Chapter 1

My Mama’s Cookbook Lessons on life and cooking from a woman who’s never consulted a recipe

Since our first issue, we’ve been the South’s recipe box, and these are our dog-eared, grease-splattered, much-loved favorites

“We are looking for recipes using peaches and will pay $3 for each one we use in Southern Living. In submitting your recipes, tell us something of its origin and other foods you would serve with it for a complete meal.” Since the publication of our second issue in March 1966, millions of recipes have arrived in our mailboxes and, now, inboxes. Nearly every issue of Southern Living since has included at least one reader-submitted recipe. It’s the hallmark of our pages. When Southern Living first began, the times, they were a-changin’ both culturally and in our kitchens. Our readers still liked formal dinner parties where they served fancy dishes with flair. Julia Child and the Kennedy White House made French cuisine wildly popular. And at cocktail parties, gracious hostesses would pass delicate hors d’oeuvres on monogrammed silver trays and inherited chafing dishes. But our readers also began their exploration of fun, casual, and convenient family meals. Perhaps the biggest change was the Space Race and with it, the fascination with foods like freeze-dried ice cream and Tang, but none more revelatory than gelatin. The recipes during its wiggly, jiggly reign suggested that with a little determination and imagination, there was no type of food—sweet or savory—that could not be molded and congealed.

Things took an international turn on our pages during the seventies. Our fascination for all things French continued; we ate lots of quiche and rolled lots of crêpes. Asian food from China to Polynesia had us experimenting with woks and cranking open a few thousand cans of pineapple. Italian food increased in popularity as well, especially pasta dishes. In the early 1970s, three different restaurants claimed to have invented Pasta Primavera. Our recipes have always reflected trends, and just like our readers, our Test Kitchen pros in the 1970s were using fondue pots, Ginsu knives, and slow cookers. An advertisement for Rival Crock-Pots proclaimed that their product “cooks all day while the cook’s away” to appeal to working mothers, and recipes for slow cooking soon followed on our pages. After hearing that readers loved to clip out our recipes but hated to cut up their issues, we published the first Southern Living Annual Recipes cookbook in 1979, which aggregated the hundreds of recipes featured in our magazine that year. We still hear from readers who display the entire collection on their shelves with family photos. Although a recipe is published only after due deliberation, we can’t predict which ones will become classics. The best example of that phenomenon is the 1978 publication of Hummingbird Cake, which became one of our most requested recipes in the magazine’s history.

Women entered the workforce outside the home in record numbers in the eighties. Time for cooking shrank, but expectations for scratch-made dinners and impressive entertaining did not. Southern Living responded by providing time-strapped cooks with quick and easy recipes, one-pan wonders, and make-ahead meals. The need for speed influenced our appliance purchases as well. By 1989, most kitchens included a microwave oven. The eighties were challenging for many family cooks due to soaring grocery prices and beef shortages. Our staff responded by helping cooks on tight budgets make the most of their groceries. The secret to stretching ingredients, it turned out, was casseroles. But affordable didn’t equate unappealing. In the eighties, readers liked their food, at least in photos, all gussied up with garnishes like radish roses, chocolate curls, and paper frills on crown roasts. In turn, food styling and photography took on new importance. Cooking light went from a buzzword to a legacy in the 1980s, the decade that ushered in calorie-conscious Southern recipes on our pages. A Cooking Light column written by staff dieticians debuted in 1982. Readers couldn’t get enough of our oven-fried chicken and lightened-up layer cakes, and five years later the column became Cooking Light magazine, lauded in the publishing world as the best new magazine launch in the past 20 years.

The idea of a celebrity chef emerged in the nineties, and Southern Living offered more recipes from revered regional chefs than ever before. Talents featured on our pages included Frank Stitt, Emeril Lagasse, and Bill Smith—often featuring the foods they prepared at home for their families. Some chefs became household names with huge fan bases, especially after the premiere of the Food Network in 1993, which enabled viewers to have ringside seats at the world of professional cooking. Inspired by the availability of foreign foods and gourmet groceries, many chefs began combining cuisines in a trend known as fusion cooking, and so did we. Spurred by the runaway hit show Dallas, readers clamored for Tex-Mex and Southwestern fare. Seven-layer dip, nachos, and queso dip made from Velveeta cheese and Ro-Tel tomatoes and chiles became wildly popular party foods to enjoy while we wondered who shot J.R. when the final episode aired in 1991. The Mediterranean Diet and the rise of restaurants like Olive Garden and Pizza Hut led to a renewed fascination with Italian food, and we quickly discovered that a cast-iron skillet made a great pan for homemade pizzas. Although we continued developing healthier recipes during the advent of artificial sweeteners and low-fat cookies, we still ran the classics, never losing sight of our belief that Southern home cooking is healing for the heart and soul.

It’s a new century and we’re all online. Now readers need only type in southernliving.com to access our enormous archive of recipes. We tweet, blog, pin, snap, and post, and our video channel shares tutorials on everything from potato salad to piecrusts. Our first viral video featuring red velvet pancakes lets us know that Southerners might be pioneers of the farm-to-table craze but they still won’t be putting away their red food coloring any time soon. Nationally, Southern cooking has finally earned the respect it deserves, and native dishes and drinks like BBQ and bourbon become red-hot trends globally. While our best Southern restaurants list trended on Twitter, the newest thing in restaurants is no restaurant at all; we’re walking up to food trucks and buying tickets for neighborhood pop-ups. Small plates are popular, letting us build a meal from an array of this and that—just like old-fashioned Southern covered-dish dinners. Although we still love finding new hot spots, we also can’t get enough of lost domestic arts like canning and pickling. Our readers crave the classics but love updated flavors that make the familiar feel inventive—like Boiled Peanut Hummus and tomato salads made with heirloom varieties. With new, state-of-the-art Food Studios and a website redesign ahead this year, the possibilities for the future feel limitless.

We’ll admit it: We wouldn’t want to revisit many of the congealed salads we published in the sixties, but rediscovering this jewel of a recipe was like finding a timeless dress at a vintage store.

Drain syrup from pineapple into a 2-cup measuring cup. Add boiling water to equal 1¼ cups. Transfer to a large bowl. Dissolve gelatin in hot syrup mixture; chill 1 hour and 30 minutes or until partially set. Fold in cranberry sauce, oranges, zest, and crushed pineapple. Pour into 1 (4-cup) mold, and chill 2 hours or until set.

