Southern Cooking Quotes

“You can say a lot of bad things about Alabama, but you can't say Alabamans as a people are unduly afraid of deep fryers. In that first week at the Creek, the cafeteria served fried chicken, chicken fried steak, and fried okra, which marked my first foray into the delicacy that is the fried vegetable.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“Anney makes the best gravy in the county, the sweetest biscuits, and puts just enough vinegar in those greens. Glenn nodded, though the truth was he’d never had much of a taste for greens, and his well-educated mama had always told him that gravy was bad for the heart. So he was not ready for the moment when Mama pushed her short blond hair back and set that big plate of hot food down in front of his open hands. Glenn took a bite of gristly meat and gravy, and it melted between his teeth. The greens were salt sweet and fat rich. His tongue sang to his throat; his neck went loose, and his hair fell across his face. It was like sex, that food, too good to waste on the middle of the day and a roomful of men too tired to taste. He chewed, swallowed began to come alive himself. He began to feel for the first time like one of the boys, a grown man accepted by the notorious and dangerous Earle Boatwright, staring across the counter at one of the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. His face went hot, and he took a big drink of ice tea to cool himself.”
― Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina

“Saisee wore a path between the kitchen and the living room, bringing out mugs of coffee, and plates barely visible beneath clouds of spoon bread, ambrosia dotted with maraschino cherries- the cheerful red of them an affront to his eyes- and rosy slices of ham.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“Everyone jumps to their stations and I meet Richard and Amanda at ours. We're in charge of assembling spoonfuls of sweet-potato casserole but with a Spanish twist. That was my idea, a Southern holiday meal meets a twist of southern Spain. Most of the hors d'oeuvres were prepared beforehand so we just need to get them in the oven and put on the finishing garnishes. I begin scooping sweet-potato casserole onto ceramic serving spoons while Richard garnishes them with sugared walnuts and Spanish sausage. Three months ago, most of us had never even tried Spanish cuisine, and today we're hosting a semi-Spanish-themed banquet.
We work like machines. I spoon and pass the bite to my left. Richard adds walnuts and sausage, and passes the plate. Amanda adds parsley and cleans the plate. Chili aioli would make this bomb. A sweet and savory bite. I almost walk to the spice cabinet, then stop myself.
That's not the recipe.
We make trays and trays of food; some are set forward for the students who will begin serving. These are the skewers of winter veggies and single-serve portions of herbed stuffing with jamón ibérico- the less hearty bites. While the first course is being distributed the rest of us begin wiping down our stations. Our mini bites of sweet potato and mac and cheese will be going out next.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“Behind the counter, owner-cook Jim Bo Sweeny darted from flipping crab cakes on the griddle to stirring a pot of creamed corn on the burner to poking chicken thighs in the deep fryer, then back again. Putting piled-high plates in front of customers in between. People said he could mix biscuit dough with one hand while filleting a catfish with the other. He offered up his famous specialty- grilled flounder stuffed with shrimp served on pimento-cheese grits- only a few times a year. No advertising needed; word got out.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Southern is a hot summer day that brings on a violent thunderstorm, cooling the air and bringing up smells of the earth that tempt us to eat the soil.”
― Edna Lewis

“She turned to find Alva standing just inside the swinging kitchen door, carrying two large paper plates loaded down with Laura Jo's golden fried chicken, steaming mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, and oversized buttermilk biscuits.”
― Donna Kauffman, Sugar Rush

“Cakes and pies lined the parsonage countertop and the church refrigerator was stacked with casseroles.
They baked spicy apple harvest cakes and angel biscuits so light they seemed to hover above the pan. They brought him jars of homemade bread and butter pickles, plum preserves, and chow-chow. Every morning cars lined the sidewalk in front of the church, and ladies bearing gifts of honey buns and banana bread still warm from the oven filed into the church. After a particularly moving sermon on "Faith, Fishes, and Loaves," they whipped up enough salmon croquettes and tuna casseroles to feed the masses.”
― Paula Wall, The Rock Orchard

