August 28, 2024 • 52 mins
Luscious layer cakes, fruit pies and cobblers, pecan pie, flaky biscuits, sweet and savory corn breads and buttery shortbreads are a few of the South's beloved baked dishes. Native southerner and best-selling cookbook author, Anne Byrn, documents baking traditions, anecdotes and gathered recipes from fourteen southern states for her book, “Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories.” (Harper Celebrates), accented with mouth-watering images by Photographer Rinne Allen.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the dynamic people
who are front and center and behind the scenes and wine, food,
spirits and hospitality and sharing their stories with you on
our show. Now, when it's eleventh year, it's like a
(01:04):
thousand interviews count. That's too many to so so, as
many of our listeners know, I grew up in Tennessee
in the South, and some of my happiest memories based
on the fact that my mother hated to cook, but
you loved to bake and baking was a tradition in
my family, a nice Southern Jewish family. You never went
(01:26):
anywhere empty handed. You always had a cake or a pie,
or a loaf or a batch of something. And as
I reflect and we moved back to the South from
New York, that tradition reminded us and became clear even
more when my mother passed and everybody brought cake, and
(01:47):
it just seemed like we kind of embraced baking again.
What makes and I'm partial, I do believe the selfa
is the best baking tradition. Sorry everybody else in the country.
But you know we're going to ask that question to
our guest today. What makes Southern baking so incredibly special?
Whether it's the chest pie, the peach cobbler, or the
(02:10):
lummy layer cakes, those amazing biscuits and cornbread and every
type of flat bread and yummy, yummy rolls just have
such great memories. And we're doing it with an expert,
Anne Burne, who has a long history working in food
in the South. She was a long time food editor
(02:31):
of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She is a best selling
cookbook author and one of the books that everybody love
is a Cape mixed doctor, but this book is fairly epic.
It's her new book, Baking in the American South, two
hundred recipes, and they're untold stories. And that part is
(02:52):
really great because the South is also about great storytelling, right,
it certainly is, Melanie. So we want to welcome and
Burn to the connected table. Welcome.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Always great to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, we know that you live in Nashville. Did you
grow up in Tennessee like may or did you grow
up somewhere else in the South?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I did? I did. I was born, born and raised
in Nashville. What about you, Melanie? Where in Tennessee?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Were you Chantanooga?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
In Chattanooga? Okay? Excellent? Right? My husband's from right, Yeah. Yeah,
it's always it's always a small world. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But I'm a home home with two two big baking traditions,
the moon Pie and Little Debbie in college.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Dowe you go here a few other recipes.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah, I'm from the North, so we have a baking
tradition as well, Melanie, although the Southern baking tradition obviously
is the focus of this show.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The South Shell Rise Again, that's all I have to say.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
There you go, there you go, you go.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So Anne. I love it says here in your promotional
materials when you were studying pastry in Paris. Well, let's
just start there. You were studying pastry in Paris. So
did you want to pursue a career in cooking and
food as a young girl? I mean, what were your
those what are those yummy memories that you have cooking
with your mom that shaped your life?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Oh? Yeah, you know. I started baked while I was
cooking at twelve eleven, twelve thirteen, And I think about
I got into the cooking and baking, but more so
in baking at that age because I got a lot
of great feedback from people. I think it really made
me feel good. And you know, and the sort of
preteen years are so awkward anyway, and if you can
(04:45):
figure out something that you like to do and that
you do well, it really really helped. And so baking
it was baking for me. I mean, and I started
with mixes. I would make my father a Boston cream
pie using a mix, you know, from the grocery store,
and he thought it was just the most amazing thing
he'd ever taste it and told me so. And I
(05:07):
do believe that it's just Stu's why breaking is such
a great hobby for young people to get into because
the feedback you get is all positive, really is. And
then you develop the skill because baking, you know, to
get better at baking, you got to you got to
put in some time and that you know, because you
make mistakes and you learn from them. So the more
(05:29):
you bake, the better you get. And I think then
with age, it's still if you're interested in it, it
is still something you can do. And people, you know,
throughout the South and outside the South too, have been
become known for a particular cake or pie or their roles,
you know, and I think it's lovely and you put
(05:49):
all that together and and people. People and the land
are the two factors that make Southern baking so unique.
I mean, it's the people who settled in the South
and baked using ingredients that were available in the south.
But pecull your weather different than the north. You know
(06:10):
a lot of humidity and growing seasons are long. But wheat,
you know, for white flour, you know, it couldn't grow
past spring. It had to be harvested because it got
too hot and the bugs can you know, set in.
So it was a different type of flower or softer,
but it was a better flower for things like biscuits.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
David bakes, as does Melanie. Melanie's known for her biscuits.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, I did a whole story on the biscuit diary
is trying to better my biscuit And yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And I actually loved the baked bread and things like that.
I actually I love baking bread. So, so my mom
did a lot of baking when I was young, and
and so I was I kind of grew up in
the kitchen as a lot of people do with their
parents and there and especially my mom, she taught all
of us children, there's three of us, how to how
(07:05):
to cook and what to do in the kitchen, et cetera.
So and we'd love to watch her bake, especially when
we got to lick the bowl, of course when she
was making the cookies.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So and tell us a great baking recipe with your mom.
I think her name was bebe.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Right, her name her name was boebe Yep. You know,
I think it's probably the fudge icing she would make
on the stove. All of her crostings for cakes, you know,
were homemade, and you know they usually involved a saucepan
and a stick of butter. That's how they started. And
you know chocolate added vanilla powdered sugar at the end.
(07:40):
But they're usually saucepan kind of the type of icing
you would pour over the top of a cake and
it would set once it started, you know, through dribbling
down the side. That's what I remember most. But my
mother was a pie baker and we had homemade pie
five nights a week, and her most favorite was chocolate
(08:02):
merangue pa, followed closely by lemon merangue pa, banana cream
and coconut cream. So she was a big fan of
the sft merangue and I am too. I think that
merangue pis are I would say uniquely Southern, although I
think you do find them in the Midwest anywhere where
(08:23):
you've got cooks who knew how to use the yolk
of the eggs in the filling for the pa and
saved the whites to make to beat the sugar to
make that meranguehen it goes on top.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, you have a recipe and baking in America South,
what's called the best lemon ring pie and we can't
wait to try it. You also have one in there
called Shaker lemon pie, and you have a lemon ice
box pie. And the Shagar one is interesting because it's
sliced lemons and it's the one that I think my
mom made that I can't find a recipe for that
I'm going to try because it was like the whole
(08:57):
lemon slice berry thin on top.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yes, definitely, And that's a great recipe. And there's a
couple of things about that recipe. It's unique in that, Yeah,
you talk the lemon slices with sugar and you don't
feel the lemons that they're thinly slices with sugar and
you let them sit in the sugar pulls the juice
out of the lemon and it tenderizes them and then
they bake up slowly in the pie. But if you
(09:22):
but look for organic lemons, if you're going to make
that pae and for fun, if you can find organic
miner lemons, really nice, a little switch up in the flavor.
It's almost more citrusy, a little bit fruitier flavored, a
lot of meyer lemons in kind of switching those out
in any kind of lemon pie. And then you have
(09:43):
the lemon ice box you mentioned that's really out of
the Louisiana of the Deep South, where you know, it
was so hot that a lot would if a dessert
was going to be made ahead of time, it had
to be put in a refrigerator. And that's it just open.
I mean, once refrigeration was in most homes, which was
you know, the late nineteen twenty, people you know, started
(10:07):
using it to make ahead cakes and pies that were
nice and cool and satisfying. And with that German I mean,
with the grain cracker crust and the Eagle brand milk
and the filling and either whipped cream or a merangue
on top. Lemon merange pies is really perfect.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Hew, Let's talk about two big things. In the South
really is a patchwork of cultures and identities and histories
and geographies. Let's talk about two things. It's kind of
a two pert question. First, how did cultural factors affect
baking in the South. You've got the Mississippi River, you've
got the railroad, you've got the mountains, you've got the coast.
(10:48):
So let's start with that. And then the second point
part will be how did geography and as you reference,
humidity and climate impact baking in the South.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, tal factors like war, isolation, the Prohibition, the depression,
poverty plenty, all of those kind of factors influenced what
you baked because through time in the South, and I'm
(11:20):
sure in other parts of the country as well, you
could only bake with what you had access to. And
if you didn't have access to sugar then and you
lived in the mountains, then you baked with maple syrup
or sorkhum or something that was accessible in a cool
and the slightly cooler climate. And if you didn't and
(11:42):
if times during the South with segregation in the South,
if you didn't have access to a particular store, you
used what you had. And I think that's so much
a reason that the first chapter in my book is
corn bread, because corn grew everywhere and anybody, anybody could
afford corn. You could grow it, you could mill it yourself,
(12:04):
grind it yourself, or you could have it mill and
corn what corn fed people, and it is the bread
of the South. And so I think through through the
ups and downs and cultural times in the South, you know,
corporate has been the constant. It's always been there. You know,
white player hasn't always been there a good times of
drought or poverty. And then what was the second part
(12:28):
of your question.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It was, Oh, it's geography, Yeah, geography and climate, which
is very very down here.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Very much. So I mean, if you again, baked with
what you had access to. So you lived in the
low country of South Carolina, you had access to rice.
You baked with rice, you cooked with rice. Things were
thickened with rice. You made waffles with rice, you fried
rice cakes. That was just a part of your culture,
and a little bit of the same in New Orleans.
