Southern Spoken Here
Welcome, y'all!
As the air begins to cool and ease toward autumn here in Virginia, it's hard to believe we're beginning our fifth year in Petersburg. While the summers here have not been as intense as they were in the Georgia Lowcountry, the one we're just leaving behind was hotter than usual, and the promise of fall in those cooling temperatures and the lengthening shadows is welcome.
In the some things change and some never do department, Southerners love to tell stories, and this Southerner continues to be no exception. Our best stories involve food of course: what we've been eating, what we're eating now, and what we plan to eat next. So if you're one of those folks who's just here for the recipe, you need to know up front that you're not going to get it without the story behind it. But one thing has changed: not all the stories shared here are about cooking and eating. Well, not directly.
For me, especially as I get older, fall is the season for cooking that warms and comforts, a time when nostalgia is the spice in every pot, when my kitchen is filled with the aromas of baking cinnamon, of sage and rosemary and deeply caramelized onions. It's a season for warm baked custards fragrant with a finish of freshly grated nutmeg, buttery apple tarts, sautéed mushrooms, braised meat and poultry heady with rosemary, cornbread dressing studded with sage and onions.
If you've visited this page before, thank you for putting up with me and coming back. I'll try to keep making it worth your while with new things to share on the Recipes and Stories page. The only change is that nowadays, while every recipe still has a story, not every story has a recipe.
Damon Lee Fowler is a freelance writer and nationally recognized authority on Southern cooking and its history. He was born in north Georgia and grew up in upstate South Carolina. After receiving a Master of Architecture from Clemson University, he practiced architecture for more than a decade before turning to food writing, teaching, and culinary history. He is the author of nine critically acclaimed cookbooks: Classical Southern Cooking: A Celebration of the Cuisine of the Old South which was nominated for two Julia Child cookbook awards (including the Jane Grigson award for scholarship) and a James Beard Foundation award; Beans, Greens, and Sweet Georgia Peaches; Fried Chicken: The World’s Best Recipes; Damon Lee Fowler’s New Southern Kitchen; Damon Lee Fowler’s New Southern Baking, The Savannah Cookbook, The Savannah Chef’s Table, Essentials of Southern Cooking, and, most recently, Ham: A SAVOR THE SOUTH Cookbook®.
He has also written historical commentary for three historical cookbooks, was recipe developer and editor for Dining at Monticello: In Good Taste and Abundance, and his work has appeared in many national publications, including Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Relish, Cornbread Nation (a journal of the South’s best food writing), The Charlotte Observer, The St. Petersburg Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Southern Voice. His ninth book, Ham: A SAVOR THE SOUTH Cookbook®, has been recently published by the University of North Carolina Press. Aside from forays into food writing, he’s also just completed the second of a three-book series of novels which are as yet unpublished. He needs to get with the program and get that first one published! To find out more about it, go to the margin key words “Finding Home” on the Recipes and Stories page of this site.
A founding board member and past president of the Southern Foodways Alliance, he remains active in national culinary circles. After forty years in Savannah, Georgia, where he was a feature food writer for the Savannah Morning News, he now lives, cooks, eats and writes in Petersburg, Virginia.