“Grace rolled up her sleeves and joined the group in the kitchen, where Gladys, Pablo's wife, had worked all day directing many other women who kept food pouring out the front and side door, onto a long series of folding tables, all covered in checkered paper table cloths. While some of the women prepped and cooked, others did nothing but bring food out and set it on the table- Southern food with a Mexican twist, and rivers of it: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken mole, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, field peas, fried apples, fried calabaza, bread pudding, corn pudding, fried hush puppies, fried burritos, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, butter bean succotash, pecan pie, corn bread, and, of course, apple pie, hot and fresh with sloppy big scoops of local hand-churned ice creams.
As the dinner hours approached, Carter grabbed Grace out of the kitchen, and they both joined Sarah, Carter's friend, helping Sarah's father throw up a half-steel-kettle barbecue drum on the side of the house. Mesquite and pecan hardwoods were quickly set ablaze, and Dolly and the quilting ladies descended on the barbecue with a hurricane of food that went right on to the grill, whole chickens and fresh catfish and still-kicking mountain trout alongside locally-style grass-fed burgers all slathered with homemade spicy barbecue sauce. And the Lindseys, the elderly couple who owned the fields adjoining the orchard, pulled up in their pickup and started unloading ears of corn that had been recently cut. The corn was thrown on the kettle drum, too, and in minutes massive plumes of roasting savory-sweet smoke filled the air around the house. It wafted into the orchards, toward the workers who soon began pouring out of the house.”
― Jeffrey Stepakoff, The Orchard

“For what Mama would serve were she hosting a brunch: sausage, egg, and cheese casserole, coffeecake swirled with cinnamon, pecans, and brown sugar, grits baked with garlic and cheese.”
― Susan Rebecca White, A Place at the Table

“When Kate arrived, Alice offered her breakfast: strong coffee, coffee cake made from a sweet yeast dough, and bacon baked on a cookie sheet in the oven. When they finished eating, Alice handed Kate a black-and-white-speckled notebook filled with details about her childhood in North Carolina.
With growing interest Kate read about the gentle slope of land upon which Alice's family built their farm and how in the mornings the dew looked like steam rising from the grass. She read about the pigs Alice's family raised, how they were finished on acorns, making their meat unbelievably silky. Kate read about Alice's mother's cooking, how she could turn the humblest ingredients into something magical: creamy chess pies, tender squirrel stew, butter nut cookies at Christmas time that were both salty and sweet.”
― Susan Rebecca White, A Place at the Table

“Maybe I'll go to Rosedale's, get some really good seafood. Maybe I'll see if there is a recipe in here for shrimp and grits, which Taffy prepared for me whenever I visited Atlanta, knowing it's my favorite. Whenever I asked my mother-in-law for the recipe she would smile and say, "Oh, it's just a little of this and a little of that."
Except, no, I wouldn't be able to find stone-ground grits in the city and would have to put the shrimp over rice instead. Maybe I'll make the trout stuffed with bread crumbs, shallots, and lemon slices, or the chicken and dumplings, which are simply biscuits made with cream, cooked on top of a chicken stew. I keep turning the pages of the book, thinking I might make dessert, too. Something comforting. Rice pudding, or a fruit cobbler. The first dessert listed is called "Juneteenth Cake." Juneteenth, I read, is a celebration of blacks' emancipation from slavery. The cake is made from fresh coconuts, both the grated meat and the milk from within. Sounds delicious but laborious.”
― Susan Rebecca White, A Place at the Table

“Martinis and Champagne were passed, along with a selection of Bobby's best hors d'oeuvres: potato pillows dotted with crème fraîche and caviar, crawfish spread served in toast cups, miniature crab cakes topped with rémoulade, tiny tuna burgers with fresh grated ginger, served on homemade brioche (Alice's recipe, which I discovered was virtually indistinguishable from what my father used to bake for our family). There were all sorts of desserts, too, mostly southern. But the hit of the evening was, as always, Bobby's banana pudding, made with pound cake instead of Nilla wafers. For the party Bobby fixed individual puddings, served in shot glasses, topped with whipped cream instead of meringue.”
― Susan Rebecca White, A Place at the Table

