Documenting, studying, and celebrating the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.
Oral History Project Index
SFA Founders
- Home
INTERVIEWS
Marliou Awiaka
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Leah Chase
Norma Jean Darden
John Egerton
Jessica B. Harris
Ronni Lundy
Louis & Marlene Osteen
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders
Frank & Pardis Stitt
SFA Founding Members
Ann Abadie
Kaye Adams
Jim Auchmutey
Marilou Awiakta
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Ella Brennan
Ann Brewer
Karen Cathey
Leah Chase
Al Clayton
Mary Ann Clayton
Shirley Corriher
Norma Jean Darden
Crescent Dragonwagon
Nathalie Dupree
John T. Edge
John Egerton
Lolis Eric Elie
John Folse
Terry Ford
Psyche Williams-Forson
Damon Lee Fowler
Vertamae Grosvenor
Jessica B. Harris
Cynthia Hizer
Portia James
Martha Johnston
Sally Belk King
Sarah Labensky
Edna Lewis
Rudy Lombard
Ronni Lundy
Louis Osteen
Marlene Osteen
Timothy W. Patridge
Paul Prudhomme
Joe Randall
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders
Richard Schweid
Ned Shank
Kathy Starr
Frank Stitt
Pardis Stitt
Marion Sullivan
Van Sykes
John Martin Taylor
Toni Tipton-Martin
Jeanne Voltz
Charles Reagan Wilson
---
Interviews by SFA Members and Friends.
Project sponsored by Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q.
Marie Rudisill
People love to eat. I think some of the best things in the world have come out of recipes that have come out of people [talking] over the kitchen table. I know when--when I used to go to Mary Anna's hou se, my sister's house, we used to--we never ate in the dining room. We used to always eat in the kitchen…and over the kitchen we would, you know, talk, and that's when more recipes, I think, are created in the Deep South than anyplace in the world is over a cup of coffee over a kitchen table--the old-time recipes. It's a feeling of warmth and friendship. We don't do that today. – Marie Rudisill
Born in Alabama, Marie Rudisill is the author of eight books, including Sook’s Cookbook and Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook. She was aunt to novelist Truman Capote and helped to raise him. He lived with her, both in Monroeville, Alabama, and New York City. Rudisill currently resides in Florida.
The book Fruitcake: Memories of Truman Capote & Sook led to a Tonight Show invitation in December 2000. During her first visit, Rudisill taught Jay Leno and Mel Gibson to bake fruitcakes. She now appears regularly on the show, dispensing advice and holding forth as The Fruitcake Lady.
Rudisill was an early and insistent champion of Southern foodways. She is a stickler for details, a font of knowledge about heritage foods, and a voice of generations past. In 2000, the Southern Foodways Alliance celebrated her contributions by awarding her the Jack Daniel’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
It is with great sadness that the SFA shares news that Marie Rudisill passed away on November 3, 2006.
Listen to this 3-minute audio clip of Marie Rudisill sharing memories about making fruitcakes, Truman Capote, and storytelling in the South. [Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.] 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: Marie Rudisill, SFA Founding Member
DATE: November 2005
LOCATION: Ms. Rudisill’s Florida home
INTERVIEWER: John T. Edge, SFA Founding Director
-----
John T. Edge: [Marie, what is Southern food]?
Marie Rudisill: It's so many cookbooks now written and so many articles written about Southern food--Southern food. And as far as I'm concerned, a lot of our food--it goes way back. We adapted a lot of our foods from the Indians, if you really want to know the truth. We learned a lot from the Indians. What did we learn? We learned all the--the wonderful wild things that grew and things. We never did all that stuff. We got all that from the Indians. I mean all that stuff--I mean when Sook Faulk, you know--a Christmas Memory--she used to go to Claiborne, Alabama, and that's right on the Alabama River and it's--she would go there to get her wild strawberries and the wild huckleberries and things like that even during her lifetime. And the Indians were the ones that really discovered all that stuff. I mean, we never did know all that, and she got fresh mint--all kinds of things out of the--you know on the banks of the Alabama River there. But I don't know--it seems so funny now that they go back and they keep talking about Southern food, Southern food, Southern food and I don't know exactly what Southern food is frankly. I mean grits, yes; we had grits, but the Indians are the ones that discovered all about--cooking on the holes and all that. We didn't do that. They got all the maple syrup out of the trees; we didn't do that. I mean it's a funny thing. I mean about Southern food I got disgusted with people keeping talking about Southern food--Southern food and I don't see that there is all this old-time recipes, I'm not denying that--and old-time cooks, I know that but I don't know that they ever really came up with all the know-how that we have today. They don't know all that.
