Our friend, Kaye Wilkinson Barley, recommended Mary Martha Greene’s The Cheese Biscuit Queen Tells All: Southern Recipes, Sweet Remembrances, and a Little Rambunctious Behavior on her own blog, Meanderings and Muses. It’s just the kind of cookbook I would expect Kaye to enjoy, filled with delightful stories, some funny, a few tearjerkers, as well as all kinds of recipes from the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

Naturally, there are all kinds of recipes that include seafood, shellfish, rice, grits, and pecans. But, for me, the best part of the book are the family stories that accompany each recipe, along with funny ones about Greene’s friends. From garden clubs to legislative hijinks, there are all kinds of tales to make you laugh. But, there are also a few that will make you tear up, stories that deal with aging and death. We’ll all get there, but that doesn’t mean the stories won’t bring tears.

I’m not going to go on about Greene’s charming stories or her mouthwatering recipes. Instead, I’m going to quote her from the introduction, and then ask you if you want to share a memory or two. Mary Martha Greene says, “Food elicits powerful memories”, and that’s why so many of her stories revolve around family occasions and celebrations.

What about you? Are there foods that bring back memories? I know my sisters will have different memories than I do, but here are a few of my family memories connected to food. And, once I started looking back, it was hard to pick just a few.

My mother remembers Sunday dinners at her mother-in-law’s. I remember Grandma Growel’s bread-and-butter pickles and her spiced peaches. Grandma did a lot of canning. A cousin has stories of being forced to make chocolate chip cookies at Grandma’s, but she’s one of the oldest, and I don’t share that memory.

It was always a treat to stay at my Grandma Smith’s, my mother’s mother. All of my cousins remember Grandma’s cut-out cookies, thin with anise icing. And, I’m guessing most of us remember Boston coolers at her house, made with vanilla ice cream and any flavor pop you wanted. She always had several flavors on hand. Why did my family call them Boston coolers when stories say they were called that in Detroit, and made with ginger ale? I have no idea. The family has no connection to Detroit and Grandma didn’t offer ginger ale.

Anyone who knows me well knows the story of my love of my mother’s gumdrop bars. Those bars, with the anise icing, are the smell of Christmas for me. Mom also makes the best pie crust and pies, from scratch. I love her cherry, lemon meringue, and, oh, her rhubarb! She used to mail me a slice of rhubarb pie.

My father liked to cook, too. His vegetable soup is still the best I ever had, made with barley. And, I’ll never forget the time he made ketchup. I like ketchup, but that stunk, and, I thought tasted awful.

Mom and Dad made popcorn balls at Christmas, burning their hands. But, Dad loved to give them to his family. And, corn pudding. That was a family activity, husking the sweet corn, scraping the corn, and then baking it. It could be frozen, and eaten all winter. We all love corn pudding, and my youngest sister, Christie, now has the tool to make it. And, she shares!

Food memories. That’s really what Mary Martha Greene’s cookbook did for me. It brought back memories of family and food. What about you? Are there are food stories you want to share?

Mary Martha Greene’s website is https://thecheesebiscuitqueen.com/

The Cheese Biscuit Queen Tells All: Southern Recipes, Sweet Remembrances, and a Little Rambunctious Behavior by Mary Martha Greene. The University of South Carolina Press, 2021. ISBN 9781643361826 (paperback), 232p.


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