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Edna's Restaurant: Edna Stewart
Izola's Family Dining: Izola White
Rose DeShazer White: Home Cook
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Interviews and photographs by Amy Evans.
Izola's Family Dining
522 E. 79th St.
Chicago, IL 60619
(773) 846-1484
*CLOSED IN 2011
I never did like yellow cornmeal because that’s all we had down South. When you’re in the South and you don’t have no money, you get the corn and you take it to the gin, and they ground it up and make it into yellow cornmeal. That’s what we had. I never liked it from that day on, and I don’t mind working because I like to have the best. So I don’t buy it, either—white, only. – Izola White
Izola White grew up picking cotton in Kenton, Tennessee. In 1945 she caught a train to Chicago and never looked back. Soon after arriving in the Windy City, Izola got a job at a restaurant and started saving some money. After a few years and with a few hundred dollars in her pocket, she opened Izola’s Family Dining on Chicago’s South Side. She put things on the menu that her mother taught her to make: salmon patties, fried chicken, grilled liver with bacon. Izola doesn’t consider what she serves soul food, just good home cooking. Over the years, Izola’s home cooking has fed the community, as well as some of Chicago’s legendary political figures; their giant portraits cover the walls in the main dining room, which was added in the 1970s. Izola runs a tight ship and demands a certain caliber of clientele in her restaurant. And they, in turn, demand her food.
What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
SUBJECT: Izola White
DATE: March 24, 2008
LOCATION: Izola’s Family Dining
INTERVIEWER & PHOTOGRAPHER: Amy Evans
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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Monday, March 24, 2008 and I’m in Chicago, Illinois, at Izola’s Family Restaurant with Miss Izola White. And ma’am, if you wouldn’t mind saying your full name and your birth date for the record, please?
Izola White: Izola White, 1922, November 3.
And you’re originally from Kenton, Tennessee, is that right?
From Kenton, Tennessee.
What year did you come to Chicago?
[Nineteen] Forty-five.
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So you were just in the front-end of the Great Migration. Did you have a lot of people during those years from your neck of the woods down in Tennessee that came up and joined you here?
Mississippi and all around they were here.
What was it like when you first got here? Can you talk about that?
I was afraid, but it turned out to be nice. The people are very friendly. And that was very good.
Did it mean something to be from the South and connect with people from the South up here and help make your way and find a place to live and things?
Well some of them was very nasty, but they soon turned to be nice. So you see, there is a God; without him, I wouldn’t be here today. That’s who is helping me right now—faith.
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Did you come with just your family, or did you come on your own?
By myself.
Can you tell me a little bit about that and when and why you left Kenton?
Well it was the best place to come to to live, so that’s why I landed here. I worked in a drugstore as a cashier and worked on the farm. Then from that I was a waitress at another restaurant. And then I decided to open up my—my own business and come out here.
Did you already know folks up here in Chicago when you made the trip?
No, uh-um.
So you came all by yourself all the way up here to Chicago?
Right, all by myself.
How did you make your way up here?
On a train.
So can you tell me about how you were feeling when you made that big trip?
It’s really fine; I’m glad to get away. It was nice.
And looking forward to things in the big city and making your own way?
Yes, I waited tables, and then I decided to go in for myself, and that’s how I happened to come out here.
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So when you decided that you wanted to open your own place, about how long did it take from when you had that idea to when you actually got a building?
When I started out here I had $800 to my name. And it took me about five years to get it up off the ground; it was slow. I had to do the cooking and waiting tables and all like that to survive.
So tell me about coming up in Tennessee and learning to cook down there. I understand you learned to cook from your mama working at a woodstove.
Oh, yes. I helped my mother when they worked in the fields picking cotton. And it was hard work, but it was okay. So I don’t mind working because I’d much rather be doing this than out in the cotton field picking cotton.
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So when you were coming up and learning to cook, did you enjoy cooking?
Yes, I enjoy doing nice things and making people happy, just like I’m doing today.