Flambéed desserts were a must-have tableside sensation both at restaurants and at home. This recipe we ran from Brennan’s in New Orleans is just as delicious as it was when they invented it more than 60 years ago.

1. Cut bananas in half crosswise, then lengthwise. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add brown sugar, and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes.

2. Add bananas to skillet, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Remove skillet from heat. Stir in liqueur and rum, and carefully ignite the fumes just above mixture with a long match. Let flames die down.

The vice president for the Southern division of Sears, Roebuck and Co. sent us this recipe after a trip to France.

1. Place meat and wine in a medium bowl; chill 1 hour. Remove meat using a slotted spoon; reserve wine in a small saucepan. Pat meat dry with paper towels.

2. Cook reserved wine over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes or until reduced to 1 cup.

3. Melt butter with oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add meat, and cook 5 minutes, stirring to brown all sides. Add onion and next 3 ingredients, and cook, stirring often, 15 minutes or until vegetables and meat are cooked. Sprinkle flour over meat mixture, and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Stir in reduced wine, salt, pepper, and ¼ cup beef broth. Cover and reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, 2 hours, adding up to ½ cup beef broth if needed.

Southern hostesses have long relied on cheese wafers to keep their party guests satiated.

Preheat oven to 350°. Cut butter into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in cheese, red pepper, and salt. Fold in cereal. Shape into 1-inch balls, and place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten each dough ball. Bake, in batches, 15 minutes. (Refrigerate remaining baking sheet while first batch is baking.)

Thanks to Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina, this pineapple-banana spice cake with cream cheese frosting became one of our most requested recipes. We still stand by Mrs. Wiggins’ original, indulgent creation.

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Whisk together flour and next 4 ingredients in a large bowl; add eggs and oil, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in vanilla, pineapple, bananas, and 1 cup chopped toasted pecans. Spoon batter into 3 well-greased (with shortening) and floured 9-inch round cake pans.

2. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

3. Place 1 cake layer on a serving platter. Spread 1 cup Cream Cheese Frosting over cake layer. Top with second layer, and spread 1 cup frosting over cake layer. Top with third cake layer, and spread top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. Arrange toasted pecan halves in a circular pattern over top of cake.

Beat cream cheese and butter at medium-low speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating at low speed until blended. Stir in vanilla. Increase speed to medium-high, and beat 1 to 2 minutes or until fluffy.

Cocktail meatballs hold a special place in the canon of Southern party appetizers. While we love the ones our mamas made with chili sauce and grape jelly, this recipe is the one we still pull out for company.

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Gently stir together ground chuck, next 6 ingredients, and ¾ cup chopped onions. Shape into 1-inch balls; place in a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 13- x 9-inch baking dish. Bake at 450°for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and drain off excess fat.

2. Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add remaining onions, and sauté 4 to 6 minutes or until tender. Whisk in flour; cook, whisking constantly, 1 minute. Gradually whisk in beef broth, and cook, whisking constantly, until smooth. Stir in wine and next 4 ingredients. Reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring often, 15 minutes. Add meatballs, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes.

A quiche was featured in nearly every issue of the seventies, but none was more popular than Quiche Lorraine. Our favorite version, of course, uses bacon.

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Fit piecrust into a 9-inch pie plate; fold edges under, and crimp. Prick bottom and sides of crust with a fork; bake 6 to 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Reduce oven temperature to 350°. Cool piecrust on a wire rack while preparing filling.

2. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring often, 7 to 8 minutes or until crispy; drain on paper towels. Sprinkle bacon over bottom of pie shell. Sprinkle green onions over bacon; sprinkle half of Swiss cheese over onions.

3. Whisk together beaten eggs and next 5 ingredients. Carefully pour egg mixture over cheese. Sprinkle remaining Swiss cheese over egg mixture.

4. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes or until lightly browned and set in middle. Cool 15 minutes before serving.

Our Test Kitchen staffers declared that this Chinese-inspired recipe from 1979 beats any takeout meal.

1. Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces. Stir together sherry, next 4 ingredients, and ¼ cup water in a small bowl.

2. Heat a large skillet over high heat for 2 minutes. Add peanut oil, and tilt skillet to coat sides; heat 2 minutes.

3. Add chicken, and stir-fry 2 to 3 minutes or until chicken turns white. Move chicken to perimeter of skillet. Add green pepper and cashews; stir-fry 30 seconds, and move to perimeter of skillet. Add onions, garlic, and ginger; stir-fry 1 minute, and move to perimeter of skillet.

4. Add sherry mixture, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook 1 minute, stirring all ingredients into sauce. Serve over rice.

Casseroles are where you can see Southern ingenuity at its best, and the eighties had no shortage of inventive ideas. This particular Southern standard gave us all the warm and fuzzy memories we were craving.

1. Place first 3 ingredients and water to cover in a large Dutch oven. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer 1 hour or until tender. Remove chicken, reserving broth in Dutch oven. Cool chicken completely (about 20 minutes). Discard bay leaf. Skin and bone chicken, and cut meat into pieces.

2. Preheat oven to 350°. Remove and reserve ¼ cup chicken broth. Bring remaining broth in Dutch oven to a boil over high heat. Break spaghetti into thirds, and cook in broth 12 to 15 minutes or until tender; drain well, discarding broth. Return spaghetti to Dutch oven.

3. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and next 3 ingredients, and sauté 5 minutes or until tender; add to spaghetti. Stir together soup and ¼ cup reserved broth; stir into spaghetti mixture. Stir in chicken, tomatoes, and next 3 ingredients. Add salt to taste. Spoon mixture into a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 13- x 9-inch baking dish. Top with cheese.

Our favorite recipe from the Cooking Light column, this lightened-up lasagna tastes every bit as flavorful as the traditional version.

1. Cook ground turkey in skillet over medium heat, stirring often, 8 minutes or until brown; drain well on paper towels. Stir together turkey, tomato puree, and next 10 ingredients in a large saucepan; cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

3. Coat a 13- x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1 cup turkey mixture into baking dish. Top with 6 wonton wrappers in a single layer (slightly overlapping), 1 cup spinach mixture, and 1½ cups turkey mixture. Repeat layers twice, beginning with wontons and ending with turkey mixture.

4. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from oven. Top with mozzarella cheese, and bake 5 more minutes.

Freezer coleslaws repeated throughout our eighties issues, and we can see why. This sweet and tangy slaw is perfect for pulled pork and hot dogs. Plus, it stays cold and crunchy longer.

1. Stir together first 3 ingredients and 1 cup water in a saucepan; bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally. Boil 1 minute. Cool completely (about 30 minutes).

