“In my family we have a ritual dinner served in the heart of every summer, though I never thought of it as such until a few years ago. The foods are as specific and their preparation as prescribed as those for Passover: fresh corn is cut, then “milked” from the cob with the edge of a spoon and simmered in a cast-iron skillet with butter, cream, salt, and pepper; white half -runner beans and small, creamy white potatoes in their jackets are braised slowly all day on the back of the stove; deep-red and warm-yellow tomatoes are laid out in thick slabs on a china plate turning translucent with age; cucumbers not much bigger than a grown man’s thumb are sliced, salted, and chilled in a glass dish with ice cubes on top; coleslaw is made the painstaking way my mother always made it, with hand-slivered cabbage; trimmed green onions are served standing tall in a water glass or mug; a jar of chow-chow or some other hot homemade relish is passed on the side; something from the garden is dredged in seasoned cornmeal and fried in a black cast-iron skillet—green tomatoes or okra, maybe; and always there is a pan of hot cornbread and a pitcher of iced tea with sugar melted in it and lemon on the side.
—Butter Beans to Blackberries – Recipes from the Southern Garden written by Ronni Lundy.
If your like me, Ronni’s list of summer food sounds delicious and is a meal I could eat every day.
Today’s Thankful November giveaway is a used copy of Ronni Lundy’s book Butter Beans to Blackberries – Recipes from the Southern Garden. Leave a comment on this post to be entered. Giveaway ends November 9, 2024.
Last night’s video: Planting Garlic & Potato Onions.
Tipper
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Love all these foods, except Blackberries. Yes, I said it!
Tipper I thought you had written this because it sounds like one of the meals you would cook.
It brought me back to my childhood. We ate foods fresh from our fields. Sometimes there would be a meat with our meal but mostly not. I still cook that way today.
Sounds delicious to me!
Just reading the food listed for your dinner brought back precious memories of my Mother’s cooking. Once gathered around the table with my sisters and Mother, I remember as a young child eating her crispy, delicious fried chicken. I was eating with gusto just like the others. As Mother reached for a wing, she said with a grin on her face that as she had already eaten one wing as soon as she ate the second wing, she would fly away. I was thunderstruck! Everyone else was laughing. I could not believe my sisters were laughing about our Mother flying away from home. I remember how heartbroken I was. I started sobbing. My Mother quickly came and took me in her arms and told me she was just funning and that she would never leave us. It took me a while to stop crying. To this day, my one surviving sister occasionally reminds me of that fried chicken dinner. Tipper, I love your writings because they bring back so many memories of my own family and our way of life. Thank you for your gift to me.
oh my that sounds so yummy!
Sounds so good!! summers feast!!
If you ain’t hungry before you read today’s post you will be after you read it! That’s what my Mommy always said was “real food” unlike that stuff you fix from a box or a can. 🙂
What a unique title for a cook book. The described meal sounds wonderful.
I am thankful for the weekend I spent visiting with what I thought were long lost family members. It was such a blessing.
Sounds mighty fine!
All sounds so good. I to , put my cut up cucumbers into cold water with icecubes on them. It keeps them nice and crunchy. That’s a meal fit for old country folk like me. I love and collect cook books.I would love to add this one to my collection. Thanks Tipper.
I love all the comments and the memories they bring back of families, vegetables and gardens and hot biscuits. I guess y’all can tell I love a hot biscuit! Love to Granny and all of you too!
Oh, I so loved the story about the southern meal. It was just like we had growing up and still have today in the summer when the garden is coming off and so wonderful. Nothing better than fresh creamed corn off the cob. Grandma would break out her big cast iron frying pan and cook up some country ham from the smokehouse and we would make a big pan of hot buttermilk biscuits – squeezed off, not rolled out and cut. We would have fresh cut tomatoes and cucumbers too. Along with our homemade briarberry jelly and honey and our fresh churned butter, molasses or chocolate sopping syrup. I can almost taste it now. Thanks all of you for the memories. They were good’uns.
That’s a fine summer meal! Speaking of a fine meal, last week I made three different meals from your cookbook Tipper, and all were big hits with the family.
Sounds like a feast!!!
