'Mama Dip's Kitchen' - Cookbook Spotlight

by Sarah LeTrent, Posted Aug 26th 2009 @ 2:00PM

Photo: Amazon.com

'Mama Dip's Kitchen'
by Mildred Council
The University of North Carolina Press - 1999
Buy it on Amazon

Mildred Council (also known as Mama Dip) has been serving up old-fashioned, down-home soul food at her legendary restaurant, Mama Dip's Traditional Country Cooking, in Chapel Hill, N.C., since 1976.

In this half-memoir, half-cookbook, Council explains how she learned to cook without recipes, relying on her senses and going by look, feel and taste. She calls her methodology "dump cooking."

Thankfully, despite the slightly unappetizing term, her compilation of 263 traditional Southern recipes -- from fried catfish to peach cobbler to chow-chow -- hits all the right marks, just in time for comfort-food season.

See what we tested and whether it's worth buying after the jump.

Takeaway tips: The recipes themselves are takeaway tips in a sense: an insight into all things Southern cooking, in which butter and pork fat are the names of the game. Her book starts with an autobiographical story with strong usage of local, seasonal ingredients before the locavore movement ever hit the foodie world. After all, Mama Dip grew up in a poor sharecropper family where her family ate locally out of necessity rather than luxury.

Quality of pictures: There are only seven pictures in the entirety of the 248-page book. Much like her no-frills recipes, this is a no-frills book, comparable to that of community or church cookbooks.

We tested: Sweet potato biscuits and banana pudding

Biscuit-making is an art form down South and for those not exposed to the biscuit world, it can be a daunting task. However, this recipe could not have been easier to follow. A dry mix of flour, baking soda and sugar are added to a wet mixture of mashed sweet potatoes, melted butter and milk. After that, the dough is shaped, kneaded and rolled out on a well-floured surface, then cut (she recommends a biscuit cutter, but a cookie cutter works just fine) and baked until brown. These were delicious to use to fill with a slice of country-style ham, but even better topped with honey butter. Our only advice: Wear an apron! The flour tends to end up everywhere.

No Southern banana pudding is complete without vanilla wafers, and Mama Dip knows this. First comes a layer of bananas and vanilla wafers in the bottom of a casserole dish, which gets topped with a milk, condensed milk and a vanilla pudding mixture. More vanilla wafers are crushed then added on top before the pudding is served warm. We Southerners admit it's not gastronomically groundbreaking, but it is a divine taste of an Americana summer -- a taste that many can't refuse.

Worth the investment: Before Paula Deen brought Southern food to the masses, there was Mama Dip. If you're looking for a beautifully laid-out cookbook complete with the glamorous photos, this isn't for you. However, if you're looking for straightforward, simple but nevertheless delicious recipes, go ahead and "dip" into this cookbook.

Filed Under: Cookbook Spotlight
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