www.olsouthrecipes.com  |
Southern Recipes - Southern Cooking"down home food" |
About Us |
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About www.olsouthrecipes.com Hi, I'm Ken and I created the olsouthrecipes website. I'm just an old guy that loves cooking (and gardening). I am retired and the website is basically a hobby that allows me to share my passion for good food. I was born and raised in the deep South and although I have traveled far and wide, I remember my roots in the South. It is important to me for you to know that the website features Google ads which pay the website hosting fee, but there is nothing for sale on the site. All the recipes are free and you are perfectly free to ignore the ads. About The Recipes Most of the recipes came from my mom, undoubtedly one of the best cooks ever. She believed every dish should be cooked only one way, from scratch...with love. She had great disdain for packaged, canned, frozen, prepared food. She loved cooking and having those that ate her food ask for seconds. And she passed this trait on to me. She is no longer with us but she left a treasure of hundreds of her recipes which she collected over her 93 years. It is these recipes you will find on the website along with some of my own original recipes. Memories Perhaps everyone has memories of growing up with mom's cooking but, somehow, I believe food in the South has an extra special place. Every event, and especially family gatherings, are accompanied by a great array of food. I don't mean just a meal...an elaborate spread. The simplest of gatherings features home cooked dishes that required hours in the kitchen. Home made bread, greens, beans that cooked for four hours or longer. I grew up in a large city but, as a child, I remember going to grandma's house out in the country. For a six year old, it was like a trip to Disneyland. There was a porch around the entire house and on that porch, outside the kitchen door, was a water well. It was amazing to me that the water came out of the ground instead of the faucet. And on the porch, on one side of the house, was a swing. Next to the porch was an apple tree. If you got the swing going high, on the up arc, you could reach over the back of the swing and pick an apple while still swinging. To me, this was awesome. Grandma made the best biscuits and the worse coffee in the world. Of course, I was not allowed coffee at that age, but I remember the adult's conversation in the car on the way home. Grandma made a full breakfast every morning of her adult life. Ham, bacon, sausage, eggs, biscuits, pancakes and sorghum molasses. And coffee so strong it could take paint off the wall. She cooked on a wood stove and did not have electricity until her final years (1942). She refused to touch a light switch because it was magical and unnatural. And she never did. The meat was cured in their smoke house, the vegetables came from the garden, eggs came from their chickens and fruit came from their trees. About all that came from a store was flour and coffee. They made their own soap and molasses. It was all a wonder to a child. One of my fondest memories is of the annual family reunion held in a large picnic area. There was swimming in the lake, little girls to tease and the same comments from the adults every year; "my, how you've grown". And best of all, there was ambrosia and deviled eggs. All you could eat. (Both recipes are on the website). I could go on for pages, but I suppose this is about all anyone wants to read. My final thought, try to feed your family more natural food cooked from scratch. A generation of fast food junkies is so sad to me. Teach your children the joy and pride they can obtain from real home cooking. And...enjoy the recipes. |
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