ISSUE 61, TENNESSEE FOODWAYS, Part 1: Some Tennessee Cookbooks
Some Tennessee Cookbooks
Prior to 1970 numbers of local cooks, church women’s groups, and civic organizations published state or regional cookbooks. The extent to which the contents reflected local foodways varied in degree, depending to what extent cooks in a place felt compelled to demonstrate a kind of kitchen currency or adequacy. So 1950s cookbooks with “congealed salads” or 1960s books recommending cans of Campbell’s soup as an ingredient are numerous even in provincial towns. Over the years I’ve come to read recipes selectively, skipping the multitude of ocean fish recipes and oyster dishes found in cookbooks from inland states. The section on vegetables is always interesting. If game is featured, that is usually worth studying with care.
Tennessee has rich foodways, and has produced a number of local books worth seeking out. Prices are rising on the second hand book market for some of these, so the quicker you seek them out the better. Not many are available in electronic form on the internet. Here are some good ones:
Kathryn Tucker Windham’s Treasured Tennessee Recipes published by Stroude Press in 1972 is a capable collection of generic recipes and select local items. There are some excellent formulae for blackberry, peach, and scuppernong wine. The sweet potato biscuit and tomato biscuit recipes are classic. Given Tennessee’s excellent buttermilk, one would do well to try “Buttermilk Cornbread Mountain Style.” There is a brief essay on ramps. I expected a jam cake recipe, but the persimmon cake and pumpkin recipes galvanized my attention. The legendary stack cake appears and a Lynchville Bourbon Cake (this was not a church-sponsored publication).
Mrs. Reese Lillard’s Tenneessee Cookbook (1922) includes recipes for frog legs, barbecued lamb (something I expect to find in KY not TN), and a classic stuffed mutton chop recipe. The ham and pork recipes were standard fare for much of the 20th century. Bacon and Fried Apples speaks east Tennessee. The plenitude of duck recipes surprised, and the squirrel and rabbit dishes rounded out a solid meat section. Salt Rising Bread and Chess cake were the stars of the baking section.
Martin Rywell in 1951 published a treasure, the Tennessee Cookbook, 300 recipes that are in aggregate more specific to Tennessee than any other collection from the mid-20th century. There are numbers of black walnut recipes—cakes, puddings, candies. The ham hash and ham ‘n tater pie set the gastric juices percolating. Pig’s feet and dumplins are country cooking. Jowl with Pokeweed = deep country. There are recipes I’ve never heard of such as possum and chestnuts. Bean recipes tell how serious a vegetable section is in a book. This one has instructions on leather britches and Fried Pinto Beans. Cabbage Gumbo anyone? I’m not talkin’ gumbo z’herbes. The reproduced page suggests the knowledge in this slender volume.
Selected Receipts compiled by Christ Church Chattanooga in 1906 has a traditional biscuit section, with cracker beaten biscuit, buttermilke, and baking powder. There are four recipes for Virginia batter bread (spoon bread) indicating how much it mattered at the turn of the century. It has the expected jam cake and an “old” recipe for Henry Clay’s cake. The recipe for Pear Chips is novel, an adaptation of the familiar pumpkin chips recipe found in SC and GA. Jerusalem artichokes go be the name of ground artichokes and a pickle recipe is supplied.