Fresh lettuce out of the garden, tossed with onion, sugar and vinegar and then wilted with hot bacon drippings. Uh huh. Pecan pie. Uh huh. Coffee with half and half. Mama cooked and ate that way her whole life and lived to be a nonagenarian and her doc said her arteries looked like garden hoses. ;-) good genes.

My son gave me the Betty Crocker Computer Cookbook. I love it, I use it, I transcribe all those dog earred copies into it. It figures out all the nutritional information, and also prints out cookbooks for sharing, or puts it into email format.

Southern cooking is sinfully delicious. That's why everyone loves it. We have lots & lots & LOTS of cookbooks that DH reads like novels. Some of his favorites have been rebound & the bindings are splitting again. Somehow we've never gotten hooked on on-line recipes, except to print them out & put them in a notebook that then assumes it's own dog-eared quality.

Now if only someone would smack Rachael Ray right across the head. That owoman is too darn perky.

This has always been my favorite. I had a 1939 edition and need to get another. It is every thing the description says and more. There is also a gardening book by Wise that is just as good.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Wise Encyclopedia of Cookery

I think one of the reasons, other than the fabulous taste, Southern cooking is so wonderful is that it 'sticks to your ribs.'
You're not hungry 30 minutes after you eat.

When I straightened my gardening magazines, I also had enough incentive to go through my cookbooks.

I agree with you, andie.
I have printed quite a few of her recipes from her web site and we have really enjoyed the most of them.

I've been collecting cookbooks forever and now am faced
with getting rid of most of them.
Now if i'm in a hurry and need a recipe I head to the internet.
I can usually find it there a lot quicker than
thumbing thru all my notes and books.

I don't enjoy cooking like I used to and it probably has
something to do with being made to feel like a criminal
for cooking the traditional southern recipes. I perfected
a fried chicken recipe and it has been years since I dared
put it on the table. Likewise my biscuits. I used half and
half and real butter and those suckers would melt in your mouth.
I got tired of the remarks like "well, now, that should
clog up the old arteries" or "just what I need a
good heart attack". I rarely cook for my family except for
Neil and myself and it isn't what it used to be. I think
i'd rather die young than live on salads and baked fish
the rest of my life.
I miss Fried Chicken and Biscuits and Grits loaded with
cheese and Pies and Cakes made with real milk, eggs, butter and sugar.

For my son's birthday last year I made his favorite meal and took it over to him and it's been years since he had it. Fried chicken dipped in a buttermilk batter,mashed potatoes and of course chicken gravy ( xtra thick) biscuits made with butter and cream and for desert a rich poundcake made of course with tons of butter. I see nothing wrong at all with eating anything you want as long as you keep it to no more than once a week or so. I've just lost 18 pounds doing it like that..healthy stuff for 6 days and one day for anything I want,which can easily include nothing but crapola if I'm in the mood. I just need that one day and my cholesterol is normal.

I agree, Marda...it's sinful to give up all the pleasures of eating...about the only vice we indulge in nowadays...LOL We love blueberries by the handful or on cereal but once in awhile blueberry cobbler is a treat. And that delicious meal for your son...WOW...surely he could indulge himself once a month at least! Tell him "Moderation in all things, including moderation", is the key.

Today we slept late and had an English Muffin for breakfast. For lunch we had leftover yellow squash, broccoli and little red potatoes plus boiled eggs, piled atop a big bowl of lettuce, spinach, radish, cucumber, carrot and onion...lemon juice/oil for dressing. Everything goes in our salads! Tonight it's Leek/Onion Soup with Cheese Toast. The leftover salad will have Canadian Bacon added tomorrow night with perhaps French Onion Soup. (We do love onions!). Then we can splurge with Country Fried Steak or your Fried Chicken...and cream gravy & mashed 'taters. Then it's back to pasta tossed with yogurt/parmesan, a simple curry, or other lighter dishes.

I don't often use my cookbooks nowadays...except to check microwave times (Jim uses MW too very well).I do enjoy visiting over at the Cooking Forum but most foods there are over-prepared for us... or at least for the time I want to spend in kitchen...LOL I do like the roasted veggies ...fast and easy. But mostly our veggies are steamed using microwave then I dress them simply with coarse salt/pepper, maybe a sprinkle of Parmesan or lemon juice...nothing better IMO.

If we have our usual big bowl of cereal or oatmeal about half filled with fruit we eat a light lunch. Dinner at 8 or 8:30. To be honest my sleeping is so erratic I often cook at 3:00 a.m. for the next day and at the same time cook for freezer. I surely don't cook everyday! And we don't always eat together... Jim has learned to reheat/serve himself very well...LOL...and even cleans kitchen for me, always at least empties DW (my least favorite chore). josh

Lots of cookbook here. I especially love the ones produced by churches, women's clubs, etc., and especially the ones published in the south.

