Southern Cooking: A Tribute to Some of the Best Cooks I Know

All the district schools in the county forged the opening of another school year today.   As I have retired and am enjoying my new lifestyle to the fullest, I wasn’t among the teaching force this morning.  Oh what bliss!  I pushed the alarm off at 7:00 thinking I would get up, but went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 8:00.  I lingered over my coffee and spent an hour or so in quiet time. This is a blessed life.

I began some daily chores of laundry, kitchen cleanup, and a garden run.  Once finished, I decided I would spend the afternoon in the kitchen cooking.  This was a carryover from spending Saturday in the kitchen.  I put beef stew in the crock pot to simmer for the day, cut watermelon, and baked cupcakes to take to church for the special luncheon to be held the next day.  Later in the afternoon, I finished up icing the mini confections.  I really enjoyed this time and it made me want to do more of the same today.

I love cooking; I’ve just never had the time when I wasn’t exhausted and cooking was for survival, not enjoyment.  As I went about today, I reminisced about three of the best southern cooks I know, how they loved to cook, and what I learned from them—my mamma, my Aunt Sis, and my grandmother, affectionately named Nanny when I began to talk.  I want to tell you about these dynamic women. Now I’m sure everyone can speak to a relative they have that could hold their own in the kitchen, but I’m telling you, I come from a long line of great women who could cook up a storm.

My grandmother put on a spread like nobody’s business and she was determined to make everyone’s favorite.  Nobody would leave her house hungry or disappointed that she didn’t have their special dessert.  She loved her family and even in the darkest, poorest days of the depression, she knew how to utilize every resource, make everything stretch, and no one went hungry.  Now for the holidays, you could expect every flavor of pie and cake, Red Velvet was a must at Christmas and is still a tradition for my family today.  Coconut was sure to be included.  If you wanted pie, you could find pumpkin, pecan, minced meat, coconut, chocolate, fruit pies, and her specialty, Scorched Cream Pie. Today, this would probably be called a butterscotch pie and by no means was the cream scorched. The cream filling was delicious, creamy, and would melt in your mouth.  The fact is the flavoring factor of the pie was the “scorching” or lightly burning of sugar to create the caramel or butterscotch base.  It was magnificent and only my Nanny knew how to make this pie. It was her signature creation. I have the recipe and am going to try to recreate it one of these days.  I didn’t even mention all the salads she made in addition to a variety of meats and vegetables.  This little, fiery, woman was a bundle of energy.  She might remind you of the Tasmanian Devil whirling around her kitchen and she could dirty every dish she had creating all of her confections.  Let me just say, this was before the dishwasher.  She didn’t know what it was to have one in her kitchen and many a pot and pan went through her sink filled with soapy water.

My mom is a great cook.  I’ve heard Collin say a number of times that my mom could make gravel taste good, and he’s telling it right.  Her favorites were baking sweets and breads.  We have a family recipe called “Jeneen’s Bread”, and right out of the oven with butter, it is sure to melt in your mouth.   My mom’s signature dish is “dressing.”  She’s known for it by the family and even by the church folk.  For years, we traveled to Illinois for Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with my Aunt Sis and her family.  While my aunt could put on a spread (and I’ll get to her in a minute), she’d always say, “Bonnie, you do the dressing. I just can’t do it like you do.” and my mom would take over that dish for the day.   For years, she’s made dressing for the Harvest dinner at church where some 350 people or so would come on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving for the traditional turkey and dressing fellowship meal.  Scores of folks would come by and say, “Bonnie, did you make the dressing? It sure was good.”  A couple of tips for the best dressing ever.  Don’t put sugar in your cornbread for this dish, there’s magic in getting the sage measurement just right, and don’t overcook it.  You should never be able to cut and serve it as though it were a piece of cake.  I’ve learned all this from my momma and I’d put her dressing up against anybody’s.  Collin has taken over now smoking the turkey for our Thanksgiving celebration, but rest assured, Mom will have made the dressing.

Now my mom’s sister, Huetta, and my aunt, which I call Aunt Sis (because my mother and the entire family simply called her “Sis”) was no slouch in the kitchen either.  She could put on a spread just like my grandmother.   She had the gift of hospitality and she loved everyone she ever met.  I believe she was the most caring, loving soul I’ve ever known and she always wanted everyone to feel welcomed in her home and a part of the family.  She saw to it that there was plenty of food. She cooked and served friends and family and cooked many a dish for church affairs.  She, too, like my grandmother could dirty every dish in the kitchen and when we all jumped in to clean up and store the leftovers, I can still hear her say, “Oh, let me get a smaller dish for that”, and then you guessed it, we had even more dishes to wash.  It became a joke.  She didn’t know anything about a dishwasher either and all the girls in the family would gather to wash and dry dishes together.  What wonderful memories I have of laughter and conversation over the sudsy water that would get dirty and we’d run it out and start over with clean water not to mention all the drying clothes we went through.  When we finished the dishes, we usually need to run a washer of towels.

A favorite recipe that came to me from Aunt Sis is Navajo Fry Bread.  I made it today and that’s what made me begin to look back with fond memories.  This is a tostada flat bread of sorts and I’ve spoiled my family by making it when we have tacos.  They do not want the pre-shaped, fried, and bought taco crispy shells.  We only do that in a pinch.  It takes a bit to make this bread/shell, but is it ever good with the taco meat and fixings on top.  We never order tacos at a restaurant—mine are better at home.  Now there is an art to making these shells.  Yes, I have the recipe, but watching Aunt Sis make them was an art and some dishes can’t be made by simply following the recipe.  You have to learn the intricate moves and learn how to handle the dough.  This can be the case in many a cooking endeavor.  I might also mention she made a mean Danish pastry and her fried pies and pecan tassies were incredible.

I also made Mississippi Mud Cookies today.  They are one of Collin’s favorites and they are pretty simple.

As I was thumbing through my cookbook of family favorites, I came across some pictures and remembered spending time with my kiddos in the kitchen.  It’s good for children to learn cooking skills.  Everyone is hungry at one time or another and needs to know their way around the kitchen. Micah has some great food when we visit at her house,

and Bryan can hold his own, too.

Even Ben helped me make a cake one day when he was at my house.

Anne Kathryn will be a little bigger one day and I hope I can make some memories with her.

I hope I can continue to find more time for cooking and making some tasty delights for my family. I’m even hoping to find more time for entertaining and hosting in my home.  I think old-fashion visiting and fellowships are becoming a thing of the past and that saddens me. When I was a little girl, we always had guests at our house on Saturday or we were visiting in another family’s home. We also had lots of Sunday night singing after church at someone’s house that had a piano.  There were always refreshments.   We live in a world that is too busy and I want to make some time for sharing meals with friends, enjoy some casual conversation, make some new memories and. . .

Live Simply

Marcia