Now they did--the Alabama River there, they used to bring the spices up on the--up on the--up from Mobile and used to have that--the spices and all that. We used that even in the early days. We had all that--all that but I mean I don't know where they get all this from that--the real Southern food. Now you tell me; I think the Indians cooked a lot of the food on the holes and all that [Laughs] and that's why we got a lot of our foods from, a lot of our ideas from. We got our maple syrup from them and things like that but real Southern--now you tell me. John T., where did real Southern food come from?
Well could it have come from the Indians but also it came from in some cases white folks learning from black folks, didn't they?
Oh, yes. Uh-hmm…I remember that. Oh, yeah. Oh I think definitely we learned a lot from the black people. Oh yeah, because they are basically--they love food, and they are good cooks. There's no doubt about that. And they have their own methods of cooking. I mean--and their own ways of cooking; we had an old cook in our house, Kara [?], that cooked for us years, and she would not cook on anything except the wood stove. She wouldn't do it…And when--she used to bake cakes. She used to make us the--the children--the children--even when Truman was a kid--take a turkey feather and go--if she was going to make a cake and go--she'd turn off the stove for maybe the day before so--the big old wood stove would be, you know cold. She would open all the doors and we would have to take the turkey feathers and clean out that stove, I mean clean out that stove [Emphasis Added] with the turkey feathers! Because even--she said even the slightest thing would ruin her cakes. And we used to have to do that, clean it out with the turkey feathers. And of course they don't have anything like that today. Children don't even know anything about anything like that.
When I was a young girl growing up, we had so many wonderful things in the Deep South to do. I--I really miss that and it's a--a bad thing that children today, they don't even know anything. I'm honest with you; they--they don't--they don't participate in anything. They don't--they just--they don't know what I mean. I mean it's a funny thing. I mean we used to cook; we used to have a little tiny skillet and we used to cook, and she would always give us a little bit of cake dough to put in our little skillet and we'd cook that. They don't do that today. They--they don't do anything today.
Why not?
Because their parents don't teach them. The parents do not take the time. The parents are too busy doing something else--absolutely.
What do you think of--what do your grandchildren think Southern food is then?
Well they don't--they don't--good Lord; they don't cook anything today. What are you talking about?
What do you like to eat now?...Do you still like to cook?
I like to you know--raw fish and things like that and I make beef stew. I make a wonderful beef stew. It's a recipe that I really made myself and it's really delicious and they all like that. And but of course, I don't do any cooking much anymore…But my sister used to--the one that lives in Alabama, Mary Anna [?], she's dead now, but she was a marvelous cook--absolutely marvelous cook, but she was the kind of cook that would lie to you. She would not give you her recipes. She would not do it. She made the most fabulous pound cake I have ever eaten in my life. And you are going to fall over dead when you hear this: she put Tabasco sauce--Tabasco in it.
Have you got that recipe? Did you get that recipe?
No, God she wouldn't--she died with it. No, no. She died with it.
Did you taste the heat in it? Was it hot?
Not necessarily, but it had a very extremely high flavor. I guess that's what--she--she never would tell how much Tabasco she would--[Laughs] Oh ,God. She was--she would never give you the truth about a recipe--never. She made the best pound cake, though, that I've ever eaten in my life. And there was never a time that you went to her house that--that pound cake wasn't sitting on the kitchen table. She just made one right after another, and everybody that went in there cut off a piece of pound cake. She was a wonderful cook, but she would not tell you the truth about anything. I don't know why.
Marie, why did you start writing about food?
I--what happened--the reason I got into food, when I was graduated--when I went to Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama--I went one year, and I told Jenny--that's the woman we lived with after my mother and father died. And I said I'm not going to get stuck in some little old Southern town. I'm not going to do it; I'm going to New York and I'm going to New York University. So I went to New York, and we had the money because my father left each one of us plenty of money, and I went to New York, and I went to New York University, and I got interested in food because I got a job with this big baking company there [as] the night manager. And then when I got that job, I really got interested in food and I--then I went to the New York School of Culinary Arts for a year to really learn about food. And I went there for one solid year and I got--I really knew the basics of food preparation. And from there, then I went to work for Sterling Bakers, which was a very exclusive baking company. They only baked for the very expensive restaurants like Astor Hotel, and all that and they'd make pies and cakes. And I learned a great deal from that. And then I went from there to the New York School of Culinary Arts, and I studied there.