I love that description of supper. Growing up poor every meal had a pone of cornbread and what was left of last nights vegetable and one new cooked vegetable. In summer there was always tomatoes and cucumbers or in winter pickles or relish. If you didn’t care for the vegetable of the day then you ate milk and bread. It was buttermilk and bread that kept me alive some nights and it is still my #1 comfort food.
one more thing. Tipper, I made your canned coleslaw over the summer and took it to our family fall pitch-in. It was a hit with everyone! It was so good! It will be on our list of things to put up yearly, Lord willing. Thank you so much for sharing!
Meal fit for a king, or queen! So good!
I’m thankful today for electricity. As I sit here at work with NO electricity I am reminded to pray for those in Tennessee, the Virginias, and North Carolina. May the Lord of Heaven and earth meet all of your needs according to His riches in glory. As we pack boxes for the needy we know your needs are great. May God bless each one of you both physically and mentally. You are not forgotten!
Thank you Tipper for your goodness!
We ate like this all four seasons. Enjoyed reading the posts!
Love your daily posts. We live nearby in Sautee-Nacoochee, GA. so when you talk about all the places you visit in Murphey, North Carolina and the Hiawassee area, we know exactly what you’re talking about.
Sounds delicious!
That sounds wonderful! Makes me hungry.
Reading the offerings at that special summer meal made my mouth water!
I remember many similar meals at my grandma’s house. I would love to have Ronni’s cookbook and replicate some of these foods for my grandchildren.
Reading about that summer dinner surely made my mouth water. My siblings abd I
Sounds like a good summer time meal
This sounds so similar to my favorite summertime suppers as a child, when nearly everything we had for supper came fresh out of the garden: green beans cooked with baby potatoes, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, squash, and corn on the cob. Mom would also make a white gravy from bacon grease and a bit of the grease she used to make homemade donuts for just a touch of sweetness and serve that with either biscuits or just plain white bread torn into pieces. Yummy!! My childhood was truly blessed!
Mouth watering meal for sure!
Sounds delicious and wonderfully familiar. I think often of my Mother and the meals she prepared for us.
My favorite would be the chow chow!
I know that it is a true heresy,but I miss the cucumbers of Summer more than tomatoes.
That’s a meal fit for a king! That’s what my family always has said over a good meal for as long as I can remember. It sure brings back some great memories. Loved the video last night, you and Matt got lots planted and we will all be watching for the garlic next summer. Continued prayers for all who were hurt by the hurricanes, tornados, the wild fires everywhere. My heart breaks for those who lost lives, homes, land, and jobs. It bogs my mind how much was lost. Prayers for you and yours, God bless you and yours❤❤
My family also shared in this kind of meal in the summers. It was one of my favorites and was always so good when it all came straight from your own garden. What memories are found in a wonderful meal. I cling to those memories now that my mom is gone to be with The Lord. She loved being in the kitchen and in her garden. The smell of fresh green beans and bacon on the stove or banana bread in the oven rekindles so many fond memories of her at home doing what she did best. She liked watching your channel and we talked often about your recipes and enjoyed trying them too.
Beautiful food ! Beautiful writing ! Beautiful people ! I love the title and would love to read her book !
Fried corn (corn cooked in a skillet) is still a favorite of all in my family. As is green “beans and taters” (slow cooked to death) on the side. I guess I’ve gotten “ above my raisin’s” inasmuch as I prefer fried hoecakes to pone cornbread. I do admit that there are times when pone bread is equally tasty; hot out of the oven and a little melted butter drizzled on top and eaten like cake. Didn’t eat much okry as a young’un but spent time in Georgia and deep fat fried became a favorite. In my part of eastern Kentucky, sliced tomatoes were eaten with breakfast, dinner, and supper “as long as we had em”. You’ve brought up some great memories of home style and traditional cooking in the holler once again, Tipper. Interestingly, my grandmother lived to be 89 years old and “never cooked on anything” but a wood burning stove …..
I love butter beans, my family thinks I’m nuts and blackberries , southern ones are the best. I’m originally from Virginia. My sister’s and I used to go pick a bunch so my Uncle could make a cobbler. He was the best at making biscuits and corn bread.
oh….that menu made me hungry just reading it. I would very much love a copy of this recipe book!!
