MELANIE MARTIN (Nashville, Tennessee) is originally from Crossville, Alabama. Her grandmother was PARTHENIA SHEARON BOYCE, who lived most of her adult life in Wartrace, Tennessee. Melanie shares, “Parthenia was a widow, and she remarried two weeks before I was born. She moved from her home in Wartrace, Tennessee, to Shelbyville, Tennessee, to begin married life again. We made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Shelbyville about every other month, always arriving at lunchtime on Saturday. And what a lunch we would arrive to! While I know this can’t be true, it seemed like every time she cooked we had vegetables, good ol’ country ham, and biscuits. I could (and sometimes tried to) make an entire meal out of her biscuits, which she made by the recipe on the White Lily flour bag. And of course, there was always dessert.” Melanie adds that this chess pie is guaranteed to be an authentic Southern-style favorite and not a Yankee imitation.
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 ½ cups sugar
3 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 ½ teaspoons vinegar
1 ½ teaspoons cornmeal
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9 inch) piecrust, unbaked
1 Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2 Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the sugar. Remove from the heat. Add the eggs, vinegar, cornmeal, buttermilk, and vanilla and blend well. Pour into the piecrust.
3 Bake for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees, and bake until the filling shakes slightly and is brown, about 20 minutes.
MAKES 8 SERVINGS.