(12:57):
But I think what's interesting about New Orleans and the
humidity because of its dense population and the diversity of
its population, so many flavors, so many cooking techniques were
happening in New Orleans, and the access to the Mississippi
River with trade coming down the river, that New Orleans
(13:18):
became the place where there were cocktails and sweet pines
because they had access to ice coming down the river
on barges from the Great Lakes. They you know, the
French in New Orleans imported white flower before the South
had access to right flower. But because they had a
port right there in New Orleans, therese are French bread
(13:38):
culture and cow boy sandwiches that came out of New
Orleans because flower was accessible. But some of the early
bakers in New Orleans, Beulah Levenar, it's one of them.
She's actually a Jewish baker who had a big catering
business in bakery in New Orleans for a long time
in the twenties thirties, forties. I mean, she became known
(13:59):
for a lemon earth box coot and a cake called
the dobash Tord. It's spelled dough burs, but they pronounced
it dough bash in New Orleans. And it was like
a like a Hungarian tourd with lots of lots of
lots of layers little thin pieces of cake, lots of
of cake, and lots of layers of frosting. But she
(14:20):
adapted that to the humidity of New Orleans by putting
pudding a thickened put in between the layers so that
it could withstand humidity. And the same thing goes I
think for the caramelizing that goes on caramel cake, you know,
caramelizing of sugar, that took place first in New Orleans.
They had access to sugar, they had castronepp you know
(14:42):
cook wear that was being brought down from Lodge in Tennessee.
They were caramelizing sugar and that icing and those prolins.
I mean, they didn't move in the heat, in humidity,
they stayed put. So I think, I think it's fascinating
how people have worked around the heat of the South
(15:05):
and celebrated the foods, you know, the apples or zetsumas,
whatever fresh fruits and vegetables were in season in their
particular area.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, David, as we said, bakes and so we lived
in Tennessee, lived in New York. I'm from Tennessee, and
we lived in Tennessee recently, and now we are in
New Orleans, and we noticed the humidity really does impact bread,
right David.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And that in the altitude because our house is actually
below sea level, right, because we lived in the city
of New Orleans, so we're actually below the levee, so
altitude and rising has.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
A lot to do.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So his sour dusts were different here than it was Rise.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, interesting. What did you do?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
How did you remedy while we're to work in progress?
Put it that way.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
But I remember when we interviewed Leidenheimer's bread, which is
the famous her Boys sandwich bread down here in New Orleans.
He said that they changed their flower recipe two to
three times a year to compensate for the different types
of humidity as the year progresses. So it's obviously work
in progress for everybody.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, yeah, we know you're going to be down this
way at it's a Southern Food and Beverage Museum in September,
and this is you know, so we should check that
out line him versus you know, the bread does taste
different in New Orleans. It really really does love it. Yeah, really,
So another thing was interesting, you know, slavery. Obviously slavery
was important because many of the slaves were the cooks.
(16:31):
Jefferson's slave actually ended up going being sent to Paris
to train and a lot of times they were called
the help. And even in my own family, the help
did a lot of the baking and cooking. What was
interesting is, you know, there's a lot of storytelling, as
we said, in baking in the American South, and you
talk about how often the ladies, the lady folks with
(16:55):
bake and bring their cakes and bake goods to church,
go the resorce to barbers hair salons to sell to
make money to make ends meet. Talk about that whole culture.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, well, I mean baking. As I mentioned, baking has
been a skill, something that people have perfected all their laws,
and and then it became an economy when necessary, whether
you sold rolls out of East Alls out the back
door to your friends before Thanksgiving, or you brought your
cakes to Terrible Cakes coconut cake to the beauty lawn
(17:31):
and sold it, or you brought the church and sold it.
Though that that, I interviewed a woman from Atlanta, Sonya Jones,
who mother, she and her mother a bird were baked
in Atlanta. She grew up in Atlanta, and you know
there was a time when she remembered growing up in
Atlanta where Richard she could not her mother could not
go into Riches's department store because she's they're black, and
(17:55):
Riches was segregated at that time. So it was it
was adam necessity that they found other ways. The Blacks
have found other ways to sell their bakerods. And I
do believe that a lot of these stories have not
been told. And it was an important part of this
(18:16):
book because absolutely Southern baking would not be at the
level it if as it is had it not been
for the enslaved cooks who did the baking in the
big houses, it wouldn't and then their descendants and their descendants,
and baking was a skill, and perhaps the you know,
(18:36):
the women who worked for your family or other families,
they did had to go home and cook for their
own family, and on weekends maybe if they had off,
do their baking. So it was really important to me
to tell those stories because if we wouldn't not only
have had because these cakes, you know, layer cakes, A
(18:57):
lot of the Southern layer cakes are quite complicated and
they take time. And I mean there was a time
where people made a poundcake before the kitchen ade mixture.
They made it by hand. And you know, to have
rice and to have sugar cane to bake with, I
mean it took the brute force and the labor of
the enslaved people who lived in South Carolina and Louisiana
(19:21):
to make it for better even to be possible. It's
mind boggling, I think when you get into it, and
I do include stories about how rice was cultivated and
how rice became an economy, and how sugar cane became
an economy, and how a lot of people who were
abolitionists and opposed to slavery did not bake with white sugar.
(19:43):
And these were things I think that Southerners need to
know and and folks outside need to know because there's
it is a part of our history and it's a
part of what makes Southern baking distinctive. It's complicated and
it's taught to write about. It was tough for me
to report about, but I felt like I could not
(20:06):
write a book about Southern baking in this day and
age without addressing.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Live absolutely, and it's such an important part of it
because a lot of the food waste traditions beyond baking
came from the slaves, and it was so important. I'm
going to at one more point and then I'm going
to hand this to David. There's a page in the
(20:33):
book that really hit me hard. It really hit resonated
with me because it's it's the handwritten index cards, the recipes.
And why it resonated with me so much is that
I found, cleaning out my mother's house two binders of
handwritten recipes that looked like those cards. And it was
like my grandmother and her Canasta and bridge little Jewish
(20:55):
Southern Jewish ladies would gather for what they would do
is gossip and book and play cards and dominance, and
and those cards looked like that, and I remember the
names of the ladies and I remember seeing them, and
it made me think about and you know that incredible.
You've captured a lot of history that would otherwise go
away because this is before computers, and a lot of
(21:17):
these recipes, you know, will die out otherwise. So I
think that's important too to bring them back and talk
about how they came to be.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Definitely, And I do love the recipe cards and handwriting myself,
because a recipe is not just a recipe. Yes, it's
a way to make bread or a way to make
a cake. It's the instructions, but it's more. And especially
it's it's memories, and it's history of your family. It's
your family story. And then to have the recipe written
(21:49):
in your mother's or your grandmother's handwriting, it's becomes a
keep sex it's it's and preservation was a big theme
in this book. There were recipes that I felt like
I had to include, like some of those meringue pies
I had to include because they're not really A lot
of them aren't banked today outside the home. You don't
(22:11):
see them. I mean in Nashville there are two or
three little, you know, caterers who have them where you
can pop in and get fried chicken, or you can
get a little chocolate meringue pies and things like that.
It might remind you of old Southern recipes, but they're
they're dying out, and once those the ladies who run
(22:31):
them are gone, it's a style of cooking and entertaining
that is very much going away. And I did want
to preserve that that kind of place in time with
those recipes.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You did a great job with it, you know, because
the story, like I said, even if you don't beg
a recipe in this book, the storytelling and the.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Photos by is it ready Allen are amazing Wren.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, they're just you reference corn bread, I mean, there
must have been like twenty recipes for cornbread that's as
biscus Yeah, iaby, yeah, How did you? How did you
go about that? That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Well you probably wonder why why would you put twenty
four recipes for corn bread? And Tony, Yeah, well I
did because I don't think there's one right way or
wrong way to make a corn to make cornbread or
biscuits and I know, and that's I feel like I'm
different than a lot of food brothers. There are some
who believe that they have the answer, that they are
their way is the only way to make corn bread,
(23:34):
and I disagree with them because after interviewing people throughout
the South, I realized that there are, if they are
fourteen states represented in this book, there are many more
than one way to make corn bread. And you know,
it depends on what kind of corme a you use,
and what kind of you know fact you use in it?
Are you making it in and are skill it? And
how hot are you getting the skillet? Are you making
(23:56):
it in a cake pan? Are you pouring it onto
your grittel? And with a biscuit, you know what kind
of flower? Is it a cat head? Is it big?
Is it a drop biscuit? Is it rolled? Does it
have an egg in it? Then it's a French biscuit.
So I found that fascinating on and so discuit. People
who love to make biscuit or corn brake could go
through the chapters and just kind of glean ideas from
(24:17):
other people and from the recipes, and you know, maybe
continue making your own the way you like your biscuits,
but I guarantee you you're going to come away with
some chips that will really, you know, turn the light bulb.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
On the Jimmy Carter white House corn bread is someone
that's speaking to me because it's moist, because a lot
of cornbreats are just really dry. My aunt Birtha put
corn in the corn bread. I remember it like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, my mom.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Would watch it.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Why okay, my mom would.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Make it in a cast iron skillet and then piping hot,
we'd cut it in half top to bottom, and then
we put butter in it and then drizzle.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It with honey.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I think with corn bread, to
keep it from getting dry, you have to make sure
you've got enough liquid in it. And you see some
of these recipes call for hydrating the corantine to really
plump it up ahead of time. Let it sit in
the buttermilk for a while to really plump up the meal,
(25:21):
and it makes it. It makes all the difference in
the world.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Takes time. Nobody wants to take time anymore, and I
think that's one of the problems, you know, with biscuits.
I you know, I did this whole thing called biscuit Diaries,
I called a Natalie depri I did Chad mc boyd
and my biscuit whisperers for this article. The number the
two things on a cold dough, cold butter, keep it
and then minimal manipulation. Yeah, of the and and and
(25:47):
so after many attempts, I finally got the biscuit, my
biscuit of my childhood. Because usually the best biscuits someone
you grew up eating.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Right, well, you're always trying to match.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Isn't that always the way that?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
What if you think are some quintessential Southern Southern baked
items just just you know, if somebody is like, whoa,
this is new, like they're not from the South, what
would you say is absolutely quintessential poundcake?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Poundcake is probably number one? Really, do you think about it?