Sounds like a feast and a delicious one too!! It sure brings back some wonderful memories for me.
We love butterbeans around our house and eat them all year round.
My favorite meals are summer vegetables. My brother lives next door and we cook together most nights. Nothing better than corn, green beans, stewed potatoes and of course cornbread. I recently got a cast iron skillet and use it for my cornbread.
Tipper, thanks for sharing your family with us. It brings back memories of my childhood. My great great grandmother lived to be 101. She ate garden vegetables, cornbread, biscuits and seasoning meat. Strong black coffee was her drink of choice.
Sounds so much like some of my mother’s summer meals. My sis and Intalk about our favorites, and she remembers how good Mom’s creamed new potatoes were. I remember the creamed corn as a favorite. She would use the garden all summer with whatever was coming in. The greens were something I craved. She, by far, made the best Cole slaw I ever tasted, because she took that opportunity to chop up some of the too many cucumbers to add to the Cole slaw. It adds a flavor that I have never tasted in anybody else’s Cole slaw. Hmmm, think I will just make some cucumber, cabbage slaw today. The end of the garden foods were my favorite in winter. That is when she took all the random vegetables and canned enough soup and made chow chow and kraut. Something I never quite become accustomed to was something she cooked called “back bones and ribs.” I loved the biscuits, but left that concoction for everybody else to enjoy. Loved this post, as it was such a pleasant reminder of times gone by when “fast food” was not even a part of our world.
I grew up eating just that way, just those veggies, prepared by mother and grandmother, but I didn’t realize just how poetically we were eating. Great cooking, great writing.
There is real poetry in these words, a love for the garden, a love for the hands that harvest the bounty and prepare it to nourish the family, a love for the little things like a time-worn china plate or a special way a mother made coleslaw. Little attentions to detail like how large to harvest a cucumber and how to serve it best chilled. You can tell these foods graced a table that fed cherished children and welcomed guests joyfully by people that knew what really mattered in life.
I love old cookbooks!
This meal sounds absolutely wonderful. My kind of meal! I would like to partake of the meal and read more from the author.
Morning, Tipper! I could eat any of the foods Ronni talked about, too! I’m writing down the names of these books you are sharing in case my name doesn’t get picked, I can buy it. I love biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs! Please tell Granny I keep her in my prayers every night as I’m sure so many others do as well. God must be answering those prayers since she is doing so well!! May He shower your family and followers with His blessings today and always.
When I was growing up, we ate the same dinner in the winter as we did in the summer. Fresh out of the garden, it was a meal fit for a king, but it tasted just as good out of a canning jar when the snow was flying and the bitter cold made us glad we worked hard to preserve the summer bounty. I love cookbooks with recipes that include God’s gift from the garden.
Sounds like the food spreads we would have every summer when all the family would get together for those family reunions we always had. Sure made my mouth water for the foods of yesterdays but some are not made anymore. Many have left us and at our reunions now are just not the same.
Oh my goodness that all sounds delish and I can just envision that meal right in front of me.
Ha! Years ago when we first moved to East TN, I brought a big dish of buttered, canned corn to a church gathering. It wasn’t touched! All the other corn dishes were prepared the way described above and scraped clean.
This reminds me when I was growing up in East Tennessee. The meals from the garden from my daddy’s hard work to make sure we had it and momas hard work preparing it for us. I sure do miss those days
Sure brings back a lot of good memories!
Oh my goodness! Sounds absolutely delicious. I miss my Mammaw Coleman’s home cooking. She was the best cook I’ve ever known.
Summer is my least favorite season, but it is definitely the best eating season!
That sounds like family gathering when I was a young. My mom would cook the best meals. Makes me homesick for her, then just thinking about my mom, makes me homesick for her.
I am reading the daily blogs, but probably won’t comment much during this month because I won last year so need to give someone else a turn to win. If I do comment I’ll remind you to pass on the blessing to someone else.
Prayers continue for the hurricane survivors.
