'When Southern Women Cook' is a diverse portrait of the American South's food culture

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: "When Southern Women Cook" – A Deep Dive into Southern Culinary Heritage

Episode Release Date: December 19, 2024

Introduction

In this episode of NPR's Book of the Day, host Robin Young delves into the rich culinary landscape of the American South through the lens of the cookbook "When Southern Women Cook" by Tony Tipton Martin and Morgan Bowling. Published just before Thanksgiving, this book transcends traditional cookbook boundaries by intertwining recipes with essays, poetry, and historical narratives that celebrate the diverse contributions of Southern women to the region's food culture.

Meet the Authors

Tony Tipton Martin serves as Cook's Country's Editor-in-Chief and is a celebrated author with multiple accolades, including three James Beard Book Awards. Morgan Bowling, Executive Editor of Creative Content for Cook's Country, brings her expertise as a chef and food historian, enriched by her North Carolina roots. Their collaboration shines a light on the often-overlooked contributions of women—Black, white, indigenous, and immigrant—to Southern cuisine.

Essays and Structure

The book is meticulously structured into 14 chapters, each opening with an essay from a historian, author, or chef. These essays provide historical context and personal anecdotes that enrich the accompanying recipes. For instance, in the foreword, Tony Tipton Martin reflects on the collaborative spirit of Southern cooking:

“I wrote about that because John Edgerton… invited a bunch of us to come together to really explore common humanity, using food as the tool to do that. He called us the ad hoc committee.” (02:49)

Morgan Bowling elaborates on the book's unique format:

“Each begins with a little headnote that gives a little more context for the history… mixed within them are either little backstories or colorful tales or on occasion, poem.” (04:08)

Celebrating Diverse Influences

A central theme of the book is acknowledging the diverse cultural influences that shape Southern food. Tony emphasizes the importance of recognizing immigrant stories:

“We wanted to be clear about what the boundaries of the south are… we all brought our food ways with us.” (04:21)

They highlight that Southern cuisine is a melting pot, enriched by various immigrant communities. For example, the book showcases how Greek immigrants influenced barbecue traditions in Tennessee and Alabama.

Spotlight on Iconic Recipes

1. Buttermilk Coleslaw (Page 124)

   The concept of "permanent slaw" is introduced, a Southern tradition of maintaining an ongoing batch of coleslaw in the refrigerator, continually adding and serving from it. Although the book includes only a few variations, this concept captures the essence of communal and sustainable cooking practices in the South.

   “Permanent slaw is this concept that you can find in the south of people would keep a permanent amount of coleslaw in their fridge…” (05:12)

2. Hoppin' John (Page 162)

   Tony shares the poignant story of Emily Meggett from Edisto Island, a culinary icon known for her red rice and other rice dishes—a legacy that reflects the Gullah Geechee culture's influence on Southern cuisine.

   “Emily Meggett is an iconic woman from Edistoe island in the Carolinas… her recipe collection went on to be a New York Times bestseller.” (05:53)

   Red Rice, a staple in the Gullah Geechee tradition, is described as:

   “A Sea Islands, Gullah Geechee specialty… it descends from a West African dish, which is jollof rice.” (06:55)

3. Gobi Manchurian

   An intriguing inclusion is the traditional Indian dish Gobi Manchurian, showcasing the South's adaptability and the integration of global flavors. Morgan explains its presence in Southern cuisine through the influence of Indian chefs in places like Asheville.

   “We have a dinner series… representing it in this really interesting way in the South.” (07:51)

4. Dauberge Cake

   This dessert exemplifies the fusion of German and Southern culinary traditions. Originally the Dauberge Torte from German culture, it has been adapted into the Southern variant with syrup, buttercream, and ganache.

   “It's a recipe rooted in German culture… adapted according to perhaps what's going on culturally.” (09:16)

5. Aunt Jules Pie

   Perhaps the most significant narrative is the restoration of Aunt Jules Pie, originally known as Jefferson Davis Pie, named after an enslaved woman rather than the Confederate general. This act of reclaiming the recipe honors Aunt Jewel's legacy and corrects historical oversights.