Where do you find You don't find poundcake in the Midwest,
you don't find it in Seattle, You're not going to
find poundcake in New York City. Poundcakes, and I think custards.
I think if custards being very found foundational kind of
Southern recipe because they're used in plond type recipes, but
(26:41):
also they're the basis for a creminnglaize to go with fruitcake.
They might be a boiled custard like Mississippi, served in
a little punch cup with fruitcake, and they're the basis
papas a lot of custard pies. Two biscuits. We talked about,
corn bread, we talked about and I think some of
(27:03):
the cookies that are really unique to the South are
what they call creole laced cookies that they're really intentionally
spin and they're intentionally spin and they kind of you know,
fake out real fat and almost transparent. The Benny cookies
are sort of like that too, from from South Carolina
(27:23):
low country. That's that's unique to that area. There are
a number of Jewish recipes I think that are a
big part of Southern baking. You can find them other places,
like the chocolate chewies cookie recipes from the Gottlieb family
of Savannah that doesn't that's flowerless, could be made where
(27:44):
cocoa is the ingredient. Cocoa is the flower that's in those,
so it's a passover dessert. The same thing with chocolate
rolls roue lads, you know, it's what they're called in France,
but they're just a flowerless chocolate cake that's wrapped around
anything whooped cream and served with a chocolate sauce. So
(28:05):
I love that. And then the spice cakes. Two like
the BlackBerry jam cake is unique to Kentucky and Tennessee
and parts of Arkansas. I think it's so unique. And
that was an old German recipe that came down with
the settlers into the South, using up local blackberries that
(28:26):
were growing wild and spices that would have been used
in making holiday cakes in Germany.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You know, for me, I think it's cobblers. I just fruit,
anything with fruit pies and fruit cobblers and biscuits, and
growing up Southern and Jewish, we always have those rold
cakes that you talked about, and cookies does all make
me think of the South. But the one thing chest pie,
(28:55):
And you have an explanation of what chest pie is.
When I was in Nashville on a press trip, the
woman said it was because people said, this is so good?
What is it? And the woman says, chest pie?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's, oh, you know, the biggest, the deepest I could
did on the story. The real story of chest pie
is that it was originally called a cheese pie, and
it was the texture of it reminded the early cooks
(29:28):
of a soft cheese and it was just the butter
and the sugar and the eggs, and if they used
a little signing, if there was a little flour or
cordneal in it, which is what we this is how
we make pie chest pie in Nashville. We always also
put a little bit of vinegar in the pot. Should
taste sharp, a little bit sharp. And that's real typical
(29:49):
of Tennessee and on up into Kentucky and Virginia and
in the mountains in Appalachia is using vinegar instead of
women in recipes. And you see that a lot in
Bacon's but chess pie. I believe that the corruption of
the name cheese and it was called it became chest
pine because it and I documented in the book and
(30:12):
what old cookbooks it came from, because you see this,
You see this kind of layering, this texture in South Georgia,
in southeastern Alabama in a lemon cake that they call
lemon cheesecake down there, and it's like a lemon curd,
cooked curd that goes between the layers and it's just
(30:34):
butter and sugar and eggs and lemon juice and simply
what would be a feeling for a lemon chest pump
goes between those layers and they call that a lemon
cheese cake.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's interesting because I never would have thought of it.
It's for anyone who's never had it's very sweet and
you love it or you know, it's not my favorite pie,
but it's to me, it's a quintessential Southern pie. I'm
big on the fruit pies. You know, I still have
great memories of going to Shonies and having strawberry pie
and my mother recreating that at home, you know, like
(31:15):
very nut.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, you know, there is a recipe in the book
that is very similar to Shones strawberry and yeah, it's
a Louisiana recipe. So I think try that, you're going
to get really close. But I love it because it's
it's an icebox pie and it goes into a Grand
Cracker cross and goes into the fridge fridge and there
(31:37):
has a ton of strawberries in it, and then you
whipped cream, soffully whipped cream just soon on top really great.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Pals poncha tulla strawberries. So when you when you can
get really good strawberries, and these days they all can get. Yeah. Yeah,
you know. One of the things that you highlight in
the book is you.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Everybody thinks it's always about sweet pies and sweet cakes
and things like that, but you also do some savory stuff,
and you and you and you incorporate vegetables into some
of the recipes that you that you researched and put
into the book. And I love that about this.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah. Tomato pie a big Yeah, tomato pie is very
big in the South. It's not a big thing, you know,
I think, but it's certainly out there, and it's probably
probably happening happening more now than it used to. Although pies,
you know, have been made of vegetables, I've been made
(32:35):
of savory that've been made of chicken and beef and whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You chicken pop pie, yep.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Exactly put it into pastry.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, we loved, we loved pot pies. Well.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
One of the things my mom always used to We
had a big garden when I was growing up, and
like everybody who has a has a garden, there was
a ton of zucchini every summer. So my mother always
used to make a lot of zucchini bread and things
like that when we were growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Guess you use what you grow, right, because it's like,
you know, whatever is a plentiful. I mean, corn is big.
You know, we got to talk about nuts because another
quintessentials pecan pie. But you've also got the peanut recipes
in there, and that's a big Southern thing, pecans and nuts.
So talk to us about some of those recipes, right.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Well, I think you again back to use what you have.
Pecan pies is just symbolic of Thanksgiving in the South.
You know, it is a Thanksgiving pie, but it's served
other times. You go to a meat in three get
you know, fried chicken and the vegetables, there's going to
be pecan pie one of the offerings for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
And it is basically a chest pie where the sugar
has either you know, white brown or it's corn syrup
dark corns. Now, the first pecan pies were made with
whatever local sweetener they had, whether it was cane syrup
or and those were the early pecan pies. And it
wasn't really kiro Okay was making the syrups and just
(34:05):
you know, commercialize them and recipes on the back of
the bottle for pecan pie that people really started using
kiro syrup and pecan pact because before then you used
sorghum or cane or whatever you had. And then then
when once pecans were added to that basic formula, that
basic pie formula, it became a pecan pact. Same thing
(34:27):
up in Virginia, you know, the big peanuts from the
Tidewater area of Virginia. I mean, when peanuts are added,
they're like the showcase there. You know, that is a
great pie. So if you want to make you love nuts,
you're kind of done with pecans or whatever, try making
like a Tidewater peanut pie. And it's fantastic with vanilla
ice cream. I love that pie. The different But you know,
(34:50):
pecans are indigenous to the South, and they grew you
know in Texas and along the coast and Louisiana and
then over into Georgia, and people, you know, have fond memories.
And I interviewed a lot of people for the book
who grew up with just up a pine tree in
their yard and just again the access to the ingredients
of the ponds falling down. The same thing goes with,
(35:12):
you know, with Simons per Simmons throughout Middle Tennessee, UH
parts of East Tennessee and into North Carolina a lot
of persimon trees, another indigenous tree, and when the fruit fell,
you know, in the fall, and it turned that bright
copper color, I mean sort of an orangey salmon, kind
of wonderful color. Uh. You know, they were sweet enough
(35:35):
to eat. And if you could beat sort of the
deer and all of the other critters to them and
gather those now and seed them. The pulp of the
persimon is really sweet. It's sweet, sweet sweet. It made
delicious cookies. And I have a pudding recipe in there,
per semon pudding. So these are just like ways that
people have foraged for foods forever in the South because
(36:01):
they had to use what the trees provided with the
land provided.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Well, we appreciate that also because we don't really like
food waste. And again, the South was poor, and so
a lot of it was poverty cuisine, using what you have,
much like they do in Europe, you know, the nose
to tail and and on and on and and and
using every part and repurposing, and a lot of the
(36:27):
recipes were practical that way. You also talk about what
we call accidental products, like how sweet and condensed milk.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Started right right, And those are cultural events. I mean,
you have a you have a problem, you have you know,
you have children dying of of of soured milk, you know,
tainted milk, and you have you know that that's when
you have discoveries of canned milk, and you have and
(36:55):
bored and I go into the history of gale boarding
and the books and how important canned milk claws to
people who lived either without refrigeration or away from towns,
especially along the coastlines uh in Florida, Keys, and also
up the Atlantic coast up to chest Peas. And so
there are a number of recipes that came out of
(37:18):
using you know, using the milk that's in your pantry.
And I love it and I feel buy, you know,
evaporated milk for certain recipes. I do think it has
almost sort of a caramelized flavor that it adds to
a recipe. There's some pies and there's some bread recipes
that call for canned milk, which is really interesting. But
(37:41):
you know, but to counter which you're saying, you know, yes, yes,
the South has has foraged the used what they have.
It has been a region of poverty. But I think
what has set baking apart has been that. It's also
been a web to celebrate and for homecomings and to
(38:03):
gather together and to celebrate the holidays. And that is
how a lot of these recipes have been preserved because
they were baked for holidays, Jewish holidays, Christian holidays, and
they were repeated every year, same recipes, same ancestor's recipes,
(38:24):
and they were revered. And because of that, the recipes
had been preserved. To back to your initial question, you
know what makes Southern baking so special? I do believe
that it is the first and the finest style of
baking in the country. And it has been preserved because
it had to be preserved. I mean, after the Civil War,
(38:46):
charity cookbooks published a lot of these recipes as fundraisers.
