Some of Mississippi’s best recipes have never been written down, and that’s exactly why we need to save them.
Ask a Mississippi grandmother for her biscuit recipe, and there’s a good chance she’ll tell you to start with some flour, add a little shortening, and pour in enough buttermilk until it feels right.
How much is enough? Well, honey, you’ll just know.
And therein lies the problem.
Some of the best recipes in Mississippi have never been written down. They’re tucked away in the memories of grandmothers, great-aunts, church ladies, and the kind of cooks who can put an entire Sunday dinner on the table without ever opening a cookbook.
They don’t need measuring cups. They’ve been making cornbread in the same cast-iron skillet for 50 years. They know when the chicken is done by looking at it, when the gravy needs another spoonful of flour, and exactly how much sugar belongs in the sweet tea.
Ask them to write it down, though, and things get complicated.
“Well, I don’t really measure anything.”
Of course you don’t, Granny. That’s why we’re asking!
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I’ve been thinking about the recipes that make their way onto our family tables year after year. The sweet potato casserole that everybody expects. The dressing that never tastes quite right unless a certain somebody makes it. The chocolate pie that disappears before the turkey is even put away.
We spend years eating these dishes, asking for seconds, and declaring that nobody makes them quite like Mama or Grandma.
But how often do we actually learn to make them?
Recipes are funny things. They’re about food, of course, but they’re also about people. A handwritten recipe card, stained with butter and dusted with flour, can bring back memories faster than just about anything.
Sometimes it’s not even the recipe we miss. It’s the person standing at the stove.
And that’s why I think we ought to start asking more questions while we still can.
Pull up a chair in the kitchen. Watch how the biscuits are made. Write down the ingredients, even if the measurements are a little questionable. Better yet, make the dish together and take a few pictures along the way.
Because one day, somebody is going to want to know how Grandma made that cornbread dressing, and “just add enough sage until it smells right” might not be much help.
This Thanksgiving, let’s make sure we’re passing down more than the serving dishes.
Let’s save the recipes, the stories, and a little piece of the people who made them.
After all, some of the best things handed down in Mississippi families never came with instructions.
