Ernest Matthew Mickler; Wrote ‘White Trash Cooking’

Ernest Matthew Mickler, 48, author of the irreverent “White Trash Cooking,” a national best seller at 350,000 copies that consists of homey recipes from family members, such as Aunt Rosie Deaton’s All-American Slum Gullion and the Kiss Me Not Sandwich, made with onions and Edna Rae’s Smothered Potatoes. When published in 1986 his earthy approach to cooking struck a responsive chord in Americans tired of gourmet fare. His latest book, “Sinkin’ Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravin’s,” is a culinary and folkloric history of the rural South. In Moccasin Branch, Fla., on Tuesday of AIDS.