They were were publishing. The ladies were writing cookbooks with
their family recipes in them to raise money to help
other families pulled themselves back up, or to build hospitals
or for sanitation. And it was out of that philanthropic
(39:07):
work after the Civil War that a lot of these
nineteenth century recipes from the South were preserved. And that
is where it all started.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
That's such a good point, But think about you know,
the Junior League cookbooks and the community cookbooks that kind
of stem from the sound. That's something that's still going
on to this day. Yeah. Well I remember after Katrina
Cooking Up, Cooking from the Cooking of the Storm. We
have that book, and it was, you know, the people
lost their family recipes. So the times Pickyun worked really
(39:41):
hard to try to create help people recreate those recipes.
It became a cookbook. So cookbooks have long been a
way to raise money for causes and communities, whether it's
a church or a you know, a comas. Yeah, we
had a lot of those, particular the River Road Cookbooks
and the Junior League. When mother passed, we had so
(40:02):
many books, well, so many books. We donated many to
the Southern Food and Beverage Museum that they're the National Library,
but we kept several and a lot of more Southern
housewife books and Jewish housewife books.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
It's just great, great, Yeah, you know, they're one of
the things that I thought interesting in this book, and
was because there are a lot of old recipes that
you've you've brought back to life and want to carry on.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
You had to, you had to come up with a
conversion of common measures from old recipes list in the
book that you wrote into the book, and one of
my favorites was butter the size of a hen's.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Eck, which which equals a quartercoup. A lot of his
handwritten recipes, you know, a lot of his handwritten receries missed,
you know steps. I found that out when I was,
you know, trying to I pulled some of those into
cards and started cooking from them, figuring outuld put them
into the computer and there were steps missing, and a
(41:05):
lot of them, so you had to kind of figure
it out as you go.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Oldest recipes, the old recipes didn't even contain instructions. A
lot of the old recipes and old cookbooks, it was
just the list of ingredients because they assumed you already
knew how to make it. So it was it was
it was more. I think some of those early cookbooks, too,
were were to help people use baking as a way
(41:33):
to and women in particular as a way to create income,
whether they were going to be a caterer. A lot
of these, you know, the Melinda Russell cookbook that I
referenced in in here, I think this public pub date
of eighteen sixty six. She's the first African American woman
to write a cookbook, and it was you know, it
(41:54):
was to help her get her her back on her
feet and to find a trip to Africa. So I
mean there were you know, people didn't people didn't write
a cookbook necessarily just a handdown to family members. I
mean after the Civil War, people cookbooks became a way
to raise money for others or free f out.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
It's that's a really such a great point. You know,
bake sales continue today, they're all over the place, but
they really did start. I mean, it is a it
is a good way to uh pick up extra cash,
becoming a kitchen entrepreneur basically making and baking and then
selling it to friends, you know, and trying to bypass
all the awful rules and regulations you have now with
(42:37):
food handling. It's yeah, it's it's a whole different bolonging.
Was there anything that's you did a lot of research,
so congratulations and it really comes through the book. Was
there anything that you just, you know, given you have
a long career in the industry and you know your
you know your stuff about the south of baking, what
surprised you as you did your research.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Uh, the diversity in the town. That's what surprised me.
I think we all grow up in our area or
our bubble, and we and we become accustomed to away
a loaf of bread is made or or a pie
is made, and and but for me to like interview
people from East Texas and then from the hills of
(43:20):
West Virginia, in different parts of North Carolina and to
realize that they had they made it sometimes the same
way as me, but often and more often than not,
they made it differently and here was why, and this
is where their mother was from and their parents. So
I thought the diversity was fascinating. And the migration of
(43:40):
people through the South, not only the immigrants who came
into the South either on their own volition or because
they were forced to, but also how people have left
the South and the great migration out of the South,
and how Southern recipes have left the South and gone
on to Denver or gone on to New York City
(44:02):
or wherever. And but they haven't lost their Southern story
of their roots. And so that's that surprised me. But
it also I think it helped explain the books.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
You know, twenty years from now, when a sequel comes out,
it'll be interesting because there seems to be a great
migration right now happening as people leave, you know, the
North and do economy. It'll be interesting to see how
baking in the South changes in much cuisine already has.
And that perfect example is the poe boy. Here in Louisiana,
(44:37):
there's as Liz Williams definitely said in a recent interview,
there's the New Orleans style poe boy and there's the
Vietnamese style poe boy.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Oh there you go.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, definitely, and they're very different and they're both really good,
and you're going to find more of that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
One of the most popular kincakes and you have a
recipe for Marty Garo king cake. The most popular kinkcake
is Dong Fong Bakery, which is a Vietna Inese baker
of chef mentor highway.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Mm hmmm. I can't wait to go buy there when
I'm down there.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh it's a pilgrimage.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah, that's why I haven't been yet.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
It's definitely off the beaten track, but there's not much
there when you get there, but it's worth the trip.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Oh yeah, it's defnely worth a trip. And dude, they
have a little cafe there, so you know, we did
the grab it run because we're heading out of town.
But there's a little Vietnamese cafe there and you pass
a lot of tires tire shops to get there, but
it is quite And you mentioned the dough bash cake,
which is you know, Gambinos is you know in New Orleans.
(45:41):
Was so cool about New Orleans is Everybody's got their signature.
So with Gambinos, it's all about the do bash. You
make your pilgrimage out to Metary to get that cake.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
And Beulah Len was the one who started all that. Yeah,
I think what I mean, what would the South be
without New Orleans? I say that true, what would the
South be without Charleston? You know, there are just these
iconic cities and flavors that had come out of that.
And then you could say the same thing for you know,
(46:12):
what about how what would it have been without everything
that was happening in Atlanta? You know, I know, it's
it's fascinating in Memphis. You know, I think the South
has such a broad, really broad power of flavors, and
much more so than people give us credit for.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know, we couldn't agree more. You know, you know
that just the whole influence of the Mississippi River trade,
as you talked about the ice coming down, and then
there's the bourbon trade and so there's recipes with bourbon
cake and bourbon balls. That was huge, and then you've
got the low country it. You know, I bristle personally
when people like pig you know, pens, you know, Southern
food with fried chicken, and you know, I used to
(46:56):
Bristol and New York when people would do Southern restaurants
and we were like, nah, not really, because it is
the diversity for me is what makes it so amazing.
And as we have re entered living in the South
after living in the North and New York for so long,
it became even more apparent as we drove around on
this extended road trip going to different local communities. It
(47:17):
really is incredible and you've captured it very well in
baking in the American South. And congratulations, it's amazing, good,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I much appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
We do want everyone to know you have a substack.
Everybody does, and your seems to be very successful because
we looked up twenty six thousand subscribers. I hope they're paid.
It's called between the layers. I'm still trying to dip
into that substack. It's just for me another thing to do,
and hope we wanted to make money. It is a
lot of work to do a sub stack. It is.
(47:52):
You did have a recipe for Judy Rogers roast chicken
that I was jumping up and down a bounce me.
I'm like, David, we have to make that. So it is.
It is a terrific and as you say, and I
love you know, you get this great substack and it's
like fifty dollars. It's the price of your cookbook. Practically
(48:13):
it's forty dollars. Definitely.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, it's a lot of It is a lot of work.
And with the recipe testing and the groceries and all
that go into you know, making sure that your recipes
are tested and everybody's happy and things work. You know,
it's a responsibility. But I mean I've been writing about
food for over forty years, yeah, and mostly for news
newspapers and then them just writing cookbooks. This this new
book is my sixteenth cookbook, so I definitely have been writing,
(48:40):
but I didn't really have an outlet where I could
just write what was on my mind. And that's that's
what I'm doing on substack. And I think so for writers,
I think the trick, if there is a trick, is
to find out what is it that makes you really happy,
you know, writing on substack. I mean so that you
don't look at it as a chore. If it is
(49:02):
one more assignment. Oh lord, it's just you know what,
do we need one more deadline? So that is and
so I went into it with that idea. I'm going
to write what I want to write. And it's not
going to be an editor telling me you need to
write this, you need to trend this or whatever. I'm
just going to write it. And that I've tried to
(49:23):
stay true. I still my old self kind of creeps
back in. I go, oh, it's labor day, you know.
I haven't I haven't write about potatoes out it all summer.
You know, the pressures of you know, making people happy
with the recipes. So you just have to find that
comfort spot for yourself. I would think, right, you know,
(49:44):
it's just what you told me about, you know, re
entering the South and living in New Orleans. I mean
that that makes you unique, And I think it's finding
something about yourself that's unique that wherever, whoever your audience is,
they're going to find you and they're going to be
looking forward to what you have to say. And so
(50:08):
don't be afraid to be yourself and don't be afraid
to talk about the life that you have at this moment.
And I did that in Nashville last spring spring of
twenty three when we had the school shooting at the
Covenant School, little private elementary school here in Nashville, and
it just tore us up. And you know how it
(50:32):
could happen so close to home? How who would want
to do this? You know, it's just everything. And then
anger at our local politicians or state politicians with our
very lax gun laws. So as a mother and as
a grandmother, I couldn't write about strawberry cake on that
Tuesday after this happened. I could only write about my
(50:57):
anger at the fact that this happen and where we're
going to wake up and you know, get an assaultful band.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Well that makes sense. We felt that way about September eleventh,
like we were going to do a damn thing for
a long time because you know, right well, anyway, and
I think we're going to get we figured wrap. We
could talk to you forever, but I'm getting hungry and
we're getting to notice that we got to wrap up.
We have so enjoyed speaking with you. If you guys
are all in New Orleans September. In September, I think eighteenth,
(51:28):
twenty twenty four, go to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.
It's baking in the American South. Two hundred recipes and
they're untold stories and there are a lot. Thank you,
Anne for joining us on the Connected Table. We really
appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Thank you, Thank you very much. Felini and David appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
And for all of you, we hope you will go
get this book and come visit everyone in the South.
