Have you ever stopped to consider -
really consider - the kinds of food and customs that make up your own culinary identity? Why you grew up cooking the way you do or learning to prepare the recipes that you have? Chances are these recipes have been passed down several generations and some saintly soul (a grandmother or great-grandmother) has bothered to copy them down. Evolutionarily speaking, recipes are a form of our own individual oral histories. They reflect tricks and techniques learned over generations of sharing meals among family and friends. I sometimes like to think this way about Southern food. Where along the way did someone discover that ground corn made an energy-laden, nutritious meal? And where, I'd really like to know, did someone else discover that the addition of cheese to grits makes the world go 'round?
Recent discoveries of my family's ancestry on both my parents' sides have revealed that we have been southern for nearly 400 years. My direct ancestors came to Jamestown before 1620. Part of them were among the
First Families of Virginia. One was
Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia itself. Somewhere along the way, these erudite royal folk decided they were tired of the colonies (post-Revolutionary politics no doubt did them in) and moved further south in search of a more peaceful, tranquil life - making booze and selling guns in Alabama.
This is the family myth that was somewhat perpetuated over the course of the 19th and 20th century generations. Well, not the booze and guns part, but the myth of the humble, self-made Southerner, the type who was most viciously affected by the ravages of the Civil War, the type who learned to fry chicken in lard and bake cornbread in cast-iron skillets.