Reminds me of my family’s summer meals. A feast of God’s abundance. But if a guest was present fryed chicken would be included. Oh and biscuits, no cornbread.
I enjoyed this excerpt; what a great title. Sounds like a book I would enjoy reading. Sounds scrumptious and takes me back to my mama and daddy’s kitchen & table and my grandmas kitchen & table where she, my mother and my aunts would have prepared wonderful dishes to feed our family together. The best times and eatin but I sure didn’t realize it at the time!
A meal fit for a king.
So thankful for you and your blog!
This brought back so many memories of growing up for me. My parents both worked, but we had an enormous garden every year. My parents would work hard preserving everything for the winter.
That’s a meal that brings back memories of childhood for sure. Sounds so good!!
Tipper, this colorful excerpt could have been written describing one of your delicious meals. At first I thought it was! 🙂
What a blessed bounty to share with family or those that drop by!
That sounds so delicious! Would love to read all her recipes!
Gathering around the family table with wonderful homecooked goodness, such wonderful memories. We gathered last night to celebrate our grandson’s birthday, there were 12 of us and my heart was so full sharing time with them. Thanks for sharing your lives with us.
Wow, what a feast! What a delicious meal, all grown or produced in your own back yard garden or kitchen.
This post reminds me of the stories of soldiers, cowboys or whoever eating rough who would, after eating same-ole same-ole too long, compile a fantasy meal from among the group. This one would have filled one of those bill-o-fares. Growing up, I didn’t know how good I had it.
That meal reminds me so much of delicious summer food! Thanks for sharing. I would like to read more by this author! God bless and take care!
Love these food traditions!!! Reading that menu made me realize how much I missed not having a garden this year. I’ve not read any of her books but they’ll be added to my “books to find” list.
So many memories this meal description revived!
We love Butter Beans! I just love to watch you on YouTube!
It’s a warm, breezy day here in Indiana with a chance of rain today. The leaves are really falling and I guess after tomorrow most will be off the trees. We always mulch ours and let them fertilize the grass. Your sardine story tickles me. I gag at their smell and make my husband eat his out in the garage!
I agree with you Tipper-I could eat that meal everyday
My great-grandmother made her corn as described above. This was my “special dish” for gatherings at her house. This meal sounds much like a meal at her house. I was blessed to have her until I was 20 years old! Not many people can remember having meals with their great grandmother. Such treasured memories I’m thankful for.
The part about milking the cob with a spoon piqued my interest this morning. I have only ever see it done with a knife. The same knife you use to cut the corn off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wZYHNaZF4w
I can picture doing it with a spoon but can’t see it being an advantage. I would like to see a video of milking corncobs with a spoon or at least reading good description. I am an old dog but I am willing to learning new tricks.
Ronnis description of a dish or plate and the onions being maybe in a water glass was intriguing enough for me to want to read her book! On a side note ,my husband has toyed with the idea of naming his new boat Butterbean (small boat) LoL I will let you know if he does.
This makes me hungry and nostalgic as well.
My mouth is watering! It all sounds so fresh and delicious…what a summer feast!
I just found this author. Reading “Victuals”. Would love to own some of her books!
That meal combination sounds wonderful!!
That meal sure brings back the memories. I love fresh creamed corn. There’s just nothing else that comes close to that delicious creamy goodness. We would have had what Mama called mixed pickles in the winter, a mixture of what was left in the garden at the end of the growing season. Peeled tomatoes and cucumber as well as a sliced onion would take its place in summer. As many times as I’ve made a good country meal over the past 60+ years, none ever tasted as good as my mama’s or granny’s food, especially from my younger days.
We ate much like this in Middle Tennessee summers although not so many vegetables at one meal since our family was
smaller. We were cattle farmers so beef was served frequently. Would love her cookbook!
I never really thought about that meal, but it is truly a snapshot of a typical summer meal at my grandmother’s kitchen. Thanks for the memory
Richard
After reading this post ,,,I’m hungry!
Tom northwest,ohio
I couldn’t think of a single thing missing from this summer grocery list from the garden. Even here in Texas. My Granny put many a meal like this on our table. Thanks for sharing this.
That meal sounds delicious and makes me hungry just thinking about it. Haven’t had fried green tomatoes or fried okra in ages.