   “We were able to give credit… we know the name of the cook, and her name was Aunt Jewel.” (10:44)

   The adapted recipe by activist baker Arleigh Bell reinvigorates this traditional dish, making it a modern favorite alongside pecan pie.

Cultural and Historical Insights

Tony and Morgan emphasize that Southern cuisine cannot be seen in isolation. It's a reflection of the region's history, geography, and the myriad communities that have shaped it. Recipes in the book are not merely instructions for cooking but are stories of resilience, adaptation, and community.

“American foodways are based on diverse contributions of a lot of different people… it's the global south and make that a modern intervention.” (08:36)

Conclusion

"When Southern Women Cook" is more than a cookbook; it is a tribute to the women who have silently shaped Southern culinary traditions. Through thoughtful essays and meticulously curated recipes, Tony Tipton Martin and Morgan Bowling offer readers a profound understanding of the South's gastronomic heritage. As Robin Young aptly summarizes:

“It's just this wonderful, rich, deep book…. we toast Aunt Juold at Thanksgiving.” (12:34)

This episode of NPR's Book of the Day invites listeners to explore and appreciate the intricate tapestry of Southern food culture, celebrating its past while inspiring future culinary endeavors.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Tony Tipton Martin (02:49):

  “…using food as the tool to do that. He called us the ad hoc committee.”

• Morgan Bowling (04:08):

  “…little backstories or colorful tales or on occasion, poem.”

• Tony Tipton Martin (04:21):

  “We all brought our food ways with us.”

• Morgan Bowling (05:12):

  “...people would keep a permanent amount of coleslaw in their fridge…”

• Tony Tipton Martin (05:53):

  “Emily Meggett is an iconic woman from Edistoe island in the Carolinas…”

• Tony Tipton Martin (06:55):

  “It descends from a West African dish, which is jollof rice.”

• Morgan Bowling (07:51):

  “...representing it in this really interesting way in the South.”

• Tony Tipton Martin (08:36):

  “...make that a modern intervention.”

• Tony Tipton Martin (10:44):

  “We were able to give credit… we know the name of the cook, and her name was Aunt Jewel.”

• Robin Young (12:34):

  “...we toast Aunt Juold at Thanksgiving.”

---

"When Southern Women Cook" is available for those eager to immerse themselves in the stories and flavors that define Southern cuisine. Whether you're a culinary enthusiast or simply passionate about history and culture, this book offers a delectable journey through time and tradition.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's Empire's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Today's interview is about a cookbook, When Southern Women Cook by Tony Tipton Martin and Morgan Bolling. It's not just recipes, though. It's also essays and poetry and history about Southern food. And I noticed something when listening to this interview between the two authors and here and Now's Robin Young. And it's that Tipton, Martin and Bowling are very careful about crediting people when possible. They're very aware that recipes and food traditions don't just come out of nowhere. Someone has to make them. Very often it's women and very often their contributions are lost to the sands of time. This is taped just before Thanksgiving, but it's pretty useful for any holiday cooking you've got coming up. So come for the historical analysis of cooking, but stay for the bit about forever Slaw. That interview's up after this.

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[Robin Young]

If you cook or eat or are interested in history, geography, sociology, literature, anthropology, have we got a book for you. When Southern Women Cook is packed with America's test kitchen approved recipes. So, yes, it's a cookbook, but it's also an elegant and powerful homage to the American south and Southern women. Black, white, indigenous, immigrant. It's about the food that empowered them to become activists and leaders shaping the region's history. When Southern Women Cook is the work of two women here in the studio with lifelong ties to Southern food. Cook's Country Editor in chief, Tony Tipton Martin, author of several books celebrating African American cookbook history, a three time James Beard Book Award winner. Hi, Toni. Hi. Hi. And we're also welcoming into our studio Morgan Bowling. Born and raised in North Carolina, she's executive editor of Creative content for Cook's country, as well as a chef and food historian. Morgan, welcome to you as well.

[Morgan Bowling]

Thank you for having me for talking about this book with us.