Embrace the South we have and always stay and say
she'll be curious. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Mo Mogo Mo
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome to the Connected Table Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple. We
enjoy traveling the world to bring you the dynamic people
who are front and center and behind the scenes and wine, food,
spirits and hospitality and sharing their stories with you on
our show. Now, when it's eleventh year, it's like a
(01:04):
thousand interviews count. That's too many to so so, as
many of our listeners know, I grew up in Tennessee
in the South, and some of my happiest memories based
on the fact that my mother hated to cook, but
you loved to bake and baking was a tradition in
my family, a nice Southern Jewish family. You never went
(01:26):
anywhere empty handed. You always had a cake or a pie,
or a loaf or a batch of something. And as
I reflect and we moved back to the South from
New York, that tradition reminded us and became clear even
more when my mother passed and everybody brought cake, and
(01:47):
it just seemed like we kind of embraced baking again.
What makes and I'm partial, I do believe the selfa
is the best baking tradition. Sorry everybody else in the country.
But you know we're going to ask that question to
our guest today. What makes Southern baking so incredibly special?
Whether it's the chest pie, the peach cobbler, or the
(02:10):
lummy layer cakes, those amazing biscuits and cornbread and every
type of flat bread and yummy, yummy rolls just have
such great memories. And we're doing it with an expert,
Anne Burne, who has a long history working in food
in the South. She was a long time food editor
(02:31):
of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She is a best selling
cookbook author and one of the books that everybody love
is a Cape mixed doctor, but this book is fairly epic.
It's her new book, Baking in the American South, two
hundred recipes, and they're untold stories. And that part is
(02:52):
really great because the South is also about great storytelling, right,
it certainly is, Melanie. So we want to welcome and
Burn to the connected table. Welcome.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Always great to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, we know that you live in Nashville. Did you
grow up in Tennessee like may or did you grow
up somewhere else in the South?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
I did? I did. I was born, born and raised
in Nashville. What about you, Melanie? Where in Tennessee?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Were you Chantanooga?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
In Chattanooga? Okay? Excellent? Right? My husband's from right, Yeah. Yeah,
it's always it's always a small world. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But I'm a home home with two two big baking traditions,
the moon Pie and Little Debbie in college.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Dowe you go here a few other recipes.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah, I'm from the North, so we have a baking
tradition as well, Melanie, although the Southern baking tradition obviously
is the focus of this show.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The South Shell Rise Again, that's all I have to say.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
There you go, there you go, you go.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
So Anne. I love it says here in your promotional
materials when you were studying pastry in Paris. Well, let's
just start there. You were studying pastry in Paris. So
did you want to pursue a career in cooking and
food as a young girl? I mean, what were your
those what are those yummy memories that you have cooking
with your mom that shaped your life?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Oh? Yeah, you know. I started baked while I was
cooking at twelve eleven, twelve thirteen, And I think about
I got into the cooking and baking, but more so
in baking at that age because I got a lot
of great feedback from people. I think it really made
me feel good. And you know, and the sort of
preteen years are so awkward anyway, and if you can
(04:45):
figure out something that you like to do and that
you do well, it really really helped. And so baking
it was baking for me. I mean, and I started
with mixes. I would make my father a Boston cream
pie using a mix, you know, from the grocery store,
and he thought it was just the most amazing thing
he'd ever taste it and told me so. And I
(05:07):
do believe that it's just Stu's why breaking is such
a great hobby for young people to get into because
the feedback you get is all positive, really is. And
then you develop the skill because baking, you know, to
get better at baking, you got to you got to
put in some time and that you know, because you
make mistakes and you learn from them. So the more
(05:29):
you bake, the better you get. And I think then
with age, it's still if you're interested in it, it
is still something you can do. And people, you know,
throughout the South and outside the South too, have been
become known for a particular cake or pie or their roles,
you know, and I think it's lovely and you put
(05:49):
all that together and and people. People and the land
are the two factors that make Southern baking so unique.
I mean, it's the people who settled in the South
and baked using ingredients that were available in the south.
But pecull your weather different than the north. You know
(06:10):
a lot of humidity and growing seasons are long. But wheat,
you know, for white flour, you know, it couldn't grow
past spring. It had to be harvested because it got
too hot and the bugs can you know, set in.
So it was a different type of flower or softer,
but it was a better flower for things like biscuits.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
David bakes, as does Melanie. Melanie's known for her biscuits.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, I did a whole story on the biscuit diary
is trying to better my biscuit And yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
And I actually loved the baked bread and things like that.
I actually I love baking bread. So, so my mom
did a lot of baking when I was young, and
and so I was I kind of grew up in
the kitchen as a lot of people do with their
parents and there and especially my mom, she taught all
of us children, there's three of us, how to how
(07:05):
to cook and what to do in the kitchen, et cetera.
So and we'd love to watch her bake, especially when
we got to lick the bowl, of course when she
was making the cookies.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So and tell us a great baking recipe with your mom.
I think her name was bebe.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Right, her name her name was boebe Yep. You know,
I think it's probably the fudge icing she would make
on the stove. All of her crostings for cakes, you know,
were homemade, and you know they usually involved a saucepan
and a stick of butter. That's how they started. And
you know chocolate added vanilla powdered sugar at the end.
(07:40):
But they're usually saucepan kind of the type of icing
you would pour over the top of a cake and
it would set once it started, you know, through dribbling
down the side. That's what I remember most. But my
mother was a pie baker and we had homemade pie
five nights a week, and her most favorite was chocolate
(08:02):
merangue pa, followed closely by lemon merangue pa, banana cream
and coconut cream. So she was a big fan of
the sft merangue and I am too. I think that
merangue pis are I would say uniquely Southern, although I
think you do find them in the Midwest anywhere where
(08:23):
you've got cooks who knew how to use the yolk
of the eggs in the filling for the pa and
saved the whites to make to beat the sugar to
make that meranguehen it goes on top.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well, you have a recipe and baking in America South,
what's called the best lemon ring pie and we can't
wait to try it. You also have one in there
called Shaker lemon pie, and you have a lemon ice
box pie. And the Shagar one is interesting because it's
sliced lemons and it's the one that I think my
mom made that I can't find a recipe for that
I'm going to try because it was like the whole
(08:57):
lemon slice berry thin on top.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yes, definitely, And that's a great recipe. And there's a
couple of things about that recipe. It's unique in that, Yeah,
you talk the lemon slices with sugar and you don't
feel the lemons that they're thinly slices with sugar and
you let them sit in the sugar pulls the juice
out of the lemon and it tenderizes them and then
they bake up slowly in the pie. But if you
(09:22):
but look for organic lemons, if you're going to make
that pae and for fun, if you can find organic
miner lemons, really nice, a little switch up in the flavor.
It's almost more citrusy, a little bit fruitier flavored, a
lot of meyer lemons in kind of switching those out
in any kind of lemon pie. And then you have
(09:43):
the lemon ice box you mentioned that's really out of
the Louisiana of the Deep South, where you know, it
was so hot that a lot would if a dessert
was going to be made ahead of time, it had
to be put in a refrigerator. And that's it just open.
I mean, once refrigeration was in most homes, which was
you know, the late nineteen twenty, people you know, started
(10:07):
using it to make ahead cakes and pies that were
nice and cool and satisfying. And with that German I mean,
with the grain cracker crust and the Eagle brand milk
and the filling and either whipped cream or a merangue
on top. Lemon merange pies is really perfect.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Hew, Let's talk about two big things. In the South
really is a patchwork of cultures and identities and histories
and geographies. Let's talk about two things. It's kind of
a two pert question. First, how did cultural factors affect
baking in the South. You've got the Mississippi River, you've
got the railroad, you've got the mountains, you've got the coast.
(10:48):
So let's start with that. And then the second point
part will be how did geography and as you reference,
humidity and climate impact baking in the South.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, tal factors like war, isolation, the Prohibition, the depression,
poverty plenty, all of those kind of factors influenced what
you baked because through time in the South, and I'm
(11:20):
sure in other parts of the country as well, you
could only bake with what you had access to. And
if you didn't have access to sugar then and you
lived in the mountains, then you baked with maple syrup
or sorkhum or something that was accessible in a cool
and the slightly cooler climate. And if you didn't and
(11:42):
if times during the South with segregation in the South,
if you didn't have access to a particular store, you
used what you had. And I think that's so much
a reason that the first chapter in my book is
corn bread, because corn grew everywhere and anybody, anybody could
afford corn. You could grow it, you could mill it yourself,
(12:04):
grind it yourself, or you could have it mill and
corn what corn fed people, and it is the bread
of the South. And so I think through through the
ups and downs and cultural times in the South, you know,
corporate has been the constant. It's always been there. You know,
white player hasn't always been there a good times of
drought or poverty. And then what was the second part
(12:28):
of your question.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
It was, Oh, it's geography, Yeah, geography and climate, which
is very very down here.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Very much. So I mean, if you again, baked with
what you had access to. So you lived in the
low country of South Carolina, you had access to rice.
You baked with rice, you cooked with rice. Things were
thickened with rice. You made waffles with rice, you fried
rice cakes. That was just a part of your culture,
and a little bit of the same in New Orleans.
(12:57):
But I think what's interesting about New Orleans and the
humidity because of its dense population and the diversity of
its population, so many flavors, so many cooking techniques were
happening in New Orleans, and the access to the Mississippi
River with trade coming down the river, that New Orleans
(13:18):
became the place where there were cocktails and sweet pines
because they had access to ice coming down the river
on barges from the Great Lakes. They you know, the
French in New Orleans imported white flower before the South
had access to right flower. But because they had a
port right there in New Orleans, therese are French bread
(13:38):
culture and cow boy sandwiches that came out of New
Orleans because flower was accessible. But some of the early
bakers in New Orleans, Beulah Levenar, it's one of them.
