Book excerpt: One of the surest ways to connect with the past is to sample what was on its plate. That's the goal with this gustatory journey through Alabama history. Sweetmeats with the governor's lonely, oft-depressed wife in 1832 Greensboro. Shrimp and crabmeat casserole at a long-departed preacher's house at the Gaines Ridge Dinner Club in Camden. Pimento cheese and tea with notes of cinnamon and citrus at the Bragg-Mitchell Mansion in Mobile. Poundcake from Georgia Gilmore's kitchen in Montgomery, where workaday freedom fighters and luminaries of the civil rights movement sought sustenance. Author Monica Tapper serves up a stick-to-your-ribs trek through Alabama history, providing classic recipes modified for the modern kitchen along the way.