My momma was divorced in 1949 when I was only six years old. We were in the midlands of South Carolina, in a small rural town that was religious in its outlook. Divorce was unheard of. My grandmother had a great hand in my upbringing, an original steel magnolia, presiding over the dinner table and running a tight ship. Her yard was a paint box of colorful flowers. From the upstairs bedrooms, where I slept, you could smell coffee and bacon and maybe liver pudding wafting up the stairs.

This skillet belonged to her. It’s in the anvil category, made of dense iron, and it will rust in a heartbeat if you don’t take care of it. I use it two or three times a week, for everything from making stews and okra and Limpin’ Susan to frying bacon—bacon being one of the three essential food groups, the other two being butter and bourbon. I never put the skillet in the cabinet, and it was equally a fixture on top of her stove. I know she had it for close to 50 years, and I’ve had it for 50 years after that.

I live in a huge old house that’s loaded with stuff from all over the world. It’s all pretty to look at and ornaments our lives, but it doesn’t evoke the memories that this old pan does sitting there on the stove.

~ Benjamin McCutchen Moïse, retired game warden and cook, Charleston, SC