She's actually a Jewish baker who had a big catering
business in bakery in New Orleans for a long time
in the twenties thirties, forties. I mean, she became known
(13:59):
for a lemon earth box coot and a cake called
the dobash Tord. It's spelled dough burs, but they pronounced
it dough bash in New Orleans. And it was like
a like a Hungarian tourd with lots of lots of
lots of layers little thin pieces of cake, lots of
of cake, and lots of layers of frosting. But she
(14:20):
adapted that to the humidity of New Orleans by putting
pudding a thickened put in between the layers so that
it could withstand humidity. And the same thing goes I
think for the caramelizing that goes on caramel cake, you know,
caramelizing of sugar, that took place first in New Orleans.
They had access to sugar, they had castronepp you know
(14:42):
cook wear that was being brought down from Lodge in Tennessee.
They were caramelizing sugar and that icing and those prolins.
I mean, they didn't move in the heat, in humidity,
they stayed put. So I think, I think it's fascinating
how people have worked around the heat of the South
(15:05):
and celebrated the foods, you know, the apples or zetsumas,
whatever fresh fruits and vegetables were in season in their
particular area.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, David, as we said, bakes and so we lived
in Tennessee, lived in New York. I'm from Tennessee, and
we lived in Tennessee recently, and now we are in
New Orleans, and we noticed the humidity really does impact bread,
right David.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And that in the altitude because our house is actually
below sea level, right, because we lived in the city
of New Orleans, so we're actually below the levee, so
altitude and rising has.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
A lot to do.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
So his sour dusts were different here than it was Rise.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, interesting. What did you do?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
How did you remedy while we're to work in progress?
Put it that way.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
But I remember when we interviewed Leidenheimer's bread, which is
the famous her Boys sandwich bread down here in New Orleans.
He said that they changed their flower recipe two to
three times a year to compensate for the different types
of humidity as the year progresses. So it's obviously work
in progress for everybody.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, yeah, we know you're going to be down this
way at it's a Southern Food and Beverage Museum in September,
and this is you know, so we should check that
out line him versus you know, the bread does taste
different in New Orleans. It really really does love it. Yeah, really,
So another thing was interesting, you know, slavery. Obviously slavery
was important because many of the slaves were the cooks.
(16:31):
Jefferson's slave actually ended up going being sent to Paris
to train and a lot of times they were called
the help. And even in my own family, the help
did a lot of the baking and cooking. What was
interesting is, you know, there's a lot of storytelling, as
we said, in baking in the American South, and you
talk about how often the ladies, the lady folks with
(16:55):
bake and bring their cakes and bake goods to church,
go the resorce to barbers hair salons to sell to
make money to make ends meet. Talk about that whole culture.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Right, well, I mean baking. As I mentioned, baking has
been a skill, something that people have perfected all their laws,
and and then it became an economy when necessary, whether
you sold rolls out of East Alls out the back
door to your friends before Thanksgiving, or you brought your
cakes to Terrible Cakes coconut cake to the beauty lawn
(17:31):
and sold it, or you brought the church and sold it.
Though that that, I interviewed a woman from Atlanta, Sonya Jones,
who mother, she and her mother a bird were baked
in Atlanta. She grew up in Atlanta, and you know
there was a time when she remembered growing up in
Atlanta where Richard she could not her mother could not
go into Riches's department store because she's they're black, and
(17:55):
Riches was segregated at that time. So it was it
was adam necessity that they found other ways. The Blacks
have found other ways to sell their bakerods. And I
do believe that a lot of these stories have not
been told. And it was an important part of this
(18:16):
book because absolutely Southern baking would not be at the
level it if as it is had it not been
for the enslaved cooks who did the baking in the
big houses, it wouldn't and then their descendants and their descendants,
and baking was a skill, and perhaps the you know,
(18:36):
the women who worked for your family or other families,
they did had to go home and cook for their
own family, and on weekends maybe if they had off,
do their baking. So it was really important to me
to tell those stories because if we wouldn't not only
have had because these cakes, you know, layer cakes, A
(18:57):
lot of the Southern layer cakes are quite complicated and
they take time. And I mean there was a time
where people made a poundcake before the kitchen ade mixture.
They made it by hand. And you know, to have
rice and to have sugar cane to bake with, I
mean it took the brute force and the labor of
the enslaved people who lived in South Carolina and Louisiana
(19:21):
to make it for better even to be possible. It's
mind boggling, I think when you get into it, and
I do include stories about how rice was cultivated and
how rice became an economy, and how sugar cane became
an economy, and how a lot of people who were
abolitionists and opposed to slavery did not bake with white sugar.
(19:43):
And these were things I think that Southerners need to
know and and folks outside need to know because there's
it is a part of our history and it's a
part of what makes Southern baking distinctive. It's complicated and
it's taught to write about. It was tough for me
to report about, but I felt like I could not
(20:06):
write a book about Southern baking in this day and
age without addressing.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Live absolutely, and it's such an important part of it
because a lot of the food waste traditions beyond baking
came from the slaves, and it was so important. I'm
going to at one more point and then I'm going
to hand this to David. There's a page in the
(20:33):
book that really hit me hard. It really hit resonated
with me because it's it's the handwritten index cards, the recipes.
And why it resonated with me so much is that
I found, cleaning out my mother's house two binders of
handwritten recipes that looked like those cards. And it was
like my grandmother and her Canasta and bridge little Jewish
(20:55):
Southern Jewish ladies would gather for what they would do
is gossip and book and play cards and dominance, and
and those cards looked like that, and I remember the
names of the ladies and I remember seeing them, and
it made me think about and you know that incredible.
You've captured a lot of history that would otherwise go
away because this is before computers, and a lot of
(21:17):
these recipes, you know, will die out otherwise. So I
think that's important too to bring them back and talk
about how they came to be.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Definitely, And I do love the recipe cards and handwriting myself,
because a recipe is not just a recipe. Yes, it's
a way to make bread or a way to make
a cake. It's the instructions, but it's more. And especially
it's it's memories, and it's history of your family. It's
your family story. And then to have the recipe written
(21:49):
in your mother's or your grandmother's handwriting, it's becomes a
keep sex it's it's and preservation was a big theme
in this book. There were recipes that I felt like
I had to include, like some of those meringue pies
I had to include because they're not really A lot
of them aren't banked today outside the home. You don't
(22:11):
see them. I mean in Nashville there are two or
three little, you know, caterers who have them where you
can pop in and get fried chicken, or you can
get a little chocolate meringue pies and things like that.
It might remind you of old Southern recipes, but they're
they're dying out, and once those the ladies who run
(22:31):
them are gone, it's a style of cooking and entertaining
that is very much going away. And I did want
to preserve that that kind of place in time with
those recipes.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
You did a great job with it, you know, because
the story, like I said, even if you don't beg
a recipe in this book, the storytelling and the.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Photos by is it ready Allen are amazing Wren.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, they're just you reference corn bread, I mean, there
must have been like twenty recipes for cornbread that's as
biscus Yeah, iaby, yeah, How did you? How did you
go about that? That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Well you probably wonder why why would you put twenty
four recipes for corn bread? And Tony, Yeah, well I
did because I don't think there's one right way or
wrong way to make a corn to make cornbread or
biscuits and I know, and that's I feel like I'm
different than a lot of food brothers. There are some
who believe that they have the answer, that they are
their way is the only way to make corn bread,
(23:34):
and I disagree with them because after interviewing people throughout
the South, I realized that there are, if they are
fourteen states represented in this book, there are many more
than one way to make corn bread. And you know,
it depends on what kind of corme a you use,
and what kind of you know fact you use in it?
Are you making it in and are skill it? And
how hot are you getting the skillet? Are you making
(23:56):
it in a cake pan? Are you pouring it onto
your grittel? And with a biscuit, you know what kind
of flower? Is it a cat head? Is it big?
Is it a drop biscuit? Is it rolled? Does it
have an egg in it? Then it's a French biscuit.
So I found that fascinating on and so discuit. People
who love to make biscuit or corn brake could go
through the chapters and just kind of glean ideas from
(24:17):
other people and from the recipes, and you know, maybe
continue making your own the way you like your biscuits,
but I guarantee you you're going to come away with
some chips that will really, you know, turn the light bulb.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
On the Jimmy Carter white House corn bread is someone
that's speaking to me because it's moist, because a lot
of cornbreats are just really dry. My aunt Birtha put
corn in the corn bread. I remember it like that.
Oh yeah, yeah, my mom.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Would watch it.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Why okay, my mom would.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Make it in a cast iron skillet and then piping hot,
we'd cut it in half top to bottom, and then
we put butter in it and then drizzle.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It with honey.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I think with corn bread, to
keep it from getting dry, you have to make sure
you've got enough liquid in it. And you see some
of these recipes call for hydrating the corantine to really
plump it up ahead of time. Let it sit in
the buttermilk for a while to really plump up the meal,
(25:21):
and it makes it. It makes all the difference in
the world.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Takes time. Nobody wants to take time anymore, and I
think that's one of the problems, you know, with biscuits.
I you know, I did this whole thing called biscuit Diaries,
I called a Natalie depri I did Chad mc boyd
and my biscuit whisperers for this article. The number the
two things on a cold dough, cold butter, keep it
and then minimal manipulation. Yeah, of the and and and
(25:47):
so after many attempts, I finally got the biscuit, my
biscuit of my childhood. Because usually the best biscuits someone
you grew up eating.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Right, well, you're always trying to match.