2. Stir together shredded cabbage and next 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Pour dressing over cabbage mixture; toss gently. Divide coleslaw evenly among 4 (1-qt.) zip-top plastic freezer bags. Seal and freeze 3 days. Store in freezer up to 1 month. Thaw coleslaw at room temperature 3 hours before serving.

We weren’t exactly excited to test our old microwave column recipes again, but these chocolate-peanut blondies truly surprised us.

Microwave butter in a large microwave-safe bowl at MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) for 45 to 60 seconds or until melted. Stir together brown sugar and peanut butter. Add eggs, next 4 ingredients, and ½ cup peanuts. Spoon batter into a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 8-inch square microwave-safe baking dish. Microwave at MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) for 4 minutes. Microwave at HIGH (100%) for 3 to 6 minutes or until top is almost dry. Remove from microwave, and immediately top with chopped chocolate. Let stand 5 minutes; spread melted chocolate evenly over top, and sprinkle with remaining peanuts. Cool 15 minutes. Cut into squares.

The South’s iconic appetizer fuses with the nineties’ obsession with Tex-Mex.

1. Cut eggs in half crosswise; carefully remove yolks, and place in a small bowl.

3. Spoon yolk mixture into egg white halves; sprinkle with Cheddar cheese and desired amount of chili powder. Serve immediately, or cover and chill until ready to serve.

This ultra-moist pound cake received our Test Kitchen’s highest rating. It can be dressed up for any occasion: Fresh berries and a dollop or two of whipped cream do the trick.

1. Preheat oven to 300°. Beat softened butter and cream cheese at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer 2 minutes or until creamy.

2. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until mixture is light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears after each addition. Add vanilla, and beat just until blended.

3. Stir together flour and salt in a small bowl; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended after each addition. Pour batter into a greased (with shortening) and floured 10-inch tube pan.

4. Bake at 300° for 1 hour and 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan, and cool completely on wire rack (about 1 hour).

Our Test Kitchen Director, Robby Melvin, still loves to prepare this fresh and easy pasta dish from his mentor, Birmingham chef Frank Stitt.

2. Cook garlic in hot oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, 1 to 2 minutes or until golden.

4. Add chopped plum tomatoes and kosher salt; cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Stir in desired amount of chopped fresh basil. Serve immediately over hot pasta, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

The ultimate creamed corn, this in-demand recipe has run in our magazine more than 10 times after its debut in 1995. We like to add chopped fresh chives on top.

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Stir together sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.

3. Gradually add sugar mixture, whisking until smooth; stir in corn. Pour mixture into a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 13- x 9-inch baking dish.

4. Bake at 350° for 40 to 45 minutes or until mixture is deep golden and set. Let stand 5 minutes.

Sweet tea has become an iconic Southern flavor for pound cakes, ice cream, and even fried chicken. In this recipe, we brined pieces of chicken in the elixir before grilling to impart subtle sweetness and moisture.

1. Bring 4 cups water to a boil in a 3-qt. heavy saucepan; add tea bags. Remove from heat; cover and steep 10 minutes.

2. Discard tea bags. Stir in sugar and next 6 ingredients, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cool completely (about 45 minutes); stir in ice cubes. (Mixture should be cold before adding chicken.)

3. Place tea mixture and chicken in a large zip-top plastic freezer bag; seal. Place bag in a shallow baking dish, and chill 24 hours. Remove chicken from marinade, discarding marinade; pat chicken dry with paper towels.

4. Light 1 side of grill, heating to 300° to 350° (medium) heat; leave other side unlit. Place chicken, skin side down, over unlit side, and grill, covered with grill lid, 20 minutes. Turn chicken, and grill, covered with grill lid, 40 to 50 minutes or until done. Transfer chicken, skin side down, to lit side of grill, and grill 2 to 3 minutes or until skin is crispy. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

MAKES 6 to 8 servings. HANDS-ON 30 min. TOTAL 2 hours, 35 min., plus 1 day for marinating

From bacon to carnitas to BBQ, pork has hit prime time nationally. This recipe featuring ham and the Southern staples greens and cornbread continues to be a go-to dinner for our food editors.

1. Prepare Filling: Preheat oven to 425°. Sauté chopped ham in hot oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add 3 Tbsp. flour to Dutch oven, and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Gradually add chicken broth, and cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes or until broth begins to thicken.

2. Bring mixture to a boil, and add onion, bell pepper, and celery mix and collard greens; return to a boil, and cook, stirring often, 15 minutes.

3. Stir in black-eyed peas and dried crushed red pepper; spoon hot mixture into a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 13- x 9-inch baking dish.

4. Prepare Crust: Stir together cornmeal mix and next 2 ingredients in a large bowl, and make a well in the center of mixture. Add eggs and buttermilk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour batter evenly over hot filling mixture.

The new appreciation for whiskey goes beyond drinking and finds its way into sauces, braises, and especially desserts. Now bourbon and pecan pie fit together like peanut butter and jelly or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Fit piecrust into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate according to package directions; fold edges under, and crimp. Sprinkle pecans and chocolate morsels onto bottom of piecrust.

2. Stir together corn syrup and next 3 ingredients in a large saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

3. Whisk together eggs and next 4 ingredients. Gradually whisk one-fourth of hot corn syrup mixture into egg mixture; add to remaining hot corn syrup mixture, whisking constantly. Pour filling into prepared piecrust.

4. Bake at 325° for 55 minutes or until set; cool pie completely on a wire rack (about 1 hour).

Hurricane Katrina and a subsequent oil spill off the coast of Louisiana renewed appreciation for our region’s seafood. This stew shows off its incomparable flavors, colors, and beauty.

1. Peel shrimp; place shells in a saucepan. (Refrigerate shrimp until ready to use.) Add celery ends and onion peel to pan; chop remaining celery and onion, and reserve. (Using the leftover bits of onion and celery will result in a flavorful broth.) Add broth; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low; simmer 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cook sausage in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring often, 7 to 8 minutes or until browned. Remove sausage; pat dry. Wipe Dutch oven clean. Sauté celery, onion, and peppers in hot oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes or until onion is tender. Add garlic, and sauté 45 seconds to 1 minute or until fragrant. Stir in potatoes, next 4 ingredients, and sausage.