-----
What kind of cakes and pies did you make?
They made--she was famous for her apple pies, because she used a greening apple and a greening apple--you make your apple pie and you put your apples in there and the greening will hold its shape and keep the crust up, you know and it looks like a real big piece of pie and it's not really. But they don't mush down like ordinary apples and they--you know they keep their shape. So therefore the crust is up above and the greening is down here and it's got the shape; it won't let the crust fall. So it really makes a beautiful apple pie. And she used--she had the best, most expensive accounts in New York, I mean the real--you know high-class places. And I worked for her for a long--well a good while and I learned a lot from her. I mean I really did; I learned a great deal from her about baking pies and cakes and making pies and cakes. I don't know; then I went from there--I started really writing. I didn't want to--I didn't want to actually want to be in the preparation of you know--that's hard work, let me tell you--you know…I didn't want that; I wanted the writing.
So when was--so when you were in New York and you went--started working for Sterling Bakery what year was that? When was--?
Oh, good Lord. I can't tell you. [Nineteen]30s, wasn't it…I've always liked…food; I love it. I mean I like to fool with it; I like to do it--write recipes and today I like to do it. In fact, there are so many lousy cookbooks though you hate to write a cookbook. They are lousy. [Emphasis Added] I'm not kidding; look at all the cookbooks I've got over there. The people that are actually--that's all cookbooks that people have sent me you know--doctors and lawyers and what the hell do they know about cooking?...I mean let's face it; you know the trouble with people that are writing all these cookbooks? They don't know the first thing about really cooking because they have never studied cooking. Now I went to school to study cooking. How many people do that? They don't do it.
-----
Was--was [Truman Capote’s book] Christmas Memory part of the reason you became associated with fruitcakes--that people started thinking about you and fruitcakes?
I don't know. I don't know. Well, I was brought up that you know that we used to always--fruitcakes were a great thing in our family because Sook used to make them and put them in the little buggy with Truman and go all around and give them around Christmas time to people that needed them you know--that wanted them. And she used to always do that, yeah. That was really true; and she used to make fruitcakes--oh Lord--oh God. And he--that's when he wrote Christmas Memory, uh-huh. That was true--I mean true in a way you know--what he wrote about that, but it was just [inaudible]. You put them in the old--little old--had a little old doll buggy; they used to put it in the doll buggy and go all around. They gave them to people that needed them; they didn't give them to you know--you know people that had--they gave--had them. She used to bake about 30--something like that.
Those are expensive things to make, too.
Oh yeah, well they used to get--used to go down to the pond and get the pecans. They fell out of the trees in the--in the pond and they'd go down there and get the pecans there. She got--and then they'd sit up in the middle of the big old featherbed and you know shuck the pecans and all that. She had this great big old featherbed that you'd sit on and you'd sink down about like that. You know they used to have--they don't have them anymore today--nothing like that. That's what he wrote about--that was what he--what he wrote about, you know. But you know there's so many--John T., there's so many myths and so may tales that come out of the Deep South. Did you know I've often thought about really writing them? But they are so--I don't know; they are so unbelievable. Do you know that?
-----
I want to go back to something you said earlier that I thought was interesting about all these people trying to be Southern and trying to write Southern cookbooks or trying to write Southern books. It seems like that's kind of in-vogue now--that people want to be Southern…And they want to write all these Southern food books, all these cookbooks--why? Why do you think that is?
Well, I tell you why. The South to Northerners is a place of romance. It really is, uh-huh. And they look at it that way and it's a place of mystery. They never understood the real Southern, you know--Southerners--old Deep South people are hard to understand and they're very clannish, you know that? And a Northerner--a person moves into the Deep South, they're not accepted. I mean hell they've got a hard row to weed. You take somebody from up North that moves to Mississippi, they're not going to be accepted. Well there's your answer--right there. The South to them is a place of great mystery and romance. That's what they all look at. I mean I know people that even in--in--that live in California that worked in DC, I mean they think it--Alabama is just a God-given place that they would just love to go to. They would love to go there but they go there then and they--it's all the Southern people--they don't--they don't pay any attention to them. They think they're going there and they're going to be grabbed up and loved and--well hell that ain't so. And you know that's not so--uh-uh. Uh-um, Southern people are very clannish.