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Isn't that always the way that?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
What if you think are some quintessential Southern Southern baked
items just just you know, if somebody is like, whoa,
this is new, like they're not from the South, what
would you say is absolutely quintessential poundcake?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Poundcake is probably number one? Really, do you think about it?
Where do you find You don't find poundcake in the Midwest,
you don't find it in Seattle, You're not going to
find poundcake in New York City. Poundcakes, and I think custards.
I think if custards being very found foundational kind of
Southern recipe because they're used in plond type recipes, but
(26:41):
also they're the basis for a creminnglaize to go with fruitcake.
They might be a boiled custard like Mississippi, served in
a little punch cup with fruitcake, and they're the basis
papas a lot of custard pies. Two biscuits. We talked about,
corn bread, we talked about and I think some of
(27:03):
the cookies that are really unique to the South are
what they call creole laced cookies that they're really intentionally
spin and they're intentionally spin and they kind of you know,
fake out real fat and almost transparent. The Benny cookies
are sort of like that too, from from South Carolina
(27:23):
low country. That's that's unique to that area. There are
a number of Jewish recipes I think that are a
big part of Southern baking. You can find them other places,
like the chocolate chewies cookie recipes from the Gottlieb family
of Savannah that doesn't that's flowerless, could be made where
(27:44):
cocoa is the ingredient. Cocoa is the flower that's in those,
so it's a passover dessert. The same thing with chocolate
rolls roue lads, you know, it's what they're called in France,
but they're just a flowerless chocolate cake that's wrapped around
anything whooped cream and served with a chocolate sauce. So
(28:05):
I love that. And then the spice cakes. Two like
the BlackBerry jam cake is unique to Kentucky and Tennessee
and parts of Arkansas. I think it's so unique. And
that was an old German recipe that came down with
the settlers into the South, using up local blackberries that
(28:26):
were growing wild and spices that would have been used
in making holiday cakes in Germany.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You know, for me, I think it's cobblers. I just fruit,
anything with fruit pies and fruit cobblers and biscuits, and
growing up Southern and Jewish, we always have those rold
cakes that you talked about, and cookies does all make
me think of the South. But the one thing chest pie,
(28:55):
And you have an explanation of what chest pie is.
When I was in Nashville on a press trip, the
woman said it was because people said, this is so good?
What is it? And the woman says, chest pie?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It's, oh, you know, the biggest, the deepest I could
did on the story. The real story of chest pie
is that it was originally called a cheese pie, and
it was the texture of it reminded the early cooks
(29:28):
of a soft cheese and it was just the butter
and the sugar and the eggs, and if they used
a little signing, if there was a little flour or
cordneal in it, which is what we this is how
we make pie chest pie in Nashville. We always also
put a little bit of vinegar in the pot. Should
taste sharp, a little bit sharp. And that's real typical
(29:49):
of Tennessee and on up into Kentucky and Virginia and
in the mountains in Appalachia is using vinegar instead of
women in recipes. And you see that a lot in
Bacon's but chess pie. I believe that the corruption of
the name cheese and it was called it became chest
pine because it and I documented in the book and
(30:12):
what old cookbooks it came from, because you see this,
You see this kind of layering, this texture in South Georgia,
in southeastern Alabama in a lemon cake that they call
lemon cheesecake down there, and it's like a lemon curd,
cooked curd that goes between the layers and it's just
(30:34):
butter and sugar and eggs and lemon juice and simply
what would be a feeling for a lemon chest pump
goes between those layers and they call that a lemon
cheese cake.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
That's interesting because I never would have thought of it.
It's for anyone who's never had it's very sweet and
you love it or you know, it's not my favorite pie,
but it's to me, it's a quintessential Southern pie. I'm
big on the fruit pies. You know, I still have
great memories of going to Shonies and having strawberry pie
and my mother recreating that at home, you know, like
(31:15):
very nut.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, you know, there is a recipe in the book
that is very similar to Shones strawberry and yeah, it's
a Louisiana recipe. So I think try that, you're going
to get really close. But I love it because it's
it's an icebox pie and it goes into a Grand
Cracker cross and goes into the fridge fridge and there
(31:37):
has a ton of strawberries in it, and then you
whipped cream, soffully whipped cream just soon on top really great.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Pals poncha tulla strawberries. So when you when you can
get really good strawberries, and these days they all can get. Yeah. Yeah,
you know. One of the things that you highlight in
the book is you.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Everybody thinks it's always about sweet pies and sweet cakes
and things like that, but you also do some savory stuff,
and you and you and you incorporate vegetables into some
of the recipes that you that you researched and put
into the book. And I love that about this.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah. Tomato pie a big Yeah, tomato pie is very
big in the South. It's not a big thing, you know,
I think, but it's certainly out there, and it's probably
probably happening happening more now than it used to. Although pies,
you know, have been made of vegetables, I've been made
(32:35):
of savory that've been made of chicken and beef and whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
You chicken pop pie, yep.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Exactly put it into pastry.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, we loved, we loved pot pies. Well.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
One of the things my mom always used to We
had a big garden when I was growing up, and
like everybody who has a has a garden, there was
a ton of zucchini every summer. So my mother always
used to make a lot of zucchini bread and things
like that when we were growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Guess you use what you grow, right, because it's like,
you know, whatever is a plentiful. I mean, corn is big.
You know, we got to talk about nuts because another
quintessentials pecan pie. But you've also got the peanut recipes
in there, and that's a big Southern thing, pecans and nuts.
So talk to us about some of those recipes, right.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Well, I think you again back to use what you have.
Pecan pies is just symbolic of Thanksgiving in the South.
You know, it is a Thanksgiving pie, but it's served
other times. You go to a meat in three get
you know, fried chicken and the vegetables, there's going to
be pecan pie one of the offerings for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
And it is basically a chest pie where the sugar
has either you know, white brown or it's corn syrup
dark corns. Now, the first pecan pies were made with
whatever local sweetener they had, whether it was cane syrup
or and those were the early pecan pies. And it
wasn't really kiro Okay was making the syrups and just
(34:05):
you know, commercialize them and recipes on the back of
the bottle for pecan pie that people really started using
kiro syrup and pecan pact because before then you used
sorghum or cane or whatever you had. And then then
when once pecans were added to that basic formula, that
basic pie formula, it became a pecan pact. Same thing
(34:27):
up in Virginia, you know, the big peanuts from the
Tidewater area of Virginia. I mean, when peanuts are added,
they're like the showcase there. You know, that is a
great pie. So if you want to make you love nuts,
you're kind of done with pecans or whatever, try making
like a Tidewater peanut pie. And it's fantastic with vanilla
ice cream. I love that pie. The different But you know,
(34:50):
pecans are indigenous to the South, and they grew you
know in Texas and along the coast and Louisiana and
then over into Georgia, and people, you know, have fond memories.
And I interviewed a lot of people for the book
who grew up with just up a pine tree in
their yard and just again the access to the ingredients
of the ponds falling down. The same thing goes with,
(35:12):
you know, with Simons per Simmons throughout Middle Tennessee, UH
parts of East Tennessee and into North Carolina a lot
of persimon trees, another indigenous tree, and when the fruit fell,
you know, in the fall, and it turned that bright
copper color, I mean sort of an orangey salmon, kind
of wonderful color. Uh. You know, they were sweet enough
(35:35):
to eat. And if you could beat sort of the
deer and all of the other critters to them and
gather those now and seed them. The pulp of the
persimon is really sweet. It's sweet, sweet sweet. It made
delicious cookies. And I have a pudding recipe in there,
per semon pudding. So these are just like ways that
people have foraged for foods forever in the South because
(36:01):
they had to use what the trees provided with the
land provided.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Well, we appreciate that also because we don't really like
food waste. And again, the South was poor, and so
a lot of it was poverty cuisine, using what you have,
much like they do in Europe, you know, the nose
to tail and and on and on and and and
using every part and repurposing, and a lot of the
(36:27):
recipes were practical that way. You also talk about what
we call accidental products, like how sweet and condensed milk.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Started right right, And those are cultural events. I mean,
you have a you have a problem, you have you know,
you have children dying of of of soured milk, you know,
tainted milk, and you have you know that that's when
you have discoveries of canned milk, and you have and
(36:55):
bored and I go into the history of gale boarding
and the books and how important canned milk claws to
people who lived either without refrigeration or away from towns,
especially along the coastlines uh in Florida, Keys, and also
up the Atlantic coast up to chest Peas. And so
there are a number of recipes that came out of
(37:18):
using you know, using the milk that's in your pantry.
And I love it and I feel buy, you know,
evaporated milk for certain recipes. I do think it has
almost sort of a caramelized flavor that it adds to
a recipe. There's some pies and there's some bread recipes
that call for canned milk, which is really interesting. But
(37:41):
you know, but to counter which you're saying, you know, yes, yes,
the South has has foraged the used what they have.
It has been a region of poverty. But I think
what has set baking apart has been that. It's also
been a web to celebrate and for homecomings and to
(38:03):
gather together and to celebrate the holidays. And that is
how a lot of these recipes have been preserved because
they were baked for holidays, Jewish holidays, Christian holidays, and
they were repeated every year, same recipes, same ancestor's recipes,
(38:24):
and they were revered. And because of that, the recipes
had been preserved. To back to your initial question, you
know what makes Southern baking so special? I do believe
that it is the first and the finest style of
baking in the country. And it has been preserved because
it had to be preserved. I mean, after the Civil War,
(38:46):
charity cookbooks published a lot of these recipes as fundraisers.