3. Pour broth mixture through a fine wire-mesh strainer into Dutch oven, discarding solids. Increase heat to high; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

4. Add fish, and cook 2 to 3 minutes or until just opaque. Add shrimp, and cook 2 to 3 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. If desired, stir in crawfish, and cook 2 to 3 minutes or until hot. Add salt and pepper to taste.

FROM BAPTISMS TO FUNERALS, NO OCCASION IS COMPLETE WITHOUT A CAKE. HERE, WE SHARE FIVE TWISTS ON ICONIC RECIPES AND HOW THEY BECAME OUR SWEETEST TRADITIONS

We bake them for birthdays and christenings, mount them on heirloom cake stands in honor of anniversaries and holiday homecomings, and immortalize them in great works of fiction. Few desserts are more impressive on a buffet. Vying with a dazzling parade of pies and meringue-topped banana puddings, a decadent layer cake will always be the star of the show at a church dinner. Tattered and scribbled with marginalia, the best-loved recipes are passed down from one generation to the next. Stories of their origin, both real and apocryphal, are as multilayered as the cakes themselves. Over the years, hundreds of readers, and SL staffers, have shared their favorite cake recipes in the pages of Southern Living. In celebration of our 50th Anniversary, we offer a deliciously fresh take on a few of the classics.

GET THE LOOK: THE WALLPAPER

The wallpaper shown behind each cake is a Farrow & Ball design called Vermicelli, based on an 18th-century textile by the same name.

Farrow & Ball, farrow-ball.com

MORE THAN 100 YEARS AGO, Emma Rylander Lane of Clayton, Alabama, entered the annual baking competition at the county fair in Columbus, Georgia. She took first prize. No doubt the judges were swayed by her cake’s filling: a richly yolked custard heavily spiked with bourbon. The recipe, entitled Prize Cake, can be found in Some Good Things To Eat, a collection of personal favorites she published in 1898. Though later versions add shredded coconut and pecans to the filling, the original recipe calls for raisins only. Like Lady Baltimore Cake, it’s one of many spirited fruit-filled cakes of the era that became a holiday tradition. In July 1960, Lane Cake gained literary fame in To Kill A Mockingbird. And in March 1966, Southern Living featured a recipe for Lane Cake in its second issue. Our latest twist? Dried peaches (finely diced and ridiculously delicious) stand in for raisins, and the traditional meringue frosting gets a spirited makeover with a triple shot of peach schnapps.

EXPECTING A TWIST ON CHEESECAKE? You’re in for an even sweeter surprise. These layers are filled with a buttery rich lemon curd instead. Recipes dating back to the early 1800s called for acidulating cream with lemon juice, then separating the curds and whey. Over the years, the original recipe for lemon cheese evolved into one using butter and eggs. By the 1940s, almost every good cook south of the Mason-Dixon Line had a recipe for lemon cheese layer cake in her repertoire. And if you’ve ever lived anywhere near Hartford in southeast Alabama, you know of the local ladies still famous for their 14-layer lemon cheese cakes. Numerous versions of this nostalgic classic pay homage to Robert E. Lee, who allegedly fancied sponge cakes filled with a sugary mix of finely grated lemons and oranges. Until now, a lemon cheese riff on Robert E. Lee Cake from the Southern Living 1990 Five-Star Recipe Collection used to be our favorite. But this one trumps them all.

VELVET CAKES (MINUS THE JOLT OF RED) were popular in Victorian times when savvy cooks blended flour and cornstarch to create fine-crumbed cake layers with a velvety texture. The subtle hue of Mahogany Velvet Cake, and later Red Devil’s Food Cake, was the result of baking soda interacting with natural cocoa and other acids in the batter. Legend has it that chefs at the Waldorf Astoria dreamed up a hybrid “Red Velvet” cake during the 1930s and served a slice to the owner of the Texas-based Adams Extract Company while he was a hotel guest. By the 1940s, Mr. John Adams was marketing red food coloring to the masses with recipe cards for a Red Velvet Cake his wife, Betty, developed. In 1989, an armadillo-shaped groom’s cake in Steel Magnolias kicked off a cult following for red velvet. The craze has continued, fueled in part by the red velvet cakes that have graced the Southern Living Christmas cover three times.

THE ORIGINS OF JAM CAKE lie deep in Appalachia where store-bought sugar was once scarce. Cakes were often sweetened with homemade jams, filled with wild berries and mountain fruits. The payoff for the genius swap? Rich, dense cake layers with a depth of flavor sugar alone can’t deliver. Vintage cookbooks offer century-old favorites, from Alice May Cresswell’s Blackberry Jam Cake to Zella McDowell’s extravaganza made with strawberry jam and fig preserves. Most recipes start with a tangy buttermilk batter ramped up with one or more flavors of jam and a flurry of ground spices. Foraged hickories and black walnuts, or wind-fallen pecans were added along with raisins and dates. Optional flourishes ranged from cocoa and freshly grated apple to pickled watermelon rind. This latest addition to our archives is finished with a quick caramel cream cheese frosting instead of the traditional burnt sugar icing. And yes, it’s every bit as luscious as it looks.

WHITE AS A SUNDAY GLOVE, coconut is the doyenne of Southern layer cakes, a masterpiece of home cookery that has crowned dining room sideboards for more than a hundred years. Purists sing the praises of simple but divine, opting for coconut water-doused cake layers and dreamy swirls of meringue. No argument there. In fact, it’s one of our favorites too. But flip through back issues of Southern Living and you’ll find more than 40 top-rated twists too good to pass up. Often requested: Nanny’s Famous Coconut-Pineapple Cake leavened with 7-Up, sent in by a reader in 1997. Fifty-one years earlier, Eudora Welty chose a coconut cake as the culinary centerpiece of Delta Wedding. Faulkner even gives it a shout-out in The Unvanquished. One of the earliest published recipes appears in Mrs. Hill’s New Cook Book. Writing from her rural Georgia kitchen in 1867, Mrs. Hill advises to make the filling “as thick and rich as desired,” which is exactly what we did with our latest creation.

1. Prepare Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350°. Beat first 2 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Gradually add 8 egg whites, 2 at a time, beating well after each addition.

2. Sift together flour and baking powder; gradually add to butter mixture alternately with 1 cup water, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in 1 Tbsp. vanilla. Spoon batter into 4 greased (with shortening) and floured 9-inch round shiny cake pans (about 1¾ cups batter in each pan).

3. Bake at 350° for 14 to 16 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

4. Prepare Filling: Pour boiling water to cover over dried peach halves in a medium bowl; let stand 30 minutes. Drain well, and cut into ¼-inch pieces. (After plumping and dicing, you should have about 2 cups peaches.)