That sounds like a meal to be thankful for! it certainly makes me hungry.
Definitely a meal I could eat everyday! And just the description sounds like my sweet grandma’s kitchen table every day in the summertime!
That meal sounds delicious! I’d love to be able to eat that every day too! Summer bounty is hard to beat!
Plain food, plain people, good life.
I was getting hungry reading about all that yummy food. There’s nothing like fresh veggies from the garden.
I enjoyed last nights video as always! Y’all are like family to me❣️
I wish my garden had done better, but I am still thankful for the little I did get. It made it all the more tasty to eat what I did get.
I made my first batch of butter bean this past year. Added some smoked Turkey wings and seasonings and kale. I then cooked a small pasta in with them. Delish!
I love the idea of ritual dinners. Sometimes, an old favorite with seasonal ingredients. I had mac and cheese last night, but roasted brussel sprouts and cubes of roasted butternut squash, and dried cranberries were also in the casserole and it was delicious.
Oh goodness this sounds like my kind of cookbook. Almost takes me right into my grandmas summer kitchen. Except the chow chow, that’s something they never had that I saw. Or maybe I just overlooked it.
That should be lima not lime.
A few days ago you had a post about butter beans and lime beans. It gave me a craving. I opened a can of mixed veggies and ate it all. Butter beans, carrots, green peas, green beans, corn – I may have another one today.
Thank you for your postings every day. I’m not from your area, but I wish I was. Would love to have a copy of this book
Definitely a post to leave your mouth watering and your mind dreaming of next summer’s garden.
Happy Monday
I collect old cookbooks. The church ladies and local organizations provide such a great snapshot of local life. I grab a copy from every rummage sale, thrift store or antique shop I pass. I’m fascinated by the history and little stories that always accompany the recipes.
That all sounded so good and made me hungry for it!
I’m hungry!
when I was growing up there were a lot of blackberries around here but all of them have been cleared out and I miss them there’s nothing better than a blackberry cobbler
Mmmmmm sounds like a favorite meal from my childhood and either from my parents or grandparents gardens or a combination of goodness out of each and put together for us all to enjoy together
It is strange to read this this morning. I have been laying here awake thinking about my past life and wishing I could go back and relive those times spent with so many of my family and loved ones. I remember when our meals consisted of the food we had grown. Our main source of meat was pork, chicken, along with squirrels and rabbits caught in rabbit gums during the winter months. We did not eat very much beef because of not having cows and having to buy it. Back then there were no deer in my area. Grandmother and my mother worked hard all summer preserving vegetables and making jelly, drying apples, along with chow chow and relish and other similar things to eat. We would kill a 500 pound hog each year around Thanksgiving. Today’s restaurant bought food was unheard of in my family. I was 17 years old before eating my first pizza and was grown before eating spaghetti, steaks or other similar foods. My Mother and Daddy would get up early enough to fix breakfast of homemade biscuits, eggs, maybe some type of pork meat and grits for us to eat before we left for school or Daddy leaving for work. Mother stayed home and worked with doing the necessary things of taking care of a home and her family. While growing up I never sit down to a bowl of corn flakes or toast. Ronni mentioned cream corn, I have been known to eat my mother in laws cream corn for dessert. She made it from Merit corn grown by them. It was the best I have ever ate anywhere.
I was blessed to spend time with my two grown grandsons and my son this weekend. I hope and pray they will have as many good memories of their life with me as I have of my life spent with not only my family but my wife’s family members that have now passed on.
Randy,
I always enjoy reading your postings and hearing about your wonderful memories of your family and how you grew up. Lately I’ve been wishing I could “go back and do it all again”. Like you, I miss all the family and friends that are now gone, but I’m so grateful that I had each one of them in my life……..some for a long time and others not long enough! God bless you!
Jackie
I, too, greatly enjoy reading your comments daily, Randy. They are so rich with wisdom and life lived. You have a wonderful heritage.
Randy, sounds like a truly blessed life, both in your growing up years and then with your wife and her family too! And a great weekend with your son and grandsons. I too always enjoy reading your comments. Have a great day!