A Family Legacy of Great Home Cooks: Recipes and Stories from the R.N. Eaves Family Tree—1888 to 2015

By Susan B. White

A Family Legacy of Great Home Cooks is a collection of family stories and delicious recipes. As a bonus, unlike most other cookbooks, there are stories and photos for you to know and relate to many of the folks in this family tree, highlighting the love, humor, tenacity, and spirit of this enduring legacy. Welcome to their kitchens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512710014

Susan B. White

Long before her ninety-five-year-old mother came to live with her and husband, Jerry, Susan B. White was determined to write a cookbook someday. The idea for the direction her first book would take finally materialized by the opportunity to share many memories with her mother, Doris. For her granddaughter Skye’s tenth birthday in 2011, Susan created a much smaller but unique version. With that beginning and contributions from many family members, she slowly put her family’s stories, history, and recipes on paper and developed those into this collection. Susan spent many years as a caterer to supplement the income of a public-school teacher. All of the recipes are tested by her and family, as well as clients and friends. Now retired from teaching and catering, Susan still creates her sought-after dishes, especially the cheesecake, for small events and for gatherings of family and friends.

Book preview

The R.N. Eaves Legacy Begins

This is one of my favorite photographs. It is old and worn but shows how resourceful our grandparents were and what they were willing to do to provide for their children and build a good life. It had to be pretty scary for them to risk moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Tampa, Florida in 1922. It took ten days on dirt roads, just a few gas stations, and no motels. They camped out the entire way and made it to Tampa with only fifty cents left. Luckily, Granddaddy found a job within the first hour of arriving.

Granddaddy and Grandmama made use of everything they had on hand to be as comfortable as possible while building their first house on the lot they bought just a few months after getting to Tampa. It was also more practical to live in their tent for free than it was to rent, but it had to be hard on them most of the time. The hot Florida sun is relentless; there are swarms of pesky mosquitoes and endless cockroaches all year long. They could manage the bug problems pretty well, but the heat was not easy.

You can see they stacked suitcases and used an Army cot with boards on top to make a table. A kerosene stove is on one end with space to work and eat on the other. Granddaddy made the tent taller than usual, not only for standing room, but to allow the heat to rise, which gave a bit of relief. Their Model T Ford is barely visible in the back and it has a bucket, maybe full of water, hanging off the side.

There is a welcome breeze and Grandmama is pouring a cup of coffee, while the children, Doris, almost two years old, and R.N., six years old, enjoy a snack. I am guessing the snack is cat-head biscuits baked in a big cast iron Dutch oven on top of that kerosene stove!

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Grandmama Idella Eaves Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lightly oil an iron frying pan or use a baking sheet.

Slice butter into 6 or 8 pieces, rewrap, and put in freezer until needed. Sift all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. (I sift or whisk, then put into my large food processor) Add the cold butter to flour mixture and cut in with a fork or pastry cutter until coarse crumbs. Or pulse in food processor. You should still see bits of butter.

Add buttermilk to flour/butter mixture and stir, (or pulse) just until mix holds together. Turn out onto well floured surface and knead gently just until smooth. Roll out with floured rolling pin to about 1 inch thick. Use a 2 biscuit cutter; Idella often used a tin can with a hole punched in the bottom, It was free for the cleaning of it." Dip bottom edge of cutter into flour. Be sure to press straight down into the dough, avoid twisting. Place biscuits in pan, we like them to touch for softer sides; you can separate for crispy sides. Brush tops with melted butter or buttermilk if desired. Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes until a nice golden brown. Enjoy while still hot slathered with butter.

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Grandmama Della’s Buttermilk Biscuits baked in an iron frying pan along with real butter and strawberry jelly, just the way she would like them.

Grandmama Della’s Famous Buttermilk Cornbread

This is as close as I have ever come to Grandmama’s no measuring method of baking. Even though I watched her and helped her hundreds of times I have never matched her always perfect results. Her best cornbread was during the years when we had our own eggs from our hens, home-made buttermilk from our own cows, and our own butter slathered on every slice. If you can find any of these ingredients from your local farmers be sure to try them, you will probably notice a big difference.

This recipe makes 6 to 8 servings-some folks like bigger slices. Maybe make two batches?

Put oven rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 425 degrees. Use a 10 to 12 cast iron skillet. Put about 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, or bacon fat, or lard in your pan and put in the oven while it is pre-heating and you are mixing the batter. It is always a good idea to have all ingredients measured and ready to put together before starting, especially this one because you want to have the batter ready to pour into the pan as soon as it is hot.

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat well. Add buttermilk and 1/2 cup oil to mixing bowl and beat well. In a separate bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients and stir or whisk until thoroughly combined.

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well until most of the big lumps are gone. It is okay to leave a few lumps. Pour batter into hot skillet. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or so until table knife poked into center comes out clean. If getting too brown on top lay a piece of foil loosely over it. Remove from oven when done. Let sit about 5 minutes then spread lots of real butter on top. We always melt the butter, pour it on top and serve it melted on the table also. Do not slice with a sharp knife! Your table knife works fine without scratching your pan. Any leftovers can be crumbled into a glass of cold buttermilk, or into a cup of hot potlikker for a quick nutritious snack! Potlikker is the liquid left in the cooking pot when you cook greens, especially collards. Stone ground coarse cornmeal is best. If you can get it from a local grist mill, lucky you, be sure to try