5. Whisk together melted butter and next 2 ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, 10 to 12 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat, and stir in diced peaches, coconut, and next 3 ingredients. Cool completely (about 30 minutes).

6. Spread filling between cake layers (a little over 1 cup per layer). Cover cake with plastic wrap, and chill 12 hours.

7. Prepare Frosting: Pour water to a depth of 1½ inches into a small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium heat. Whisk together 2 egg whites, 1½ cups sugar, and next 3 ingredients in a heatproof bowl; place bowl over boiling water. Beat egg white mixture at medium-high speed with a handheld electric mixer 12 to 15 minutes or until stiff glossy peaks form and frosting is spreading consistency. Remove from heat, and spread immediately over top and sides of cake.

1. Prepare Lemon Curd: Beat first 2 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until blended. Add 4 eggs and 3 egg yolks, 1 at a time, to butter mixture, beating just until blended after each addition. Stir in lemon zest. Gradually add lemon juice to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended after each addition. (Mixture will look curdled.) Transfer to a large heavy saucepan.

2. Cook mixture over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, 14 to 16 minutes or until mixture thickens, coats the back of a spoon, and starts to mound slightly when stirred. Transfer mixture to a bowl.

3. Place heavy-duty plastic wrap directly on surface of warm curd (to prevent a film from forming), and cool 1 hour. Chill 8 hours.

4. Prepare Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350°. Beat 1¾ cups granulated sugar and 1 cup softened butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add 4 egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Stir in orange zest.

5. Sift together cake flour and next 2 ingredients; gradually add to butter mixture alternately with 1 cup orange juice, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating just until blended after each addition.

6. Beat 4 egg whites at medium-high speed with mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold one-third of egg whites into batter; fold remaining egg whites into batter. Pour batter into 4 greased (with shortening) and floured 8-inch round shiny cake pans (about 1¾ cups batter in each pan).

7. Bake at 350° for 17 to 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

8. Reserve and refrigerate 1 cup Lemon Curd. Spread remaining Lemon Curd between cake layers and on top of cake (about ½ cup per layer). Insert skewers 2 to 3 inches apart into cake to prevent layers from sliding. Immediately wrap cake tightly in plastic wrap, and chill 12 to 24 hours. (The layers of cake and Lemon Curd will set and firm up overnight, ripening the flavor and making the cake more secure and easier to frost.)

9. Prepare Frosting: Beat 1 cup powdered sugar, ½ cup softened butter, and 1 Tbsp. orange zest at low speed with electric mixer until blended. Add ½ cup reserved Lemon Curd alternately with remaining 2 cups powdered sugar, beating until blended after each addition. Increase speed to high, and beat 1 to 2 minutes or until fluffy.

10. Remove skewers from cake; discard skewers. Spread frosting on sides of cake. Spread remaining ½ cup reserved Lemon Curd over top of cake. (Adding a bit of extra Lemon Curd to the top of the cake creates a luxe decorative finish.)

Note: Lemon Curd may be stored in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

1. Prepare Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350°. Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Add red food coloring and vanilla, beating at low speed just until blended.

2. Stir together sour cream and ½ cup water until blended. Sift together flour and next 3 ingredients; gradually add to butter mixture alternately with sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Spoon batter into 3 greased (with shortening) and floured 9-inch round shiny cake pans (about 2½ cups batter in each pan).

3. Bake at 350° for 20 to 24 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

4. Prepare Glaze: Pulse strawberry preserves in a food processor until smooth; transfer to a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave strawberry preserves at HIGH 30 to 45 seconds or until melted; stir in almond liqueur. Brush ¼ cup warm glaze over top of each cooled cake layer. Reserve remaining ¼ cup glaze.

5. Prepare Frosting: Beat ¾ cup softened butter at medium speed 20 seconds or until fluffy. Gradually add 5 cups powdered sugar and ½ cup diced strawberries, beating at low speed until creamy. Add ¼ cup diced strawberries, 1 Tbsp. at a time, beating until frosting reaches desired consistency. Reserve remaining 1 cup diced strawberries.

6. Place 1 cake layer, glazed side up, on serving platter. Spread one-third of frosting over cake layer; sprinkle with ½ cup reserved diced strawberries. Repeat procedure with second cake layer. Top with remaining cake layer; spread with remaining frosting. Drizzle remaining ¼ cup strawberry glaze over cake.

Note: If your berries are juicy, you may not need the entire amount in the frosting.

1. Prepare Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350°. Beat first 2 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.

2. Stir together flour and next 2 ingredients. Stir together buttermilk and baking soda in a 2-cup glass measuring cup. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition.

3. Stir jam until smooth. Add jam and vanilla to butter mixture, and beat at low speed just until blended. Stir in toasted pecans and grated apple. Spoon batter into 4 greased (with shortening) and floured 9-inch round shiny cake pans (about 2½ cups batter in each pan).

4. Bake at 350° for 20 to 22 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

5. Prepare Frosting: Beat cream cheese and ¼ cup softened butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Add dulce de leche, 1 can at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Gradually add 2 Tbsp. whipping cream, 1 Tbsp. at a time, and beat at medium speed. Add up to 2 Tbsp. additional cream, 1 Tbsp. at a time, and beat until frosting is desired spreading consistency. Spread frosting between each layer and on top and sides of cake.

1. Prepare Cake Layers: Preheat oven to 350°. Stir together sifted cake flour and next 3 ingredients in bowl of an electric stand mixer. Make a well in center of flour mixture; add oil, egg yolks, vanilla, and ¾ cup water. Beat at medium speed 1 to 2 minutes or until smooth.

2. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar at medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold one-third of egg whites into batter; fold remaining whites into batter. Spoon batter into 4 greased (with shortening) and floured 8-inch round shiny cake pans (about 2 cups batter in each pan).

3. Bake at 350° for 12 to 14 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. (Do not overbake—cakes will be a very pale golden color.) Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks, and cool completely (about 30 minutes).

4. Prepare Filling: Stir together mascarpone cheese, ½ cup powdered sugar, and 1 Tbsp. vanilla in a large bowl just until blended.

5. Beat ¾ cup cream at low speed with an electric mixer until foamy; increase speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form. Fold whipped cream into mascarpone mixture until well blended. Add thawed grated coconut, and stir just until blended. Spread mixture between cake layers (about 1⅓ cups per layer). Cover with plastic wrap, and chill 12 hours.

