WHEN WE ARRIVE at Emily Meggett’s tidy yellow home on Edisto Island, South Carolina, Ms. Emily, as everyone calls her, is waiting at the side door, eager to start cooking with us. Guests are not welcome at her home, only friends and family, but Ms. Emily is quick to tell us that everyone who walks through her front gate instantly becomes friends and family. After a warm greeting, Ms. Emily and Cook’s Country Editor in Chief Toni Tipton-Martin approach the kitchen counter to begin making hoppin’ John based on a recipe from Ms. Emily’s cook-book, The New York Times best seller, Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island (2022).
The house is filled with the aromas of smoky bacon slowly simmering with cabbage on the stovetop and chicken thighs braising in the oven. Ms. Emily begins dispensing kitchen wisdom as quickly as she’d hand a stranger a warm biscuit. “A little sugar in the cabbage takes away the bitterness––about 1 tablespoon per head of cabbage.” And, “Spooning the cooking liquid over chicken helps the skin