[Robin Young]

Yeah. And you both illustrate, you know, one of the things that really jumped out at me about the book. You, Morgan, are white. Toni is an African American woman. That's only a part of the blend. So many ingredients in this stew. And Toni, I wanna start with you because I loved how in your foreword it seemed to start with the word hock, as in ham hock and ad hoc.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Yeah. Isn't that a wonderful analogy? I wrote about that because John Edgerton, the journalist and Southern SA he invited a bunch of us to come together to really explore common humanity, using food as the tool to do that. And he called us the ad hoc committee. I thought that was an interesting play on the words adding a hock to a simmering pot of green vegetables in the South.

[Robin Young]

Right. Which is key. Absolutely.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

For flavoring well.

[Robin Young]

And Morgan, talk about the structure essays beginning every section. Here's one from North Carolina writer and cookbook author Kia Mastroianni on how cottage bakers have reclaimed and transformed the domestic space. And one by African American food author Psyche Williams Forson on Southern fried foods and legacies worth knowing.

[Morgan Bowling]

Talking about the structure of the book, it's 14 chapters. Each opens with an essay from either a historian or author or chef. And then, of course, there are the delicious recipes. And each begins with a little headnote that gives a little more context for the history. And then often within them, mixed within them are either little backstories or colorful tales or on occasion, poem. So it has a very different feel from the average America's Test Kitchen book to it.

[Robin Young]

Well, it does. And it's the South. So, Tony, what are the through lines? Because you have immigrant stories, you have different kinds of approaches to food, but is there something where you can overall say that's South?

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Well, we wanted to be clear about what the boundaries of the south are. Physical boundaries of the south meaning as far north as the Mason Dixon Line and as far far west as the center of Texas. But we also were aware that this is a nation of immigrants, and within that, we all brought our food ways with us. It has been striking for some people to see that we have so many immigrant stories in this book, but the reality is that people have been migrating and coming and going to this region and throughout the US from the beginning.

[Robin Young]

From the very beginning. And I'm going to go to the Buttermilk Coleslaw page 124, and historians are tracing it to the Dutch kul meaning cabbage, and slaw meaning salad. But then the essay that precedes this recipe goes on to explain that in the south there's something called permanent slaw. Morgan, tell me more.

[Morgan Bowling]

Permanent slaw is this concept that you can find in the south of people would keep a permanent amount of coleslaw in their fridge, and you kind of just keep adding and taking from it. And that's definitely like, a concept in the South. We thought about trying to add that as a recipe in the book, but we were like, how on earth would we. So we do have two or three coleslaws total in this book. Otherwise.

[Robin Young]

Well, I just love that notion. I'm a slaw fan myself, and with Thanksgiving coming, a lot of these, you know, especially gonna resonate. We talked about ham hocks. Let's go to the Hoppin John on page 162. And on this page is a story about Emily Meggett, who's passed. But tell us about, again, the story and the food.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Well, Emily Meggett is an iconic woman from Edistoe island in the Carolinas. She instructed us on the process of using a fresh ham hock. Most of the time, when we think about making a pot of beans or a rich pot of green vegetables, we think about a smoked piece of meat. And I had been keen to interview her and spend time with her. After years of hearing about her, I had understood that there was a woman in the region who was well known for her red rice and other rice dishes. But once we learned that she was the very woman that I've been hearing about, I couldn't wait to get to that region. I had an amazing time cooking with her in her kitchen, and her recipe collection went on to be a New York Times bestseller, which speaks so loudly of the interest that people have today in learning more and more about the nooks and crannies and corners of this country.

[Robin Young]

I love that a woman's red rice could draw you to her door. And stupid question here. What's red rice?

[Tony Tipton Martin]

So red rice is a Sea Islands, Gullah Geechee specialty. It's familiar to many people as the basis for, like, jambalaya. It begins with a type of a rice pilaf, where you saute the rice grains in order to get them surrounded by fat so that they remain fluffy. But then on top of that, the cooks add a copious amount of either tomato sauce, tomato paste.

[Robin Young]

That's the red.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

So it's become the basis of many other dishes, but it descends from a West African dish, which is jollof rice.