6. Prepare White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting: Microwave chopped white chocolate and 2 Tbsp. whipping cream in a microwave-safe bowl at MEDIUM (50% power) 1 to 1½ minutes or until melted and smooth, stirring at 30-second intervals. Cool completely (about 20 minutes).

7. Beat 1 cup softened butter and 2 cups powdered sugar at low speed with an electric mixer until blended. Add white chocolate mixture, 2 tsp. vanilla, and remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, and beat at high speed 2 to 3 minutes or until fluffy. Spread frosting on top and sides of cake. Cover top and sides of cake with 3 cups flaked coconut, gently pressing coconut into frosting.

Test Kitchen Tip: Be sure to measure flour after sifting. (If you measure before sifting, you’ll end up with too much flour and a dry cake.) Check for doneness at the minimum bake time—even 1 or 2 minutes of extra baking can also create a dry cake.

Note: We tested with Birds Eye Tropic Isle Fresh Frozen Flake Grated Coconut and Mounds Sweetened Coconut Flakes.

SOME OF OUR FAVORITE CHEFS SHARE THEIR STORIES, THEIR INSPIRATION, AND THEIR PRIZED RECIPES

IN OUR VERY FIRST ISSUE, a column called Prized Recipes featured five women and their dishes, from Mrs. George L. Chapman of Timmonsville, South Carolina’s Party Cherry Pie to Mrs. J.C. Biddy of Blair, Oklahoma’s Peanut Butter Soup. These women were home cooks, and their recipes set the tone for how this magazine would cover food over the next 50 years. Showing hospitality and feeding our families well would become a core mission of Southern Living. Today we’re proud to feature five professional chefs, all Southern, all female, who are making their mark across the nation. Each has demonstrated not only a reverence for home cooking but also the tenacity, fearlessness, and talent it takes to become leaders in an industry that hasn’t always been receptive to women.

Birmingham’s pioneering pastry chef has been combining European technique with Southern soul for 34 years.

DOL, AS SHE’S affectionately known, has been Frank Stitt’s pastry ninja since shortly after he first opened Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham, nearly 34 years ago. She now oversees the desserts in all four of his restaurants. “My mother showed me how to make meringues, how to make a good graham cracker crust,” Miles says. “I started baking brown sugar pound cakes when I was 15 years old with her recipe.” Over the decades, Stitt has offered guidance in French and Italian technique, and now Miles leads a team of cooks—she is quick to point out it’s not a solo effort—in preparing enough desserts to feed 400 people each day.

The James Beard Award-winner and North Carolina restaurant mogul is also a self-described “hospitalitarian.”

ASHLEY CHRISTENSEN grew up surrounded by food: Her father, a truck driver, would drape freshly made strands of pasta over chair backs and broom handles, and her parents cooked dinner nearly every night. In college, she often threw dinner parties, and fell in love with hosting people. That background drives this beloved chef to nurture her business—and her diners—with a deep sense of hospitality. Not yet 40, Christensen oversees 250 employees, from Poole’s Diner, where people pack into banquettes for the richest, gooiest mac and cheese in the land, to Death & Taxes—her first real foray into fine dining—with its flame-licked oysters, whole roasted fish, and 93-day aged beef. And we get the sense she’s just hitting her stride.

This Indian-born Atlanta chef gives Southern comfort food a delightfully global twist

ASHA GOMEZ personifies the modern South. Born in the southern Indian state of Kerala, she claims Atlanta as home. Though the Georgia capital, a modern port city by way of its heavily trafficked airport, has its share of global influence, Gomez stands apart. She reinterprets flavors using things native to both lands—catfish, okra, rice. Just don’t call it fusion. “For me, that’s the other ‘f word.’ I’m not trying to put two things together that don’t belong,” she says. When she opened Cardamom Hill, in 2013, people went crazy for her fried chicken, cooked in coconut oil and crowned with curry leaves. It’s since closed, but Gomez has the gumption to reinvent herself. (In fact, before becoming a chef, she owned an Ayurvedic spa.) She now runs Spice to Table, a patisserie near the new Krog Street Market, where she accents traditional recipes with next-generation flair (carrot cake with cardamom), and leads cooking classes to initiate people to her two Souths.

WHEN YOU ASK KELLY FIELDS ABOUT the rise of female chefs, her response raises a good point: “Why should it be such a big deal?” Quality is quality. In fact, all of her sous chefs are women. “I’ve never known women not to be in a kitchen,” she says. Though she has made her name with fantastical sugar creations as the Executive Pastry Chef for John Besh’s Restaurant Group, that’s not her only job. At her newly opened bakery and café, Willa Jean, she cooks the way she learned from her mother and her two grandmothers, Audrey and Willa Jean: simple, straightforward, honest. “You can’t hide behind technique. It’s either good or it’s not.” Fields has worked the line in every Besh restaurant she’s set foot in. Fields is responsible for empowering a whole new generation of chefs. “I have the best team in the world surrounding me. Most of my cooks are mothers, and they are all 100% heart.”

In three short years, this up-and-comer has gone from cooking at pop-up restaurants to being the Noodle Queen of Nashville.

SARAH GAVIGAN DIDN’T START COOKING professionally until she was nearly 40. After a career in film production in California, she moved back to the South and began tinkering with ramen (albeit with a healthy dose of collards and field peas). “My ‘kitchen’ experience is based on being a home cook” and taking pride in doing a lot with a little, she explains. When she was a child, her grandmother would visit for a week at a time and turn the scraps—a rind of Parmesan, a cauliflower stump—into a stew she called “refrigerator soup” at the end of the week. To this day, Sarah revels in what she terms “kitchen sink challenges,” where she raids her pantry to create a feast for 10. That ingenuity has fueled the success of her ramen venture Otaku South—and earned her serious respect.

1. Prepare Tart Shell: Pulse flour and salt in a food processor until combined. Add cubed butter, and pulse 10 to 12 times or until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add powdered sugar and 3 egg yolks, and pulse just until mixture comes together and pulls away from sides of bowl. Divide dough in half, and flatten each half into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill 1 to 12 hours.

2. Preheat oven to 350°. Place dough disks on a lightly floured surface, and roll each into a 12-inch circle. Fit dough circles into 2 (9-inch) fluted tart pans with removable bottoms; trim edges. Line tart shells with parchment paper, and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until edges are light brown. Remove weights and parchment paper, and bake 5 to 10 minutes more or until light golden. Cool on a wire rack while preparing Filling.

