Catherine Jessee

Title: Test Kitchen Assistant

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Expertise: Recipe testing, recipe developing, foodways and culture, food writing, Southern foodways, Appalachian foodways, food systems and labor, foraging cultures

Catherine Jessee is a test kitchen assistant at the Dotdash Meredith Food Studios. She has tested recipes for brands including Allrecipes, EatingWell, Food & Wine, Real Simple, People and Southern Living. Prior to joining the Food Studios, she accumulated three years of experience cooking in restaurants. She is also a writer and has contributed to publications like Domino, The Knot and Wildsam.

Catherine received her M.A. in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where she worked as a line cook at Tarasque Cucina and served as a Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance. Catherine's expertise focuses on the confluence of food and culture. Her master's thesis, "The Wild Asleep: A Cultural and Environmental History of Ramps," included a collection of oral histories and interviews with foragers, cooks and avid eaters of wild onions across Appalachia and beyond. Her go-to dish to bring to a potluck is Ritz crackers and pimiento cheese (her mom's recipe, always!).

B.A. in American Studies and English, University of Virginia
- M.A. in Southern Studies, University of Mississippi

Food & Wine, a Dotdash Meredith Brand, is an award-winning online resource for anyone passionate about the culinary world. With rigorously tested recipes and the most trusted restaurant, drinks, culinary travel and home coverage, we inspire and empower people everywhere to discover, create, and devour the best in food and wine. Learn more about us and our editorial process.

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