“Of course, I myself had ordered the barbecue and links and ribs from the guys at Pink Pig- ten pounds of just the smoky brisket itself- and, of course, nothing would do but for Mama to serve them on her silver-plated platters somebody had given her when she and Daddy got married. But every single other dish on that huge table was Mama's handiwork. There were the collards she'd mentioned, but also her red cabbage coleslaw, and barbecued pintos, and big bowls of okra and tomatoes, and corn pudding, and potato salad made with potatoes boiled in water spiced with Texas Pete, and baskets of jalapeño cornbread, and not only two pans of her rich banana pudding but also two sticky cherry cobblers. Must have been twenty different items on that buffet- enough to feed double the number of guests.”
― James Villas, Hungry for Happiness

“At first, I planned to do just a big pot of son-of-a-bitch stew with coleslaw and cornbread, but when I thought about dogs running around the house and thirteen people trying to deal with bowls of soupy stew sloshing all over the place, I realized the idea was stupid. Then I remembered an extra turkey breast in the fridge I'd roasted as backup for a bank cocktail buffet but didn't need, as well as half a baked ham shank I'd kept to make sandwiches and nibble on. Wham! It dawned on me: a sumptuous turkey and ham casserole with mushrooms and cheese and water chestnuts and sherry. The perfect bereavement dish. And with that I could do my baked cheese grits, and my congealed pickled peach and pecan salad, and some buttermilk biscuits, and maybe a simple bowl of ambrosia and some cookies. Everything but the grits and biscuits done in advance, easy to serve and eat, no mess, and who doesn't love a great casserole and grits and congealed salad?”
― James Villas, Hungry for Happiness

“Well, I was up bright and early, and while everybody else went to church or whatever they do on Sunday morning, I was chopping turkey and ham and mushrooms for the casserole and mixing chopped pickled peaches and pecans with cream cheese for the salad that had to congeal in the fridge at least two hours. I also decided to go ahead and mix all the dry ingredients and shortening for the biscuits so all I'd have to do would be to add buttermilk at the last minute, cut 'em out, and bake 'em. That left only the cheese grits, which I knew could be boiled in advance, then mixed with butter and sour cream and eggs and cheddar and a little garlic and seasonings, scraped into a big baking dish, and stuck in the oven with the casserole to get nice and golden by the time everybody arrived.”
― James Villas, Hungry for Happiness

“Just the right amount of cumin and oregano, I can tell," he adds, "and with that zing you got the chile peppers right on the button- three-alarm, I'd say."
"Plus paprika and Tabasco and guess what? Beer," I inform him. "But wanna know my real secret? A little bit of bitter chocolate."
"Chocolate!" he exclaims.
"Yep, chocolate."
"How much?" he asks real excited.
"That's my little secret, Mr. Dewitt," I tease him as I chuckle.
"Well, I'll be damned."
"I'm so glad it's not too soupy," Mrs. Dewitt says next. "Just thick enough."
"Masa harina?" he asks.
"My, my, Mr. Dewitt," I try to compliment him, "I can tell you do know your bowl o' red."
He finishes up the bowl and lets out this crude laugh. "Don't fix any myself, but I warned you, sister, you're dealing with real chiliheads around this house."
"So you've decided you like it without the beans?" I ask.
He wipes his mouth on the linen napkin like he's just eaten Russian caviar instead of plain old Texas chili. "Now, I ain't saying that by a long shot, Loretta, 'cause for me chili's not chili without beans. But I got an open mind, and besides, you say you also fix a big pot of pintos on the side?"
"Yeah, I do, spiced up with jalapeños."
"What else you serve with your chili?"
"Anything you want," I tell him in a real confident tone. "Guacamole, coleslaw, rice, tacos, sour cream, red pepper vinegar, and maybe some corn tortillas my Mexican helper makes- just tell me whatcha like.”
― James Villas, Hungry for Happiness