3. Prepare Filling: Stir together lemon zest and next 4 ingredients in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, 3 minutes or until eggs have broken up and sugar has dissolved.

4. Whisk in ¾ cup softened butter. (Eggs will start to cook, and mixture will coat the back of a spoon.) Whisk in remaining butter, and cook, whisking constantly, about 22 minutes or until mixture becomes very thick. (Continue whisking throughout the cooking process to prevent mixture from curdling.) Remove from heat, and pour through a fine wire-mesh strainer into a bowl, discarding solids. Whisk 10 minutes or until mixture has cooled slightly.

5. Increase oven temperature to 450°. Spoon lemon filling into tart shells, and bake 5 to 8 minutes or until top is set.

6. Prepare Meringue: Pour water to a depth of 1½ inches in a small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, and maintain at a simmer. Stir together egg whites and 2 cups granulated sugar in bowl of a heavy-duty electric stand mixer. Place bowl over simmering water, and cook, whisking constantly, 3 minutes or until sugar has dissolved and mixture is hot.

7. Beat hot mixture at medium-high speed with stand mixer, using whisk attachment, about 2 minutes. Increase speed to high, and beat 4 to 6 minutes or until stiff, glossy peaks form. Spoon meringue over tarts. Brown meringue using a kitchen torch, holding torch 2 inches from meringue and moving torch back and forth. (If you do not have a torch, preheat broiler with oven rack 8 inches from heat; broil 30 to 45 seconds or until golden.)

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Cut spaghetti squash in half lengthwise; discard seeds. Bake squash, cut sides down, on a lightly greased (with cooking spray) baking sheet at 375° for 40 to 45 minutes or until tender. Cool 10 minutes. Scrape inside of squash to remove spaghetti-like strands.

2. Whisk together buttermilk, cream, eggs, Parmesan cheese, and salt in a large bowl. Process half of squash strands in a food processor until smooth; stir into cream mixture. Process squash-cream mixture in batches until smooth.

3. Return mixture to bowl, and stir in cornbread and remaining squash. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour.

4. During last 20 minutes of stand time, place a 12-inch cast-iron skillet in oven, and preheat oven to 375°. Add butter to skillet, and tilt to coat sides and bottom. Transfer squash mixture to skillet.

5. Bake at 375° for 35 to 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of spoonbread comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes before serving.

1. Sprinkle chicken with 1½ tsp. salt and 1 tsp. black pepper. Cook chicken, skin side down, in hot oil in a 5-qt. Dutch oven over medium heat, turning once or twice, about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer chicken pieces to a platter, reserving 2 Tbsp. drippings in Dutch oven.

2. Cook chopped yellow onion, next 5 ingredients, and ⅓ cup dried currants in hot drippings over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes or until onions are tender.

3. Stir garam masala, next 3 ingredients, and remaining 2 tsp. salt and ½ tsp. black pepper into onion mixture, and cook, stirring often, 3 to 4 minutes or until spices are toasted. Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste, and cane syrup. Cover and reduce heat to low.

4. Preheat oven to 350°. Simmer mixture in Dutch oven over low heat, stirring occasionally, 25 minutes or until mixture thickens into a chunky sauce. Add chicken pieces, pressing gently to submerge in sauce; cover.

5. Bake at 350° for about 1 hour or until chicken is tender. Sprinkle with almonds and remaining ⅓ cup currants. Serve chicken and sauce over hot cooked rice.

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Toss together first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Transfer mixture to a lightly greased (with cooking spray) 13- x 9-inch baking dish.

2. Split vanilla bean, and scrape seeds into granulated sugar. (Rub the sugar between your fingers to distribute the vanilla bean seeds evenly.)

3. Sift together flour, next 2 ingredients, and granulated sugar mixture into a large bowl. Stir in lemon zest. Whisk together milk, egg, and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients. Stir in melted butter.

5. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 5 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until crust is dark golden brown and done in center.

1. Cook first 3 ingredients in hot oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until tender. (Do not brown.)

2. Stir in red cabbage and next 5 ingredients, and cook over medium heat 3 minutes. Add ½ cup water, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, 20 minutes. Stir in zucchini, next 4 ingredients, and remaining 4 cups water.

3. Increase heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 20 to 25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Discard cheese rind. Stir in bread pieces 15 minutes before serving. Spoon into bowls, and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil; sprinkle with shaved Parmesan cheese.

Note: This soup can be cooked a day in advance. It’s always better the second day, so make a big batch.

Rick Bragg and his mother, Margaret Bragg, at her Jacksonville, Alabama, home in September 2015

“A person can’t cook from a book,” she told me, once. “A person,” she said, “can’t cook from numbers.”

What she meant was, a cook can’t just read off ingredients, temperatures, and times, and do the magic she can do with a scorched, ancient, ragged pot holder in her hands. I have tasted her work across half a century, enough to wonder if the old men and women she learned from really were dabbling in some kind of alchemy. The very life itself was the seasoning. You ate your chicken and dumplings with an illegal smile, because sometimes you had to range all the way to a neighbor’s coop in the dead of night to procure the principal ingredient. “Chicken tastes better if it’s stole,” my uncles liked to say, and I used to think they were kidding. Now, I don’t know. How, I wonder, would that recipe begin?

But never, in her long life, has my mother cooked from a recipe. She cooked by instinct, memory, and feel, from scenes and stories, from riverbanks, hog killings, and squirrel hunts. She learned to bake the perfect biscuit as her sister’s first child was born, taught by her brother-in-law, a Navy man. She learned Brunswick stew beside a bonfire on the Coosa, just before a gathering of drunken men settled a feud with a hawk-billed knife. Such people will not eat dull food any more than they will tolerate a dull story.

No, Mama never needed any recipes. The craft and ingredients were locked inside her. If I wanted to capture those recipes for the generations to come, I would have to tell the story of a cooking education, to walk through it beside her one skillet, pan, and pinch at a time. But you can’t, if you know my mama, compel her to remember. You just have to listen closely, and bide your time.

THE SONG WAS THE LAST ONE I expected her to know. We were driving to the doctor’s office that morning; it seems like going to the doctor is what we do. We go to the heart doctor, kidney doctor, toe doctor, eye doctor, and a dermatologist she calls “Dr. Butcher.” She tells me stories when we are in the car, and she does not have to hurry because she lives 45 minutes and at least one drive-through sausage biscuit away from the closest physician. She likes to get one on the way to the cardiologist. I do not play the radio when we are in the car, because you never know when she will crack the seal on some memory, and I don’t want her to have to shout over Merle Haggard to tell about picking highland watercress in 1945. “Cook it in bacon grease,” she said, “with slivered wild onion.”

