Mrs. Wilkes, the nonagenarian chatelaine of the restaurant (nee boardinghouse) that bears her name has a no-nonsense
approach to Southern cooking that has lasted through 4 generations of Wilkeses and their kin.
When it comes to the recipes, Mrs. Wilkes' grand-daughter Marcia Thompson originally compiled them in a spiral-bound cookbook called "Famous Recipes," which sold steadily on an average of 10,000 copies a year, over the last twenty-five.
This lovely book is a collage of John T. Edge's wonderful writing. He can tell a tale with the best of the Southerners, and is smart enough to write this as the culinary history and nostalgic valentine that it is.
The actual recipes, overall, are what you'd expect - good, basic and delightfully high-cholesterol. Fried chicken, of course, biscuits, shrimp bisque, 'nanner puddin' - with a free hand on the lard, butter, eggs and cream, thank you very much.
Mr. Edge writes: "This is not a cookbook for purists. Mrs. Wilkes has long used the versatile canned cram of mushroom soup - a standard in Southern pantries since Campbell Soup Company introduced it in 1934, making it the first soup to be widely used as a sauce."
Canned tomato soup, mini-marshmallows, food coloring and instant vanilla pudding mix all co-habitate here. So some of the recipes won't appeal to modern, so sophisticated dontcha know, palates and others, well, like the "Layered Green Salad" will take you back. Every age has its madeleine, and mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce are two I recall from my childhood. (I've also seen it called "Seven-Layer Salad" and "24-Hour Salad") but either way it involves iceberg lettuce, cucumbers (and/or celery) peas, mayonnaise, Cheddar cheese and bacon, layered and refrigerated, neither tossed, shaken nor stirred.
I think the mistake people make here is getting too judgmental on the food. "Layered Green Salad" - is what it is. It's not Goat Cheese Salad with Aged Balasamic Vinaigrette, nor is it supposed to be. Far more offensive are the gourmand-come-latelys - the powdered supermarket pesto ("just add oil!") is far more of a pestilence than, say that famous blue box of macaroni and cheese, which is utterly delicious, given the right circumstances.
Sometimes tuna salad with Hellman's Mayo - as opposed to Salad Nicoise with fresh tuna and Aioli - tastes even better. Why? Because it's a taste you hanker for, a taste you remember. Most of us Americans over a certain age, were not weaned on foie gras or stinky cheeses or free range anything. The closest we came to eating anything with buckshot in it was if your BB ended up in a burger, grilled of a summer evening, when the weekend warriors who were our parents, were pinching their tomato plants and drinking their bourbon, neat.
Mrs' Wilkes' Boardinghouse is a respite for the hungry, and those at least - in search of a good meal, a local legend - (now a national treasure) and at most, a family that's cobbled together by a love of good food and a place at table.
By Sukey Pett