“Never having been anywhere near fried chicken, we heard little else during the day except that a Negro woman from the South who lived in Colchester started to prepare it right after lunch. For the dinner, which attracted dozens of visitors, the med students spruced up with white shirts and black pants. They carried out steaming platters of plump golden chicken with a crunchy skin we could sink our teeth into, along with two sugar holders filled with golden honey to be poured over the chicken. A golden dinner: chicken, honey, corn, cornbread.”
― Eleanor Widmer, Up from Orchard Street

“No matter what anyone in North Star thought of my mom, everyone agreed on one thing: she was the best cook in the Texas Hill Country. She was known for her barbecue and fried pies. But she was most famous for one particular dish. The dish people people would drive hundreds of miles for was simply called the Number One. I imagine Momma was going to make a list of specials. The trouble was, she never got past the Number One. So there it sat at the top of the menu, alone, all by itself.

The Number One:
Chicken fried steak with cream gravy, mashed potatoes,
green beans cooked in bacon fat, one buttermilk biscuit,
and a slice of pecan pie

With Brad's words ringing in my head about my vague culinary vision, I decide to make the Number One for tonight's supper. After leaving the salon, I drive to various farm stands, grocery stores, and butchers. I handpick the top-round steak with care, choose fresh eggs one by one, and feel an immense sense of home as I pull Mom's cast-iron skillet from the depths of Merry Carole's cabinets. My happiest memories involve me walking into whatever house we were staying in at the time to the sounds and smells of chicken fried steak sizzling away in that skillet. This dish is at the very epicenter of who I am. If my culinary roots start anywhere, it's with the Number One.
As I tenderize the beef, my mind is clear and I'm happy. I haven't cooked like this- my recipes for me and the people I love- in far too long. If ever. Time flies as I roll out the crust for the pecan pie. I'm happy and contented as I cut out the biscuit rounds one by one. I haven't a care in the world. Being in Merry Carole's kitchen has washed away everything I left in the whirlwind of being back in North Star.”
― Liza Palmer, Nowhere But Home

“And with that," I concluded as I dusted powdered sugar across the plate, "you've created a dessert the entire family will go crazy over. And if you really want to make them go crazy, serve these little ditties for breakfast, and wash them down with that sweet tea we made earlier. But only on school days, or days when the sun is shining and the kiddos can be sent outside to play. Seriously, y'all, these vanilla donut drops have enough sugar in them to upset the apple cart of behavior in your house in a way it may never recover from.”
― Bethany Turner, Hadley Beckett's Next Dish

“I was just thinking that I'm beginning to understand why this is Chef Beckett's signature dish. I've eaten many a tarte à la bouille in my day, but usually in a Cajun setting. It is, after all, a Louisiana trademark. But watching Chef Beckett create her version is fascinating. She's managed to keep all the heart and tradition of the Cajun creation, while adding her own unmistakable Nashville flair.”
― Bethany Turner, Hadley Beckett's Next Dish

“At six, Daisy slid the stuffed figs and the pastry-wrapped goat cheese purses into the oven, crammed her feet into a pair of navy-blue high heels, and put a giant straw hat with a navy-blue ribbon on her head. The theme of the party was the Kentucky Derby, even though the Derby itself wasn't until May. At least it had made the menu easy: mint julep punch and bourbon slushies, fried chicken sliders served on biscuits, with hot honey, tea sandwiches with Benedictine spread, bite-sized hot browns, the signature sandwich of Louisville, and miniature Derby pies for dessert.”
― Jennifer Weiner, That Summer