------
Do a lot of [the Northerners you know] seem to think that Southern food is odd? They think about you know--they think Southerners eat weird things. They think we eat you know pork products that other parts of the country don't eat. Now do you think that's true? Do you think that our food is that much different from other places?
Uh-hmm, because I was born and raised in Alabama, and I went to New York and I know they like Southerners up there; they think they're fascinating. They--they laugh at them and they laugh at your accent and they think it's a riot and all that, but yet they--they're kind towards you because they--they do like you. I mean they'll like you and all. They like you, but then the Northerner goes down South and the hell with that. They don't--we don't like them down South. Now see you explain that to me. Northerners love Southerners; they love the accent, they love their funny ways…And they talk about grits--y’all eat grits all the time. [Laughs] Grits--but it--it's a double standard, and it really is. They don't--they're--they like Southerners in New York. I mean I--when I worked up there I mean they make fun of you and all that but it's not in a--you know mean way. It's just you know--but a Northerner goes down South, and I don't think that they're that friendly to them…It's--it's strange; I mean all of them have a sort of--I don't know--to Northerners the South is a mystery. That's the only way I can describe it.
-----
Marie, one thing--part of the reason I wanted to record this is that--is to get your idea about kind of what the future of Southern food is. If--if now everybody is writing these books about it will it exist in 10 years--20 years--30 years?
Well you want me to tell you the truth?
Yeah.
I think that Southern food has been just utterly destroyed--utterly destroyed.
By whom?
By these god-damn writers who are writing all these things about it because they're taking a real old Southern recipe and twisting it all around and adding things to it that shouldn't be in there at all. I read--in fact, in some of [this] crap here, I read recipes that--God almighty--that things have been added that [people have] added that I know they don't belong there. Why don't they leave the old-time recipes alone? [Emphasis Added] That's what I'm saying. The old-time--go back to some of these old people that are 90 years old, talk to them, get their old--listen; I had in an old basket, old Charleston crab basket, I had Sook’s recipes and I would have given my life if I could have saved them. But they had been in this old crab basket out in the smokehouse. Do you know what a smokehouse is? And they had been folded and when they were folded they--they cracked all the way across. But those were the real old-time recipes; no idiot had gotten hold of them and added Tabasco or this, that, and the other to it. [Emphasis Added] They hadn't harmed them. But the old-time recipes are gone. These god-damn fools have just added to them and taken away from them and added to them. They're gone. I'm telling you, they're gone. Where are the old-time recipes? Where are they?
-------
[Y]ou’re right, all these old-time recipes are vanishing. They've vanishing. Is it because people don't take the time to cook or is it because we've lost the knowledge? The recipe is gone, the people are gone--?
Well you know the whole thing is John T.T.T, people today are just not that interested; they're not interested in coming home and really cooking something really good. They're going to go out and get some TV dinners if they're pressed for time or--or cook a hamburger outside on the grill. I mean really the--the art of cooking seems to be going.
-------
I think you're right Marie that--that--because the kind of writing I like to do and what I'm interested in are people…And the food is just the way I get there.
Absolutely people because some of these people are so quaint and they have a story to tell you. I mean listen to them…Because you're more relaxed; when you're eating you really [Laughs]--I mean I know I'm more relaxed when I'm at--you know a table with a good cup of coffee or something. I mean you--you--you are more willing to talk maybe let's put it that way. People love to eat. I think some of the best things in the world have come out of recipes that have come out of people over the kitchen table. I know when--when I used to go to Mary Anna's house, my sister's house, we used to--we never ate in the dining room. We used to always eat in the kitchen. She had a huge kitchen, my God; her kitchen was over--that was her pride and joy was her kitchen. And we used to always eat in the kitchen and over the kitchen we would you know talk and that's when more recipes I think are created in the Deep South than anyplace in the world is over a cup of coffee over a kitchen table--the old-time recipes. It's a feeling of warmth and friendship. We don't do that today…Because it's a lost art. It's something that should be kept. It's something that--there's nothing like a kid coming home from school and going in the house, go in the kitchen and find a great big old pound cake on the kitchen table or a piece of pie--a pie, all sliced--all cut in wedges and ready for them. Or on the back of the stove a pot of hot chocolate. See, I've got here the hot chocolate pot. I'll show you. See that pot right there?..That was on the back of our stove as long as I can remember with hot chocolate…You can tell because the bottom is--is burned and--but they never put it on the hot part--just way on the back of the stove, you know what I mean and it was filled with hot chocolate and when I came home from school I knew that hot chocolate was on the back of that stove. You think anything like that happens today? Maybe they may rush to the Frigidaire and take out a Coca Cola, right.
