SOUTHERN SYMPATHY: FOOD FOR COMFORT(ING)
In times of grief, thoughts and prayers are comforting. So is sweet tea bread.
Glazed, lemony and looking so pretty on a platter, how can it not bring warmth to a bereaved family’s heart?
This is a story about funer-als, but I promise it won’t be sad. There are enough carbs involved to soak up the tears. That’s because it’s a story about Southern funeral food. It would be sad only if it didn’t include heavenly visions of sweet potato crumb cake.
Sympathy food is sub- lime. But it doesn’t have to be fancy, just heartfelt and soothing – and in the South, plentiful.
“Funerals in the South are synonymous with food,” writes author Perre Cole- man Magness in her newly released book, “The South- ern Sympathy Cookbook”
(The Countryman Press, $22.95). “We often express our emotions and process our grief through the act of nourishing our neighbors.”
A Memphis event plan- ner, Magness knows her Southern-comfort grub well – four years ago, she wrote an entire book about pimento cheese. In “Southern Sym- pathy,” she presents more than 160 pages of guilty-pleasure recipes for dishes that include gooey butter cake, ambrosia with rosemary and honey syrup, deviled ham, hot brown casserole and Jack and Coke sheet cake.
The author sprinkles in a few literary quotations and excerpts from classic Southern obituaries. They rise off the page as if pow- ered by the yeast in Magness’ Angel Biscuits.
“He loved Southern food smothered in cane syrup … he hated vegetables and hypocrites,” goes the obit of a particular ladies’ man from Bloomingdale, Geor- gia. “He got married when he was 18, but it didn’t last. [He] was no quitter, however, so he gave it a shot two more times.”
Then there was the poor woman from Galveston, Texas, whose obit revealed what appears to be a life of solitude and severity:
“She had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life … Her presence will not be missed by many. Very few tears will be shed.”
It’s doubtful that anyone baked and Saran-wrapped al oaf of buttermilk banana bread in her memory. Then again, as the author points out, one does not have to wait for a funeral to whip up some comforting, restorative grub.
Southern chef Virginia Willis, a James Beard Awardwinning cookbook author, agrees that Magness’ recipes are “delectable and delightful” enough to celebrate life, not simply soothe the mourning. The recipes are, she writes on the book’s jacket, “well, to die for.”
The following recipes and author’s notes are reprinted from Perre Coleman Magness’ 2018 book “The Southern Sympathy Cookbook: Funeral Food with a Twist” with permission of its publisher, Countryman Press.