“By summer's end, the crepe myrtles and magnolias were all overgrown, and their petals littered the sidewalks like when meat is so tender it falls right off the bones. I remember at Grandpa Falcon's barbecues, he'd do barbecue pork chops and beef ribs and chicken legs. And I remember how, when you picked up a drumstick, hunks of juicy meat would slide right off the leg bone. For me, it's all about the cooking down here. Yam-pecan pies, Brussels sprouts and egg whites, chicken and waffles.”
― Jen Nails, One Hundred Spaghetti Strings

“How do you get the chicken this crispy?" I asked. The meal was a mixture of the saltiest and crunchiest fried chicken and the buttermilkiest and sweetest waffles and syrup.
"Oil," Auntie Gina said. "You want your breading like this, you've got to fry it in rivers of oil."
We talked a little bit more about how Harry liked to squeeze a blop of syrup from the bottle on each bite of chicken and waffle just so he could get the exact amount of maple flavor, and everybody laughed.”
― Jen Nails, One Hundred Spaghetti Strings

“In the nine-to-twelve category: number twelve, traditional turkey dinner and cranberry pumpkin pie! Number forty-nine, caramel beef stew with vegetables and caramel apples! Number three, barbecued catfish and king cake! Number eighteen, Asian noodle stir-fry and vanilla soy cookies!”
― Jen Nails, One Hundred Spaghetti Strings

“His supermarket rarely carried what he wanted anymore, so Cecil had gone to the butcher store around the block from the housing project where the owner was now in the habit of saving chicken feet for him. When he got home, Cecil set a pot of water on the stove. As soon as it boiled, he dropped in the four-pronged feet. After five minutes he took them out and rolled off the skin.
Next Cecil pulled out the old black cast-iron skillet that had been his mama's, poured in some oil, and added the feet, frying them up until they were a golden brown. Throwing in some chopped onion and garlic and cooking them until he could see through the onions, Cecil added rice and covered the whole shebang with water. Some salt and pepper, bring to a boil again, put on a lid, and wait till the rice was fluffy and the chicken feet were tender.”
― Mary Jane Clark, That Old Black Magic

“She made them honey butter fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits the way her mother had taught her, with White Lily flour and the butter shredded on a box grater. She served charred eggplant with cilantro pesto, polenta pasticciata, grilled corn, and fried dill pickles.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“Parmesan cheese?" Miller said. "We're not cooking Italian food."
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, keep grating it, and when you're done, whisk it into those eggs. Now you know the secret ingredient of our fried chicken."
Once the dredging pans were ready, I showed the young cooks through the four steps. They watched me closely. Ben, sweet baby--- bless him--- wrote everything down. The first step was to dry the chicken pieces with a paper towel, so they were tacky but not wet. This would enable the seasoning to stick to them. The secret here was not to salt too far in advance, because although salt helped enhance flavor, it also dried out meat. The second step was to dredge it in the flour mixed with cayenne pepper. After you shook off the excess flour, you put it into the mixture of eggs and grated Parmesan cheese. Finally, you dunked it into a second flour mixture that contained enough freshly ground black pepper to turn the mixture gray. This chicken was, as the kids say, fire, meaning it was so good. Its heat was balanced with the Parmesan cheese.”
― Victoria Benton Frank, My Magnolia Summer

“Cooking with Momma's spices helped Marvina process. Never mind she didn't have enough people in the house to eat everything she laid out for preparation. Several pies, pork chops, chicken, greens, macaroni and cheese, hot-water corn bread. She was just cookin' to be cookin'.”
― Michelle Stimpson, Sisters with a Side of Greens

“He battered and fried catfish nuggets and made red rice with sausage. Finally, he started a she-crab chowder, and I knew he was showing off. Crab chowder was my favorite thing. I watched as he added the butter and flour for the roux and then expertly added the cream and milk and broth and other ingredients. The kitchen had been smelling good for hours, but once he added the crab roe and crab meat, it produced a heavenly fragrance.”
― Rhonda McKnight, Bitter and Sweet