J By Kenny Goode  

  Being one of 12 children growing up on a farm in rural Union County, Mississippi, my mother learned how to cook early.  She once told me, that by the time she was 10 years old, she and her sisters did most of the cooking and had full reign of the kitchen.  

Her own mother was either sick much of the time or busy having children.  Had all the children survived birth, there would have been 16.  In depression Mississippi, apparently the more children there were meant more field hands…  She also learned to plow as well as any man, but that’s another story… 

Times were hard and she said they learned at a young age how to make a meal of most anything edible.  By the time she married and had her three children, she was an experienced and much sought-after cook. 

I told her a dozen times she should open up a restaurant and call it ‘Dorothy-Jean’s’.  Paula Deen would have had a fierce competitor and this is no exaggeration.  I can remember special dishes for every season:  In the spring, there would be fresh mustard greens, poke salad (does anyone still eat that), young baby potatoes and tenderloin. 

Daddy always kept a few hogs to be used for feeding the family.  We were always careful not to get bonded to any of them – just in case…  Fresh strawberry ice cream pies, banana pudding or lemon ice box pie with meringue were some spring-time desserts she always concocted. 

In the summer, I remember steaks and hamburgers, fried catfish, barbecued chicken baked potatoes, corn on the cob, garden salads – with many of those ingredients coming from her own garden.  Homemade chow-chow, pickles, tomato juice would always be served fresh.  For dessert, she’d make lemon bundt cakes, which we ate with fresh homemade strawberry or peach ice cream. 

Autumn weather brought dishes such as baked sweet potatoes, turnip greens, cabbage, homemade cornbread and she could whip up a mean roast with potatoes, carrots and onions. 

Holidays meant such items as honey glazed ham, turkey, homemade cornbread chicken and dressing served with her thick dressing gravy, made with celery, boiled eggs, chopped livers and a few secret ingredients. Side items would be her traditional fruit salad made with real mayonnaise, Coca-Cola salad, delicious green beans cooked with a hunk of ham or bacon for flavor, and her secret recipe potato salad.  Since her death, I’ve looked for that ’secret recipe’ a few times but have never been able to find it.