Ozark Cooking

…sugar cookies and good ol’ days by Joshua Heston Have you ever read Good Old Days? It is a monthly magazine published by House of White Birches Publishers in Indiana. The editor is the venerable Ken Tate and I strongly recommend you look it up and purchase a subscription. Ken is a superb editor who…

Great Pumpkin Sheet Cake from Dale Grubaugh Cake: 4 eggs beaten 1 cup oil 2 cups sugar 1 16-oz. can pumpkin 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking soda in 1 teaspoon water Mix eggs, oil, sugar, pumpkin and soda. Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder and…

Apple Butter Makin’ by Dale Grubaugh There’s a great big pan of cat-head biscuits a’bakin’ off in the oven…. Made from scratch of course. Settin’ before me is a butter dish with a fresh stick of real butter and a jar of homemade apple butter. All three of us are a’waitin’ fer those biscuits to…

Plate 1. Shmoo In The Cradle (Jonathan’s Pumpkin or White Cushaw), February 5, 2008. As a side note, this particular cushaw weighed in at 20.5 pounds. Now that’s prolific! — the editor Cushaw by Donny Heston Unsuspectingly, I took a packet of Jere Gettle’s white cushaw seeds and planted four hills, each a hoe-handle length…

Plate 1. Harvest cornucopia. October 11, 2008. Hillbilly Vegetable Fixin’s from How They Lived In The Ozarks by Chick Allen Chick Allen, fourth generation in the Ozarks — of Indian blood — was born in a log cabin on the James River. This is the story of the way the early Indians and white settlers…

Plate 1. Harvest-time maple leaves, Roark Mountain. October 5, 2008. Dried Fruit from How They Lived In The Ozarks by Chick Allen Chick Allen, fourth generation in the Ozarks — of Indian blood — was born in a log cabin on the James River. This is the story of the way the early Indians and…

Grandma Gwinn’s Ginger Bread by Joshua Heston I remember my great grandma, Lula [Benge] Gwinn, although she passed away when I was only four. She lived in all-but forgotten Leroy, Iowa, in a tiny, shingle-sided house surrounded by lilacs. Although she lived her whole life up in the rolling hills and hollers of Lucas County,…

Fried Morel Mushrooms by Joshua Heston & Dale Grubaugh Mushroom hunting can be tricky business. Not easy to find, rarely in the same place twice — and important not to confuse with poisonous toadstools — this is not a sport for the uninitiated. However, frying mushrooms is another story entirely. If you can fry bacon,…

Plate 1. War Eagle Cornbread, May 11, 2009. Corn bread by Joshua Heston You wouldn’t think that a simple cake — and it is more of a cake than a bread — would garner so much attention. Or come in so many varieties. Cornbread does. A staple of not only the Ozarks but rural America…