To me, Southern cooking is warm and welcoming, it’s family and friends, and being neighborly, it evokes a real sense of “come on in and join us.” That’s how it is in our little town of Lynchburg, a rural agricultural community tucked in the hollows of Middle Tennessee filled with generations of good country cooks and even better eaters.
Never would I have imagined the relatively recent swell of excitement in home cooking, outdoor grilling and barbecue, growing and cooking with local ingredients, practicing age-old home economics skills like canning and preserving, sewing and quilting, and even raising chickens and pigs out back. What are inspiring new “back to basics” trends for some have been common, everyday activities happening in and around the hollows of Lynchburg since time immemorial. We’re still canning late summer tomatoes, putting up a freezer full of corn, cooking cane juice into sorghum molasses, and baking pie after pie.
Does the name “Lynchburg, Tennessee,” ring a bell? I’ll bet it does. Most folks have heard of Lynchburg because the name is printed on every single bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey. My Great-Grand Uncle Jack’s whiskey is one of the best selling whiskies the world over. Every drop is crafted here in Lynchburg, just as it was in his day.
Whiskey making has been going on a long time around here, even before Uncle Jack’s time. Our hills were once dotted with distilleries on account of our pure spring water and the abundance of corn and sugar maple. My daddy’s family once owned the nearby Eaton and Tolley Distillery and both my Great Uncles Jess Motlow and my Uncle Lem Tolley were master distillers at Jack Daniel’s, two of only seven in the company’s history. You could say whiskey truly runs in my blood.
My brother, Lee, and I grew up in my mother’s country kitchen, talking, laughing, helping, and mostly getting under foot. Mother has always been a happy, joyful woman, and it comes through in her cooking. Thanks to her, our lives have been filled with fresh homegrown vegetables, locally cured country ham and fresh sausage, and chicks pecking in the backyard. We picked turnip greens in the back field, poke sallet along the fence row, and blackberries wherever they grew. And no one can top her fried chicken.
Thank goodness Mother has been such a good teacher. Since 1984, I’ve served as the proprietress of Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House just off Lynchburg’s town square. Every day but Sunday we serve a midday dinner of two meats and six vegetables, homemade biscuits, rolls or cornbread, iced tea, coffee, and dessert in the old boarding house tradition. Our food is simple, delicious Southern country cooking. Our guests dine family-style at big tables spread throughout the beautifully renovated 1820s white clapboard house.
When I was a child, the Bobo Hotel was filled with folks who needed a place to call home. Miss Mary served her boarders and special guests three home-cooked meals a day. My family ate there when I was a kid, but the boarding house wasn’t a public restaurant as it is today. I often played around the boarding house while Mother and Miss Mary’s daughter, Louise, ran the flower shop down the street. I recall the many times when Miss Mary stopped by the shop for an afternoon break and gossip session while Mother arranged flowers. After Miss Mary passed in 1983, just shy of the age of 102, I had the wonderful opportunity to succeed her as proprietress. We opened Miss Mary’s as a boarding house-style restaurant and have been going strong ever since.
Visit on a Monday and we’re likely to serve slow-cooked pot roast and skillet fried chicken and gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, speckled butter beans with sweet red pepper relish, a vegetable casserole or two, and homemade biscuits and gravy. We serve fried okra and Lynchburg candied apples every single day because our guests can’t get enough of them. For dessert there’s fudge pie served with Jack Daniel’s whipping cream. And that’s just the Monday menu.
Each year Lynchburg welcomes more than 250,000 visitors from around the world. Most everyone tours the distillery, and many join us for dinner. I get such a kick out of introducing folks from Germany, Japan, and even Wisconsin to grits, okra, and black-eyed peas. Many of their stories appear throughout these pages.
This book is the result of a life of good eating, cooking, entertaining, and sharing food with others. My Uncle Jack loved to host extravagant parties and feasts. He so enjoyed dancing with the ladies that he kept a ballroom in his home. Like Uncle Jack, we Lynchburg folks take our fun and our food seriously. Whether it’s an all-night whole hog roast, church supper, tailgate party, or dinner at home with a few neighbors, someone in Lynchburg is preparing a welcoming spread. Of course, Uncle Jack is still the life of the party.
Over the years my longtime friend, collaborator, and coauthor Mindy Merrell and I have cooked up friendships with talented home cooks, fancy chefs, and bartenders across the nation. These creative exchanges have enriched our interpretation and love of Southern country cooking. We’re pleased to share these recipes and the stories that inspired them, all of which draw together the time-tested traditions of Lynchburg, Tennessee, and my Uncle Jack. We all agree—a little Jack makes a whole lot of things taste better.
Lynne Tolley, Proprietress
Miss Mary Bobo’s Boarding House
Lynchburg, Tennessee