Introduction Rich in folklore and history, the cooking of the American South embodies all the glamour, grit, and heartbreak of Southern culture: the sad cruelty of slavery's influence; the joie de vivre of wealthy, well-bred, landed aristocracy; the romance of moonlight and magnolia; the sun-washed wholesomeness of family memories; a note or two of twisted Southern Gothic; fierce attachment to the land; and recently, a prideful sense of place, with chefs boldly championing local, artisanal, and heirloom products and vegetables. My part in the old and complex story of Southern food began in my grandmother's country kitchen, with its walls made of heart-of-Georgia pine. My maternal grandmother, Emily Louise Wingate Baston, whom I called Meme, was the daughter of a farmer, a true Southern lady, and a wonderful cook. Born in 1907, she grew up near Hephzibah, Georgia. From the time I was in a high chair to when I was a grown woman pulling up a chair to her kitchen table, I loved to hear her stories of milking cows and making butter and cheese, filling a root cellar, killing hogs in the fall, and curing hams in the smokehouse. Meme graduated from Young Harris College in 1927, a somewhat unusual feat for a woman of her time in the rural South. Her diploma, a real sheepskin, has hung in the dining room of our family home for as long as I can remember. She met my grandfather at a fish fry on the Savannah River; they were married for almost 65 years, until he passed away. Meme was the president of the Evans Extension Homemakers Club and was famous for pound cake (see page 266); fried chicken; light, buttery yeast rolls; old-fashioned butter beans; turnip and mustard greens with salty, smoky pot liquor; and homemade jams and jellies. Many of these recipes are still scribbled in her handwriting directly on the wooden interior of her kitchen cupboard--a sight that can leave me breathless and even move me to tears. My mother, Virginia, and her siblings grew up being fed from that same heart-of-pine kitchen that came to mean so much to me. The family raised chickens and cows, though they stopped milking the cows when one surly beast kicked my grandmother (they packed the freezer with beef instead!). Meme served grits every morning for breakfast and Mama said she filled the plates to the rim. The school bus would pull up at the end of the long driveway and my grandmother would make it wait until all the plates were clean. No one, including the Columbia County Board of Education, argued with Meme. In the 1960s, Mama and Meme both watched Julia Child's first television series and religiously tried the recipes the following week. Years later, I was the grade school child who took leftover crêpes aux champignons and roulade au poulet to school for lunch. I hated it then, but now see in my mother's explorations the roots of my own passion for food. When I was three years old, my family moved to Louisiana and Mama discovered Cajun recipes, often preparing Red Beans and Rice (page 160), Crawfish Étouffée (page 130), and Shrimp Creole (page 131). So Mama's repertoire covers all the Southern classics that she learned from Meme, but also includes Quail in Red Wine Sauce (page 119), various gumbos (page 132), and French Butter Cookies (page 260). A love of fresh, home-cooked food and a tradition of unconditional hospitality have always been guiding values in my family--I see them as a testimony to our Southern heritage. I spent much of my childhood in the kitchen with Meme and Mama, absorbing those values and acquiring skills I would later develop into a profession. There are photos of me as young as four in Meme's kitchen, standing on a chair making biscuits, or sitting on the counter with my feet in the cool steel sink, shelling butter beans. From the age of ten I used to sell birthday cakes to the neighborhood moms for their children. Excerpted from Bon Appetit, Y'all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking by Virginia Willis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