[Robin Young]

Okay. From Lafayette, Louisiana, you have the stuffed turkey wings and then eight different kinds of fried chicken, including a North Carolina dipped chicken glistening with hot sauce. Another called chicken fried chicken smothered with gravy. But we wanted to talk about the recipe for Gobi Manchurian. You know, traditional Indian food. Morgan, how did it make its way to the South?

[Morgan Bowling]

Yeah, so this actually we were introduced from a restaurant in Asheville called Chai Panee. Merhwan Arani and his wife Molly have this restaurant. We have a piece running next to it about the Brown in the south movement. And that's this really interesting community driven thing of different chefs who have Indian descent who have moved to the Southern US and they started this dinner series. You wouldn't think of like Gobi Manchurian as Southern, but there's people who are representing it in this really interesting way in the South.

[Robin Young]

It is like a beautiful fried cauliflower pieces tamale pie, traditionally Mexican, and the Greek keftetes. It's a pork and beef meatball served with yogurt sauce. Again, you know, it's not biscuits. You know, Tony, talk about some of the things you discovered in putting together this book.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Well, we want to make sure that people are aware that, as I said earlier, American foodways are based on diverse contributions of a lot of different people. We've had this way of categorizing and marginalizing communities and marginalizing women. And so we want to make sure that we make the point that these are communities that have contributed to what we think of and know of as the South. And it is certainly important to describe it as the global south and make that a modern intervention. For example, you mentioned Greeks. A lot of the barbecue culture in Tennessee, in Alabama, is rooted in the Greek community.

[Robin Young]

It's funny, because now that I'm thinking about it, which you've caused me to do stereotypes sell?

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Well, there's also the idea that recipes become embedded in the broader community. So one of the great examples of that is a recipe for something called dauberge cake, classically known to be in Louisiana. But what we don't often talk about is that it's a recipe rooted in German culture, the Dauberge torte. So you could see how a recipe changes over time and is adapted according to perhaps what's going on culturally, what's important socially. Maybe it's just a matter of whatever ingredients that they have.

[Robin Young]

Who knew the duberg Created in 1933 by Beulah Ledner, a New Orleans native and daughter of German immigrants. And she ran a bakery. And look at this. There's the cake, but there's pudding in the cake. Syrup, buttercream, ganache, Beautiful. What else? I mean, we do have Thanksgiving coming, and everybody's kind of rooted in their own. What they do. Is there, you know, maybe one or two things that also jump out at you. There's Southern favorites here, like Bruleed buttermilk pie. Lemon chess pie. Tell us about Aunt Jules pie, named after an enslaved woman.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Yeah. So that recipe had been floating around in the food world for generations. It is, however, known as the Jefferson Davis Pie. One would describe it as a chess pie or a pecan pie.

[Robin Young]

Meaning. Explain what it means.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Meaning it's got a very light custard, very sweet, but instead of those pecans, this recipe was based in raisins. At the time that it was created, raisins were very precious, and so that dish would have had high status. So it turns out that the name originated with a woman in Missouri who had a party, and she asked her cook to bake this pie. And when asked about it for the society pages, she said, oh, it's the Jefferson Davis pie. Maybe she just wanted to give credit to a Confederate general. I don't know what her thinking was. But finally we're able to give credit. Now we know the name of the cook, and her name was Aunt Jewel. And so we thought it was important to restore that recipe to its rightful owner. And in addition, we invited a activist baker in the Virginia area, Arleigh Bell, to adapt that recipe for more modern tastes. We were thrilled to have it receive new life not only through the story, but also as a dish that one would be proud to have on their Thanksgiving table with the pecan pie or in lieu of it.

[Robin Young]

Yeah, well, it is in this phone book of a cookbook, and I say phone book, and half the audience has no idea what I'm talking about. But it's just this wonderful, rich, deep book. When Southern Women Cook, from Tony Tipton Martin, editor in chief at Cook's country magazine. Morgan Bowling, executive editor of the magazine. It's just beautiful. And I love that last story. We toast, toast Aunt Juold at Thanksgiving. Thank you both so much.

[Tony Tipton Martin]

Thank you for having us.

[Morgan Bowling]

Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

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