Category: Jackson

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Winifred’s Table

The culinary history of Jackson, Mississippi is filled with colorful characters, including one who exemplifies the genteel aspects of any Southern city in the early decades of the last century.

Winifred Green Cheney was born into a very old Jackson family; originally from Maryland, the Greens moved to Jackson in the early 19th century. Winifred was born in the second family home at 647 North State Street in 1913. She graduated magna cum laude from Millsaps with a bachelor of arts in Latin in 1933, and on October 25, 1934 (after a 7-year engagement) she married Reynolds Cheney, who became one of the city’s most prominent attorneys.

While Winifred, in almost every respect, was a model for a well-to-do woman of social standing in the mid-century South (active in her church and in social charities, etc.), in another she was not: Winifred was a writer. In the course of her life, she wrote (about cooking, mainly) for such well-known publications as The National Observer, The Rotarian, Southern World and, of course, Southern Living. She published two cookbooks (both by Oxmoor House), Cooking for Company (1985) The Southern Hospitality Cookbook (1976).

Winifred’s Southern Hospitality Cookbook is not only a treasure-trove of splendid recipes, but as a whole is a tutorial of upper-class cooking in the mid-20th century South. The recipes are rich and varied; the ingredients are often expensive, and the times for preparation are usually considerable. Indeed, one of the most frequent critiques of the book is how complicated, indeed “fussy” the recipes are, many often calling for minute amounts of several various ingredients and elaborate stage-by-stage instructions on their preparation. But this is the way Winifred and the women of her generation cooked; they had plenty of time on their hands, and more often than not enough money to spend on costly and hard-to-find ingredients.

Many of the recipes are heirlooms from Virginia and the Eastern Seaboard, as well as many from “my great-grandmother … from Lone Star Plantation in the Mississippi Delta, written in her fine Spencerian hand.” (“But there were no directions,” Winifred adds. “I found this to be true with most of the old ‘receipts’ in her walnut escritoire papeterie.”) She also includes recipes from dozens and dozens of friends and neighbors: Odel Herbert’s Carrot Casserole, Vivienne Wilson’s Asparagus and Carrot Escallop, Claudia Whitney’s Meat Spaghetti, Zollie Kimbrough’s Shrimp Casserole, Linda Lacefield’s Apricot Stuffing for Duck, Becky Voght’s Caramel Icing; and many, many more.

The Southern Hospitality Cookbook is a milestone in the culinary history of Jackson as well as the Middle South, but what takes it to a higher level is a short essay by her editor at The National Observer, David W. Hacker (“Savoring Miss Welty’s Wit at a Special Seafood Lunch”), and a preface by Eudora herself, “A Note on the Cook” in which she writes:

“The original Lady Bountiful was the invention of an Irish dramatist in 1707. Winifred exists as her own version. She makes her rounds with baskets and trays as a simple extension of her natural hospitality.In good weather, but especially in bad, splashing forth in raincoat and tennis shoes, carrying a warm cake straight from her oven, she sympathizes with you or celebrates with you by sharing her table with you.

When Jane Austen’s Miss Bates, attending Mr. Weston’s ball, is seated at the supper, she surveys the table with a cry, ‘How shall we ever recollect half these dishes?’ When I sit down to Sunday dinner at Winifred’s, I feel just like Miss Bates. What guest could not? But it now becomes possible for us to recollect the dishes we’ve dined on there. The cook herself has recollected the recipes for them in her own cookbook. It’s like another extension of Winifred Cheney’s gracious hospitality; she has added another leaf to her table.”

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Where to Eat in Jackson

Some time ago, I contacted a fellow living in Los Angeles named John Howe for help with an article I was writing. We corresponded for a while, then he said he was going to be driving through Jackson to visit relatives in Tallahassee. We agreed to meet at the grocery store near my home and to decide on a place for lunch.

When I got to the store, John was excitedly running up and down the lunch buffet asking questions about the food. The people in line were smiling at this tall skinny white man with brilliant red hair. I could tell that his excitement over the food they eat every day tickled them, and they happily explained to him what was on the steam table.

“Now, over here is the peas and snaps,” one lady pointed out. “You gotta let them stew a long time for them to be good. And them smothered chops, too, they take a long time.”

“What’s in those bread sticks over there?” John asked.

“That’s Mexican corn sticks,” a fellow in work coveralls said. “They got peppers in ‘em but not hot peppers. They go good with pintos.”

“Are those turnip greens?” John asked.

Somebody barked and said, “No, them’s collards.”

John was stupified by the pile of fried chicken. “Do you sell all that?” he asked the lady behind the counter.

“Oh, this is our second batch,” she said. “We make one in the morning for the folks who come in for breakfast.”

“Fried chicken for breakfast!” John’s mouth was literally dropping to his chest.

“Yessir,” she said. “And we got another batch frying now ‘cause we always have a bunch of people coming in during the afternoon to pick some up to take home.”

After his turn to be served, John joined me at the booth under the window. He had two Styrofoam containers full. One contained Fried chicken—a breast and a leg—with peas and snaps, lima beans, and a cornbread muffin. The other plate had smothered chops with rice and gravy, green beans with sliced potatoes, and Mexican corn sticks. He also paid extra for a side of stewed cabbage and a container of peach cobbler. When he sat down, he opened the containers and sat looking at them and smiling.

“I wanted to get three plates,” he said, “But I thought better of it. I want to get to Atlanta before dark, and I didn’t want to have to stop and eat.” Tell me about their breakfasts. Grits and fried chicken? I never thought of it.”

“Two kinds of grits,” I said, “white and yellow, and they offer two kinds of bacon, curly and flat, link, patty, and smoked sausages, scrambled eggs, and pan after pan after pan of buttermilk biscuits.”

John was smiling and shaking his head. “You know, Jesse, when I stopped in Abeline I pulled up information on the restaurants here, you know, those, ‘top listed’ and ‘most recommended.’ I even went to the local tourism and social media sites looking for a place that told me I was in Jackson, Mississippi.”

“I really didn’t see any,” he said. “I found some white tablecloth places serving the same things you find in L.A.:, liver pâté, osso buco, burgers with Tillamook cheddar, Japanese beef filets and piccatas out the ass.”

He looked at the people standing in line. “But here is where people should come to eat when they’re in Jackson. This place, these people, this f! It’s magical.”

When John returned to L.A. (he flew back), he wrote and thanked me again for “taking him to lunch.” I pointed out that I had merely met him at a grocery store, and that he had paid for the food. “But you brought me to a place I never knew existed. I learned. That’s what going somewhere is all about. Otherwise you’re just dragging the same stuff around all over the place.”