They were were publishing. The ladies were writing cookbooks with
their family recipes in them to raise money to help
other families pulled themselves back up, or to build hospitals
or for sanitation. And it was out of that philanthropic
(39:07):
work after the Civil War that a lot of these
nineteenth century recipes from the South were preserved. And that
is where it all started.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
That's such a good point, But think about you know,
the Junior League cookbooks and the community cookbooks that kind
of stem from the sound. That's something that's still going
on to this day. Yeah. Well I remember after Katrina
Cooking Up, Cooking from the Cooking of the Storm. We
have that book, and it was, you know, the people
lost their family recipes. So the times Pickyun worked really
(39:41):
hard to try to create help people recreate those recipes.
It became a cookbook. So cookbooks have long been a
way to raise money for causes and communities, whether it's
a church or a you know, a comas. Yeah, we
had a lot of those, particular the River Road Cookbooks
and the Junior League. When mother passed, we had so
(40:02):
many books, well, so many books. We donated many to
the Southern Food and Beverage Museum that they're the National Library,
but we kept several and a lot of more Southern
housewife books and Jewish housewife books.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
It's just great, great, Yeah, you know, they're one of
the things that I thought interesting in this book, and
was because there are a lot of old recipes that
you've you've brought back to life and want to carry on.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
You had to, you had to come up with a
conversion of common measures from old recipes list in the
book that you wrote into the book, and one of
my favorites was butter the size of a hen's.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Eck, which which equals a quartercoup. A lot of his
handwritten recipes, you know, a lot of his handwritten receries missed,
you know steps. I found that out when I was,
you know, trying to I pulled some of those into
cards and started cooking from them, figuring outuld put them
into the computer and there were steps missing, and a
(41:05):
lot of them, so you had to kind of figure
it out as you go.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Oldest recipes, the old recipes didn't even contain instructions. A
lot of the old recipes and old cookbooks, it was
just the list of ingredients because they assumed you already
knew how to make it. So it was it was
it was more. I think some of those early cookbooks, too,
were were to help people use baking as a way
(41:33):
to and women in particular as a way to create income,
whether they were going to be a caterer. A lot
of these, you know, the Melinda Russell cookbook that I
referenced in in here, I think this public pub date
of eighteen sixty six. She's the first African American woman
to write a cookbook, and it was you know, it
(41:54):
was to help her get her her back on her
feet and to find a trip to Africa. So I
mean there were you know, people didn't people didn't write
a cookbook necessarily just a handdown to family members. I
mean after the Civil War, people cookbooks became a way
to raise money for others or free f out.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
It's that's a really such a great point. You know,
bake sales continue today, they're all over the place, but
they really did start. I mean, it is a it
is a good way to uh pick up extra cash,
becoming a kitchen entrepreneur basically making and baking and then
selling it to friends, you know, and trying to bypass
all the awful rules and regulations you have now with
(42:37):
food handling. It's yeah, it's it's a whole different bolonging.
Was there anything that's you did a lot of research,
so congratulations and it really comes through the book. Was
there anything that you just, you know, given you have
a long career in the industry and you know your
you know your stuff about the south of baking, what
surprised you as you did your research.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Uh, the diversity in the town. That's what surprised me.
I think we all grow up in our area or
our bubble, and we and we become accustomed to away
a loaf of bread is made or or a pie
is made, and and but for me to like interview
people from East Texas and then from the hills of
(43:20):
West Virginia, in different parts of North Carolina and to
realize that they had they made it sometimes the same
way as me, but often and more often than not,
they made it differently and here was why, and this
is where their mother was from and their parents. So
I thought the diversity was fascinating. And the migration of
(43:40):
people through the South, not only the immigrants who came
into the South either on their own volition or because
they were forced to, but also how people have left
the South and the great migration out of the South,
and how Southern recipes have left the South and gone
on to Denver or gone on to New York City
(44:02):
or wherever. And but they haven't lost their Southern story
of their roots. And so that's that surprised me. But
it also I think it helped explain the books.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
You know, twenty years from now, when a sequel comes out,
it'll be interesting because there seems to be a great
migration right now happening as people leave, you know, the
North and do economy. It'll be interesting to see how
baking in the South changes in much cuisine already has.
And that perfect example is the poe boy. Here in Louisiana,
(44:37):
there's as Liz Williams definitely said in a recent interview,
there's the New Orleans style poe boy and there's the
Vietnamese style poe boy.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Oh there you go.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, definitely, and they're very different and they're both really good,
and you're going to find more of that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
One of the most popular kincakes and you have a
recipe for Marty Garo king cake. The most popular kinkcake
is Dong Fong Bakery, which is a Vietna Inese baker
of chef mentor highway.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Mm hmmm. I can't wait to go buy there when
I'm down there.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh it's a pilgrimage.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Yeah, that's why I haven't been yet.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
It's definitely off the beaten track, but there's not much
there when you get there, but it's worth the trip.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Oh yeah, it's defnely worth a trip. And dude, they
have a little cafe there, so you know, we did
the grab it run because we're heading out of town.
But there's a little Vietnamese cafe there and you pass
a lot of tires tire shops to get there, but
it is quite And you mentioned the dough bash cake,
which is you know, Gambinos is you know in New Orleans.
(45:41):
Was so cool about New Orleans is Everybody's got their signature.
So with Gambinos, it's all about the do bash. You
make your pilgrimage out to Metary to get that cake.
Speaker 3 (45:50):
And Beulah Len was the one who started all that. Yeah,
I think what I mean, what would the South be
without New Orleans? I say that true, what would the
South be without Charleston? You know, there are just these
iconic cities and flavors that had come out of that.
And then you could say the same thing for you know,
(46:12):
what about how what would it have been without everything
that was happening in Atlanta? You know, I know, it's
it's fascinating in Memphis. You know, I think the South
has such a broad, really broad power of flavors, and
much more so than people give us credit for.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know, we couldn't agree more. You know, you know
that just the whole influence of the Mississippi River trade,
as you talked about the ice coming down, and then
there's the bourbon trade and so there's recipes with bourbon
cake and bourbon balls. That was huge, and then you've
got the low country it. You know, I bristle personally
when people like pig you know, pens, you know, Southern
food with fried chicken, and you know, I used to
(46:56):
Bristol and New York when people would do Southern restaurants
and we were like, nah, not really, because it is
the diversity for me is what makes it so amazing.
And as we have re entered living in the South
after living in the North and New York for so long,
it became even more apparent as we drove around on
this extended road trip going to different local communities. It
(47:17):
really is incredible and you've captured it very well in
baking in the American South. And congratulations, it's amazing, good,
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I much appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
We do want everyone to know you have a substack.
Everybody does, and your seems to be very successful because
we looked up twenty six thousand subscribers. I hope they're paid.
It's called between the layers. I'm still trying to dip
into that substack. It's just for me another thing to do,
and hope we wanted to make money. It is a
lot of work to do a sub stack. It is.
(47:52):
You did have a recipe for Judy Rogers roast chicken
that I was jumping up and down a bounce me.
I'm like, David, we have to make that. So it is.
It is a terrific and as you say, and I
love you know, you get this great substack and it's
like fifty dollars. It's the price of your cookbook. Practically
(48:13):
it's forty dollars. Definitely.
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Yeah, it's a lot of It is a lot of work.
And with the recipe testing and the groceries and all
that go into you know, making sure that your recipes
are tested and everybody's happy and things work. You know,
it's a responsibility. But I mean I've been writing about
food for over forty years, yeah, and mostly for news
newspapers and then them just writing cookbooks. This this new
book is my sixteenth cookbook, so I definitely have been writing,
(48:40):
but I didn't really have an outlet where I could
just write what was on my mind. And that's that's
what I'm doing on substack. And I think so for writers,
I think the trick, if there is a trick, is
to find out what is it that makes you really happy,
you know, writing on substack. I mean so that you
don't look at it as a chore. If it is
(49:02):
one more assignment. Oh lord, it's just you know what,
do we need one more deadline? So that is and
so I went into it with that idea. I'm going
to write what I want to write. And it's not
going to be an editor telling me you need to
write this, you need to trend this or whatever. I'm
just going to write it. And that I've tried to
(49:23):
stay true. I still my old self kind of creeps
back in. I go, oh, it's labor day, you know.
I haven't I haven't write about potatoes out it all summer.
You know, the pressures of you know, making people happy
with the recipes. So you just have to find that
comfort spot for yourself. I would think, right, you know,
(49:44):
it's just what you told me about, you know, re
entering the South and living in New Orleans. I mean
that that makes you unique, And I think it's finding
something about yourself that's unique that wherever, whoever your audience is,
they're going to find you and they're going to be
looking forward to what you have to say. And so
(50:08):
don't be afraid to be yourself and don't be afraid
to talk about the life that you have at this moment.
And I did that in Nashville last spring spring of
twenty three when we had the school shooting at the
Covenant School, little private elementary school here in Nashville, and
it just tore us up. And you know how it
(50:32):
could happen so close to home? How who would want
to do this? You know, it's just everything. And then
anger at our local politicians or state politicians with our
very lax gun laws. So as a mother and as
a grandmother, I couldn't write about strawberry cake on that
Tuesday after this happened. I could only write about my
(50:57):
anger at the fact that this happen and where we're
going to wake up and you know, get an assaultful band.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Well that makes sense. We felt that way about September eleventh,
like we were going to do a damn thing for
a long time because you know, right well, anyway, and
I think we're going to get we figured wrap. We
could talk to you forever, but I'm getting hungry and
we're getting to notice that we got to wrap up.
We have so enjoyed speaking with you. If you guys
are all in New Orleans September. In September, I think eighteenth,
(51:28):
twenty twenty four, go to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.
It's baking in the American South. Two hundred recipes and
they're untold stories and there are a lot. Thank you,
Anne for joining us on the Connected Table. We really
appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Thank you, Thank you very much. Felini and David appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
And for all of you, we hope you will go
get this book and come visit everyone in the South.
Embrace the South we have and always stay and say
she'll be curious. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Mo Mogo Mo
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