Were you cooking the same kinds of things with your mother?
No, it was different. We cooked rabbit and all that kind of stuff. [Laughs] Fish. We had to go fishing to get it.
And raised a lot of your own food in the garden and animals and whatnot?
Right, uh-hmm.
Do you ever miss that at all?
No. [Emphasis Added] No, not at all—no. [Laughs] No, I don’t miss any of that.
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So how did you find this location when you first started?
Well, when I first come out here, the place was for rent, and you had a hard time staying out here because the blacks wasn’t supposed to be here. They’d throw bricks at you, break out your windows if you had a car; it was very bad. You had policemen that had to stand around and help out.
And you’re talking about this neighborhood, the South Side of Chicago?
Yes, yes.
So was the neighborhood predominantly white or—?
All white. When I come out here, there was only three of us: a barbershop and a drugstore and myself and another restaurant.
So you got enough gumption and had enough faith to plant some roots here and start your business?
Yes, I did, uh-hmm.
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But the demographic of this neighborhood has changed since then, yes?
Yeah, but it’s back now to where it was before.
So what’s kept you here?
Well, I like the neighborhood, and I like the people and all of them are my friends, so why leave, if you can stay? So that’s why I’m holding on.
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So let’s talk about the food and when you started the restaurant and how you started feeding people.
When I started out here, my breakfast was fifty-one cents. The dinners were seventy-five—after two o'clock they went up to $1.50. That’s about it.
And so is breakfast something—I mean the sign says you’re open twenty-four hours, so breakfast was something that was important for you to have food all day and all night?
Breakfast is all day. And we serve it whenever they want. If they want breakfast, they get breakfast. A lot of people cut it off at one o'clock, but we don’t.
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And so, again, about your menu and your dinners and things and fried chicken and chicken and dumplings, can you talk about developing your menu and how you chose what you wanted to serve folks?
Yes. I did that myself. Like pork chops, stewed chicken and dumplings, ham hocks and greens, veal cutlets, liver and onions—so everything on that menu you can get…And they love fried chicken. Mostly that’s what they order, fried chicken.
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How about your cornbread—your corn muffins today?
They put sugar in cornbread but not that much, uh-hmm. So cornbread you make with eggs, salt, Crisco, sometimes you can even put margarine and make it nice. And then have it real fluffy with eggs. It turns out nice.
And you use the white cornmeal?
Yes. No yellow [cornmeal]. I never did like yellow cornmeal because that’s all we had down South—yellow cornmeal—never did like it. So I don’t buy it, either, when I—white, only.
So is it just an association with home and the South to the yellow cornmeal, or is it a flavor difference to you too?
Well, when you’re in the South and you don’t have no money, you get the corn and you take it to the gin, and they ground it up and make it into yellow cornmeal. That’s what we had. I never liked it from that day on, and I don’t mind working because I like to have the best. The best you got to work for; nobody will give you no nothing, so that’s the way it goes.
So that was a decision you made early on that you weren't going to use yellow cornmeal?
Right, that was it. Life has been very good to me, and what about it is that I like people. And if you don’t like people, please don’t go in the business because this is a business that you have to be friendly. You have to know people. You have to treat them right and you got it made. And meet them and talk to them. A lot of people, they have a business and they don’t even speak to you. Me, I practically know everybody that walks through the door.
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Early on, was it hard to find specific things that you wanted that were hard to get in the city here?
Uh-um. No, uh-um.
And the—the recipes that you were cooking from when you started out, were they all in your hear or are they—they things that you brought in a family cookbook or—?
From my mother, uh-hmm.
Did you have them written down?
Nope.
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So what does soul food mean to you?
Well I really don’t consider myself as being soul food. I just consider it as being a restaurant with decent food, and it’s not pig tails, neck bones, or nothing like that—greasy food. My food is not greasy, so I don’t consider myself being soul food.
Okay. So you would consider the other that you just listed—the neck bones and all that—that would be soul food to you?