Jan- you're just inviting the wrong folks over for dinner. I'd just hush my mouth and let those biscuits melt.

Suzanne, i've stopped cooking for the ones making the remarks. let them eat Tofu.

I am trying to do better with my diet. It works out okay.
I've stopped swelling up like a toad. Once in awhile I
like to have fried yellow squash and fried green tomatoes.
Right now i'd kill for a tomato sandwich loaded with mayo
on white bread as long as it is a fresh ripe tomato out
of the garden.

I've been craving a wilted lettuce salad with hot bacon
drippings ever since Suzy posted.

Suzanne, if you ever see The Stuffed Griffin cookbook
latch on to it. Mine is falling apart i've used it so much.

Jan, Don't let the local food police make you feel guilty. At our house we are unrepentant traditionalists when it comes to Southern (and other types of full-bodied cuisines) cooking. When people ask how we get pie crust so nice and flaky we proudly say "lard" not too secretly loving the look of horror that comes over the face of the person being spoken to.

I'm not going to forsake taste & pleasure of eating to be politically correct.

Woo Hoo Andie!!!!!

The best pie I've had is baked by a pastry chef in Chicago that has gone into business for herself. Her one-woman operation is called the "Hoosier Mama Pie Company" and her pie crust is to die for. She uses butter but has an ongoing dialogue with another great pie maker in Baltimore who uses lard. (It's quite a clever name - say Hoosier Mama a couple times and think about it). Her pecan pie is the best I've ever eaten, just the perfect sweetness, she uses a bit of real maple syrup. That's saying alot because I was weened on southern pecan pie and have eaten it from coast to coast trying to settle on the perfect pie.

By the way, lard is getting hard to come by. You really have to dig in the grocery store here to find it.

I just had to come back and post a picture of the Hoosier Mama and her pies - just to make you all hungry!!!

{{gwi:164635}}

Whoa! Those pies look delish! As you probably know, lard is easy to find down here. As it's a staple in Mexican food there are always tubs of it readily available in the grocery store.

Right now in the independent movie theaters is an absolutely charming film called "Waitress." Her hobby and love in life is making pies and when you see some of the things she creates and the weird names she gives them..like "I'm Going To Kill MY Husband In His Sleep" pie,you will drool.

My Mama was the pie baking queen. Her basest efforts could have taken a blue ribbon at any fair. Her crusts were so flaky, they were almost like a puff pastry and she threw them together in a few minutes. It has absolutely ruined me for eating store bought pies, or most restaurant pies. So, in self defense, I had to learn to make them. It's mostly in the "touch" when building your dough and yeah........a lard/shortening is important. I prefer the cheap shortening here, part animal fat(lard) and part vegetable fat. It works like using lard but without the stronger lard taste. It's barely detectable. Second best pie shortening is Crisco butter shortening.

Like Marda, and Andie, when I want to indulge in old fashioned rich foods, I do because I use them for a treat. We don't eat them every day and when we do, we don't feel guilty........at all.

I grew up with a world class cook who shouldn't have been.

Church mice were their rich cousins by comparison, so how on earth my mom learned to cook the way she could is beyond me.

My sister has her talent...I have a few of her recipes...where she used any...

It may or may not be written in any book, but her pie crust was 'half'.

Half the flour in shortning, half the shortning in water..

Ergo, a single crust pie would take a cup of flour, a half cup of shortning, and a fourth cup of water. Once we understood the concept of half, we didn't need a recipe...just to know if it was a single or double crust pie, and how many were we making.

Yes, she made it with lard in my early years, then Crisco
until she died. I use Crisco or The Animal/vege fat combo... with the same flaky results.

If someone has a good beef stew recipe, I'd like to have it, please.

I bet we could do a whole separate thread on beef stew -- it's like chili: there are almost as many recipes as there are communities.

I occasionally make a beef stew that is mostly chunks of beef and potatoes, and a few tiny dices of whatever else including carrots and onions, all simmered in a very thick, dark beefy sauce. I often make a beef stew that has the beef cut into very small pieces with lots of vegs simmered in a herbed tomato-y liquid. The two look -and taste- very different, but they are both beef stews.

Lard is easy to come by here.
As Andie says it's a Mexican staple.
It isn't like the kind we used to make when we killed
hogs.
It has a funny texture to it, like it's mixed with
something else.
I use it when I make suet cakes for my birds.
I haven't used it to cook with since I was a Teen.

All this talk about food and Southern cooking has me craving fried chicken.
When I think of fried chicken I remember the King
Reunion fiasco and I can still see all those people
grinning and waving fried chicken as I drove by
their picnic tables.

Meldy,with this bunch we could do an entire thread on any food or recipe that exists.

Beef stew reminds me of the scene in the old movie Christmas in Connecticut. The Irish maid is cooking stew & "Uncle Felix" comes in and starts putting loads of paprika in it saying, "Hunky dunky! Now you've got goulash."