We do, sometimes, sing, and I had an old song in my head that day as we rolled through the foothills where my grandfather used to cook his liquor. He was bad to taste-test his recipe, and so was inclined to go to jail. That made me think of chain gangs, and I started to sing, under my breath…

It was as if I had been sitting with her in the living room, watching Gunsmoke, and she leapt to her feet and did the Charleston. Her musical history runs more to “The Church in the Wildwood,” not a prison anthem. Still, I knew better than to ask; she would tell it to me, eventually, in a story. “My mind ain’t too good, but that shouldn’t surprise nobody,” she said. “But I remember how Daddy and Mama used to cook together on a Sunday morning, and sometimes when they’d cook, they’d sing…”

THEY LIVED IN ALABAMA then, but it might have been Georgia. Across seven decades, her geography is uncertain, as if geography matters. The world did not change much at Cedartown, coming or going. But she is sure it was Sunday. Some of the little stores in the highlands opened on Sunday then, and in the dawn her daddy would load his girls in his Model A cutdown—that’s a Ford that has been converted to a truck with a blowtorch and a homemade bed of two-by-fours—and go see the butcher.

Funny how you can see a man, so long after he is dust. And she made me see him, there at the counter, towering over the little man in the white apron. My grandpa, Charlie Bundrum, was thin but indestructible, cured and hardened in his flesh and bones like a hickory handle on a good hammer. His Sunday overalls sagged over his bones, and his work boots were filmed in red dust.

He would ask the man if he had any T-bones—they cost a dear 39 cents apiece—and would nod his head as the butcher talked, as if it had been a possibility. Then he would say his mouth wasn’t set right for steak, but maybe ham, or streak o’ lean. The Depression lingered a long, long time in the foothills of the Appalachians, so usually it was side meat the butcher sold him.

If it was too soon for tomatoes from the garden, he would look at the ones that had traveled up from Florida on the freights, from the tip of the Sunshine State where winter didn’t go. If they looked passable, he would take two of the ripest; they had to be dead ripe, for what he had in mind.

He would leave the store trailed by his girls like baby ducks, with a package wrapped in white paper under his arm. At home, he would stoke up the fire on the woodstove and reach for an iron skillet that had never seen soap and water, a skillet that had the lives of generations burned into the black.

“Daddy always cooked the meat and made the gravy,” my mother remembered, “and Mama always made the biscuits and the coffee. They cooked together.” Her daddy would leave the rind on and fry the fatback until it was so crisp it crumbled.

And her mama, Ava, who had gone with a baby on her hip to get the big rascal out of jail more than once, would pat out her biscuits and battle him word for word, and sing of the power and the glory in what must have seemed like a losing battle…

She can still see her mother’s hands in the flour. Ava made her biscuits in the battered old flour barrel itself, then sifted the leftover flour back into the barrel so as not to waste. Their recipes vary a little, hers and her mother’s, but the principle, the doctrine, is the same. The biscuits began with a small bowl fashioned from the flour itself, to hold the wet ingredients. “You start with White Lily. Use a handful of Crisco, and half-and-half buttermilk and water. Mama liked to use sweet milk, mostly. And you make them like the old people do. Careful. The dough has to be just right, just thick enough so the biscuit will form a dome. Feel the flour as you do it. If the flour’s old, I can feel it, feel it grainy, and if the flour’s old the biscuits won’t rise, and…when you’ve got it just right I pat ’em out with my hands, I don’t cut ’em. It’s pretty much like surgery.” It probably does not hurt to sing about Jesus as you do it; she still sings as she does, as if Ava was in the kitchen with her, still.

“Daddy would start the gravy as soon as the meat was done. He’d put flour in that skillet and brown it and brown it till it was nearly burned, then he’d thicken it with water. He might have made milk gravy ever’ now and then but I don’t remember it. It was water gravy, seasoned with black pepper, and good meat.

“But sometimes, we’d have what some people call red-eye gravy, and I still think it’s the best thing, about, I’ve ever eaten. He’d take the clear, hot grease from the meat, and spoon in fresh-brewed, black coffee till it was about half and half. Then, he’d take a ripe tomato or two and dice ’em up, and use a little salt on ’em and a lot of black pepper. He’d take two of Mama’s biscuits and open them up, and pile that diced tomato on top. Then he’d spoon that mixture, that red-eye gravy—nothin’ but coffee and grease and the leavings of the fried meat from the bottom of the skillet—onto that tomato. And that hot grease, it causes that tomato to kind of wilt. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it, but it does, and…well, the trick to it is, you have to eat it right then or it’s not fit to eat. But if you eat it right then…Lord, I have done made myself hungry.”

Ava was prone to spells then, a kind of falling darkness that would suck the joy from the very air, but she was still young then and all right most of the time, and as she drizzled the red-eye gravy onto her children’s plates she sang her displeasure at her big lout, but there was no darkness in it.

“She only sung it when she was mad at Daddy,” said my mother, remembering, and she smiled the way I wished she could always smile. She just remembered for a while then, how the great rascal, the great hammer swinger and liquor maker, would wink at her, and his girls.

It was the happiest she ever saw them. “I still remember all of that, with Mama and Daddy. I think it’s what made me want to cook. And I can cook.”

“DADDY ALWAYS COOKED THE MEAT AND MADE THE GRAVY...AND MAMA ALWAYS MADE THE BISCUITS AND THE COFFEE. THEY COOKED TOGETHER.”

¼ tsp. sage (“Do not ruin it with sage. Too much and it’s all you taste.”)

1. Boil chicken in salted water until done, “till it’s so tender it falls off the bone.” (Boil for at least 1 hour.) Chicken legs can be substituted. Chicken breasts can also be substituted, “but it ain’t as good,” Mama says. Break the chicken into small pieces, but do NOT shred. Be careful to discard small pieces of bone and gristle, but do NOT discard the skin. “That’s where your flavor is.”

2. In a large bowl, break up cooked cornbread into small pieces; gradually stir in the chicken broth, mixing until you have a moist, pudding–like consistency. Stir in chicken, beaten egg, onion, celery, and seasonings. Pour into iron skillet. A pan is fine, if you are a Philistine.

3. Bake in preheated oven at 375º until the top of the dressing is crisp and golden brown and the inside is creamy. (This could be anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes, depending on the oven.) A spoon should make a faint cracking noise as it breaks the surface of the dressing.