shopping at farmers’ markets is a good thing. “But people also shop at grocery stores, so I appreciate ValuMarket making the effort to stock local products,” she states. “And people eat out, so I appreciate Lilly’s and Bristol Bar and Grille featuring local food on their menus. They help their whole community when they do that and we can help our whole community when we buy from them.”
Fritschner’s Derby and holiday cookbooks are available locally at Carmichael’s Bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Paul’s Fruit Market, and Celebrations, and online through Butler Books (butlerbooks.com) and amazon.com. The Express Lane cookbooks are out of print, but used copies can be purchased at Amazon.
Susan E. Lindsey is a freelance writer, a professional book editor and publicist. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .