In Search of Real Southern Food: A Journey Through Family and Time
As I prepare for my 90-year-old daddy’s visit, my heart is pulled back through time, recalling the recipes that have anchored our family for generations. The meals that both my grandmothers and mother prepared—their biscuits, cornbread, fried apple pies, and a cucumber and onion side dish—weren’t just food, they were legacies. They were a taste of home, a tangible connection to a time when everything felt simpler and, somehow, more whole. Southern food, for us, isn’t about seasonings or even the dishes themselves—it’s a passport to the past. Each bite is a reminder of family tradition, of crippled hands that once kneaded dough or stirred pots, of laughter around the table, and stories shared long after the plates were cleared.
I think of my sister, who has perfected our grandmother’s biscuit recipe, just as my daughter takes pride in recreating her grandmother’s cucumber and onion dish. And my sister-in-law—how she fries cornbread to a perfect thin crisp, with butter melting over it in a way that can only be described as divine. These are the small victories of family cooking that only those who’ve experienced it truly understand. We may use the same ingredients, but it’s the love passed down through generations that makes it “real” Southern food.
For me, the most poignant memory is of sitting at my grandmother’s or mother’s table for a simple meal of brown pinto beans and cornbread. Those beans, simmered for hours until they created their own rich broth, ladled into a bowl and paired with a slice of raw onion and hot cornbread slathered with real butter. That was comfort. That was home. Now that they’re gone, whenever the family gathers, we cook these same meals, and in doing so, we find comfort—and maybe a little closure, too. We talk about them as we cook, remembering not just their recipes but the warmth of their presence, the sound of their voices, and the way they made us feel.
But as much as I try to recreate these dishes, I find myself coming up short. I know intellectually how to make pinto beans with cornbread—I’ve watched it, I’ve made it—but emotionally, I wonder if I’ll ever quite get it right. Can I ever truly capture the essence of those meals when the hands that made them are no longer here?
The truth is, I don’t think about them no longer being with us when I cook these dishes. I think about the last meal they made, the last helping of pinto beans and cornbread, the last time I sat at their table. There are many ways to grieve, and for me, it’s through food. It’s a quiet grief, one that settles in when I’m kneading dough or simmering beans—an ache for the time when they were still here, still cooking, still sharing their love through every meal.
As I sit here now, with the weight of these memories, I realize that I might need at least another lifetime to truly learn how to cook like the matriarchs of my family. Maybe it’s not just the recipe, but the life lived in between each meal that made their food so special.
So, as I prepare for daddy’s visit, I will cook all his favorite meals—biscuits, pinto beans, cornbread—and though I may never match the mastery of my grandmothers or mother, I’ll do my best to honor them. In every dish I serve, there will be a memory, a story, a bit of the past carried forward. I may never cook quite like they did, but perhaps that’s part of the journey. Southern cooking is a tapestry of memories, and I am still learning to stitch my part.