Lip-smacking good food
There was no better food anywhere than you’d get when you visited aunt Pod at Monkey’s Eyebrow during her lifetime. I suppose the memories of the great eating I did there are among the reasons I chose it as my retirement home.
Now don’t get me wrong, my mother was a great cook too. Mother – Jessie Lee is her name – and Pod were two of the 10 children of Bob and Lannie Crice. Maybe they learned their cooking skills from her. Grandmother – most of her children and grandchildren called her Mammy (it sounded like Mymee when they said it) – certainly did more than her of cooking.
My grandfather was jailer of Ballard County for about 20 years. The jail was part of the house where they lived with their children. Grandmother provided meals for the folks who wound up behind Ballard County bars so she cooked often and in quantity.
The best I can figure, my grandfather was about 40 when he married my grandmother, who was maybe 18 years old. I have no idea if she knew how to cook for a houseful of children, grandchildren and prisoners when they married; if she didn't she learned.
But there was something special about a meal at Pod’s. That was due, at least in part, to the fact that most of the vegetables came from the garden she and Herman raised.
It also was due a little bit to the practice in that part of the country – a practice now gastronomically incorrect – of adding some bacon grease to just about every vegetable before it was served.
And I think there’s something about Monkey’s Eyebrow soil that makes the food taste better.
Anyway, when Pod cooked it, it was outstanding. I’ve never eaten corn that came close to what she served.
She canned dill pickles that were worth a trip just to get a jar. Same with the tomato juice she put up in jars. Same with her relish. Come to think about it, same with everything she cooked or canned.
Pod’s daughter, Barbara Lynn or Barbie as we called her when we were kids, has managed to find and keep a lot of Pod’s recipes and she agreed to let me have some to post here.
I’ll start with a couple and add others from time to time.
I’ll tell you right now, however, that you can follow her recipe but it won’t taste as good as when she cooked it. For one thing, Pod – like most really great country cooks – wasn't always precise in her instructions. But follow along as well as you can. The food will be worth it.
Pod’s ’Licious and Luscious Pecan Pie Featuring Home Cracked and Shelled Intact Pecan Halves
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (vanilla if you prefer)
2/3 cups white corn syrup
2 whole eggs beaten well
2 Tablespoons flour
3/4 cup pecans
Use a frozen pie crust, (Not deep dish but one of the shallow ones). Cover bottom of the crust with intact pecan halves. They will rise to the top while the pie is baking. You can use chopped pecans but the pie looks better with intact halves.
Cream butter, sugar. Beat eggs and add half to butter and sugar mixture and mix. Mix in rest of eggs, and add flour. Mix and then add remaining ingredients. Pour all ingredients into the pie pan, over the pecans.
Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350 and bake 30 minutes.
Pod's German Chocolate Cake
(Submitted by my mother)
Take a 9X13 inch cake pan and grease and flour, set aside.
Fix a German cake mix according to directions, set aside.
Melt in microwave safe bowl, 8oz cream cheese, a box of powdered sugar and 2 sticks of butter, stir together, should be pourable.
Take your cake pan and sprinkle however many chopped pecans it takes to cover the bottom of the pan.
Take enough angel flake coconut to cover the pecans.
Pour cake mix over nuts and coconut.
Pour cream cheese mixture over the cake in a back and forth fashion until top is covered.
Bake 350 degrees until done
Divinity Candy
(Submitted by Pod’s daughter, Barbie)
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
3 egg whites
2/3 cup white syrup
vanilla
black walnuts
(Unfortunately, as is the case frequently with Pod, she gave no instructions about how to cook it. My guess is you cook it like you would most any kind of candy, until it’s done.)
Pod’s corn
(Submitted by Barbie)
Cut corn off the cob and scrape the cob. Put a little water in it not much, butter and cook till done. Add a little cornstarch to thicken.
(NOTE: Pod must have had a secret ingredient that she didn’t want anyone else to know about. When she cooked corn, it tasted better than any corn I’ve eaten anywhere else or at any time. Other people thought so too. Maybe it was the type of corn she and Herman grew, maybe it was something about the Monkey’s Eyebrow soil. But her corn was something special. In her recipe, she failed to note that she cooked it in a pan and added salt and pepper. I recall that she wasn’t conservative with the pepper.)
Pod’s spaghetti sauce
(Submitted by Barbie)
1 lb. hamburger
1 1/2 cup onion1 cup chopped green peppers
2 cans tomato puree (or 2 qts tomatoes drained); it is best with the puree
pepper and salt to taste
chili powder
Mix all the above together in dutch oven or large pan (put hamburger in raw) and cook on low all day.
Yellow Squash
Cut up the squash.
Put just a little water in the pan and cut up some onions in it.
Season it with bacon grease or butter.
Cook it down until the squash is done.
Salt and pepper to taste.
(NOTE: Squash cooked this way is one of my favorite vegetables. The way my mother told me to cook it is to slice up the squash and chop up some onion. Cover in a pan with water and boil it as you would boil potatoes to make mashed potatoes. When the squash has softened, drain off the water and mash the squash up. I use a potato masher for that. Then I add some bacon grease. Return pan to the stove and cook at lower temperature until excess water has cooked away. I season with some salt and a liberal amount of pepper.)
Pod’s Custard pie
(Submitted by my mother)
6 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt
2 cups milk
1/2 t nutmeg
coconut
directions: none given
Chess Pie
As only Pod could make
(Submitted by my mother)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 T flour
4 T warm water
pinch salt
butter, lots
Pod gives no directions for what to do with it after it’s mixed. Mother says, “I suppose you mix it together and put in a pie shell (deep I would guess) and bake it.” It’s not unusual for Pod’s recipes to list ingredients but not to say what to do after they’re mixed. She was such a great cook that she may have taken it for granted that everyone should know what to do.
Pecan Pie
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2/3 cups white syrup
2 whole eggs
2 T butter
3/4 cup pecans
Cream butter, sugar. Beat eggs and add half to butter and sugar mixture, add flour and rest of eggs, then add remaining ingredients.
Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350 and bake 30 minutes. Use a frozen pie crust, (Not deep dish but one of the shallow ones).
Very good
Sour Cream Cornbread
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 can creamed corn (small 8 oz)
1 carton sour cream (8oz)
Heat cast iron skillet in oven with a little oil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes
1 1/2 cup self rising meal (white)
2T butter