-----
Has anything been gained? If we lost some things have we gained anything?
Well, I guess they have gained. I don't know. Maybe they've gained in knowledge about other things. Maybe more important, I don't know. I don't really know, but I know there's so many things now that have been lost that--you know one thing though that I'll tell you right now. Children today, it alarms my great--great grandchildren and me; they have no table manners at all. I mean no table manners. If I had come to the table in my home like that I would have had my head slapped off my shoulders. I would have. My Bud--Uncle Bud used to sit at the end of the table and he had this long walking cane and whenever we would come to the table and probably do anything like take a--a pod of okra--have you ever done that and let it slide down your throat? Okay. Then the next thing he'd take that cane and he'd reach over and crack us on the head with it. [Laughs] It would bust your brains out. [Laughs] But they don't do those things today; they--they let them slide down their throat and it's just--it's overlooked. But I used to get my head cracked wide open for doing that. [Laughs] I don't know.
The--the organization that I run at the University of Mississippi, the Southern Foodways Alliance, what--what do you think we should be doing to--to help save Southern food, to--to help it--help it--?
To help save it?...Well I think probably that you could have some sort of seminar or--or something and maybe show people how to prepare Southern food. You see, I mean, they may take a recipe, but I think you have to show people sometimes something and then the end result--let them actually taste Southern food the way it should be prepared, you know what I mean.
But who is going to cook it…Who is going to show them?
A Southerner.
But like who? Who is good enough to do that?
Well you mean to tell me there's nobody that's--there's not that many Southerners around?
No, I'm just saying, you know, you don't like [some of these new Southern cookbooks]. There's a lot of books out there that aren't so good.
I think that the food has to be prepared by someone that knows exactly how to prepare it. And let them taste the food after it is prepared properly. Now I don't know whether you know--even grits, if grits are prepared properly and served like they were way back in a bowl with a glob of butter in the middle of it, I mean it's most enjoyable. It's good. How many people do that? Cook the grits, put it in a bowl, and then put the butter on top of it and let them taste that. It's delicious. It is good--just plain old grits…Or they can--after they cook the grits, it's good and hot, they can take an egg and drop it in the middle of it and stir it very quickly--very quickly into the grits so that it cooks--the egg cooks in the grits. That's another way that grits are delicious. But it has to be done--the person has to know how to do it. You drop the egg in there and as quick as lightening you stir that egg in the hot grits until it cooks, you know what I mean. Now I mean there's so many things that--I don't know. People have lost the art of cooking. They want everything frozen or something--how many people really cook fresh vegetables now? I mean go to the market and buy really fresh vegetables and bring them home and cook them? No, they've got frozen stuff in the freezer. They've got frozen broccoli; they've got frozen everything. And don't tell me that--that food is as good as fresh broccoli that you buy that's just been cut up and come out of a garden. Don't tell me that it's good or nutritious because it's not so. It's not so. I say most of the nutrition is lost in all this freezing and all this stuff--cutting it and freezing it and cutting it all so it looks good and all that; uh-um.
-----
And do you still make fruitcakes once in a while?
I make--I may make them this year; I don't know…I love them; I love--I love good fruitcake, but now this bulk stuff you buy that--that's not a fruitcake…Now I'll tell you, I think frankly, between me and you, I think bourbon is your best bet. I think it makes it taste better; I really do. I've used Courvoisier on some, and then I used a pure bourbon and the ones with the pure bourbon on it seem to have a better flavor and aroma. They're more Southern…And so there I go giving my recipe [Laughs]. Yeah, an old Southerner, you--an old Southerner is like a worm that's going to always come back down South. I mean not the old stuff--with the South I can't help it. I was born and bred in Alabama, and I mean it's something I'll never get over. I don't want to get over it.
To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