I never listed but everybody just said it. Right. [Laughs] So other than that, everything has been good.
So then what do you think when people call this a soul food place? Is that flattering or unflattering to you?
I don’t know. I guess the way—any way you want to take it. But I know I don’t serve that. So I don’t consider it being soul food.
Would you say it’s good home cooking—Southern home cooking?
Yeah, that’s right.
How do you feel about your Southern roots and making this kind of Southern home cooking here in Chicago—that connection?
Well I’ll tell you what, I really wouldn’t want to go back there to live again because I had it hard down there—picking cotton, picking strawberries. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t go back to that no more. I’d rather stay in the kitchen than to do that. I’ve been there, done that. A lot of people haven't, but I have and a lot of people—we’ve talked about it. I talk about it because I know what I went through, but I wouldn’t want to do it again. If I had to, I could, but I’m too old for it now so—. [Laughs]
Yeah, well and it means something to remember where you came from. So you can appreciate what you have.
That’s right. Hungry a many days because we didn’t have nothing. So now I can eat all I want, and I don’t mind working. And my mother, she lived good. I made it possible that she had everything that she needed. She didn’t have to work for nobody. I was right there for her.
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So tell me about that with your, you know, five decades in the business and the reputation that you’ve generated over the years and the clientele that you have and the people who come through and what that means to be a part of this community now and be so respected.
When I first come to Chicago I met a lot of people. As being a waitress, you’ll meet them. I met Judge Pincham and his wife; I remember when they got married. They were my best friends. If anything happened to me, that’s who I went to for [Laughs] protection. And he—he’s a nice Judge. Well he’s sick right now but Judge Pincham is a doll. The whole family—his daughter is a doctor.
And tell me a little bit more about politics in Chicago, relative to your restaurant. You have a lot of very large portraits of people like former Mayor [Harold] Washington [Chicago’s first black mayor] and folks in the dining room there.
Mayor Washington, I decided that he was running for mayor right in here—he and Congressman [Charles] Hayes. So I’m sitting at the table and I said, “Why don’t you run for mayor?” He said, “Well, that’s’ what we’re talking about.” So he said, “Izola, I got something to tell you.” I said, “What is it?” “I’m running for mayor, and Charlie is going to take my place.” So that’s how it happened. So I said, “Well let me have a fundraiser for you.” He said, “No, have it for Charlie. Charlie needs the money, and I’ll give a fundraiser at my house for Charlie.” And then I had one for him at my house. And then I had three in here: I had a fundraiser for Eugene Sawyer, one for Judge Pincham, one for Congressman Hayes and Mayor Washington. The biggest one was at my house. So I said, “The money—.” He said, “Keep the money. I’ll be on a Monday to pick it up.” And I said, “Okay.” We counted out the checks and the money. I said, “Checks—money will travel but checks won't.” So he come that following Monday to pick his money up.
So then what was Chicago like and your restaurant like and that whole dynamic during Mayor Washington’s term?
It was very rough at first. But he made it; he got to be mayor. And the other fellow that was running—I can't—Epton [Bernard Epton], I believe his name—that same night that Mayor Washington won Epton got sick, and I think he died that next day. Jane Byrne lost and he was the one that won. It was good. And then when he died, you know, it was—it was sad. It was sad. And then they had the funeral reception was out downtown; that’s the only one that’s ever been like that. People standing in line all day and all night to see, but security was by me so they come at my house and picked me up and walked me through. It was nice.
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So what would you say is the future of Izola’s Family Dining?
Well I really don’t know. I hope I can continue to keep doing what I’m doing now and keep my health. And God has been so good to me, and I’m sure that I will continue. With him on my side, I see no other way.
Well now you retired from working in the kitchen, but do you have someone in line to take the reins of the restaurant when you’re done with it?
I have no one. They just have to learn from themselves.
Do you hope to see it continue—continue on as Izola’s?
I hope so. I hope so. I’m going to try.
To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
