Is it any wonder that the stories of South-
ern hospitality are so many and so good ? It
is said that in Texas a planter will some-
times waylay the passing stranger, and at the
point of a shot-gun force him to halt and
stay a month. I have heard of a man stop-
ping to spend the night on a Georgia plan-
tation and staying on for twenty years. I
have heard of an old major in Virginia, the
guest of the father of a friend of mine, who
every spring had his horse saddled and
brought to the fence, when the following
annual colloquy took place :
'* Oh, you'd better stay a while longer,
Major," the host would say.
INTRODUCTION
"No," the Major would say," I reckon I'd
better be goin'."
After every mint julep this interchange
would take place. At the end of the third
the Major invariably weakened.
" Well," he would say, " I reckon I'll stay
a little longer." And he would stay — another
year. This went on for a decade.
These things I have heard — what follows
I know. There was a famous place near
Lexington once which I will call Silver
Springs, and there was a guest there of
twenty years' standing. One morning he
went over to the home of his host's son, Uked
it over there and stayed ten years until he
died. But there is yet a better story of Silver
Springs. So many guests actually died there
that the host provided them with a graveyard.
Some fifteen years ago the church near by
was torn down, the graveyard was sold, and
all the bodies had to be removed. The son
of the master of Silver Springs wrote to what
relatives of the dead guests he could find.
No answer came, and the daughter of the
son, who has been a lifelong friend of mine,
xi
THE BLUE GRASS COOK BOOK
took the seven guests, sang " Nearer, my
God, to Thee " over them, and buried them
in the family plot. There the seven rest
to-day.
Now the social system of the South rested
on the slave, and the three pillars of the sub-
structure were the overseer, the black
mammy and Aunt Dinah, the cook. But
for Aunt Dinah would the master have had
the heart for such hospitahty? Would the
guest have found it so hard to get away ?
Would stories like these ever have been
born ? Would the Kentuckian have had
the brawn and brain that have given him
such a history ? Would Kentucky have sent
the flower of her youth, forty thousand
strong, into the Confederacy; would she
have lifted the lid of her treasury to Lincoln,
and in answer to his every call sent him a
soldier practically without a bounty and
without a draft; and when the curtain fell
on the last act of the great tragedy would
she have left half of her manhood behind it
— helpless from disease, wounded or dead on
the battlefield ? I think not.
xii
INTRODUCTION
Page 2
Presented as published in 1904. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Is it any wonder that the stories of Southern hospitality are so many and so good ? It is said that in Texas a planter will sometimes waylay the passing stranger, and at the point of a shot-gun force him to halt and stay a month. I have heard of a man stopping to spend the night on a Georgia plantation and staying on for twenty years. I have heard of an old major in Virginia, the guest of the father of a friend of mine, who every spring had his horse saddled and brought to the fence, when the following annual colloquy took place :
'* Oh, you'd better stay a while longer, Major," the host would say.
"No," the Major would say," I reckon I'd better be goin'."
After every mint julep this interchange would take place. At the end of the third the Major invariably weakened.
" Well," he would say, " I reckon I'll stay a little longer." And he would stay — another year. This went on for a decade.
These things I have heard — what follows I know. There was a famous place near Lexington once which I will call Silver Springs, and there was a guest there of twenty years' standing. One morning he went over to the home of his host's son, Liked it over there and stayed ten years until he died. But there is yet a better story of Silver Springs. So many guests actually died there that the host provided them with a graveyard. Some fifteen years ago the church near by was torn down, the graveyard was sold, and all the bodies had to be removed. The son of the master of Silver Springs wrote to what relatives of the dead guests he could find. No answer came, and the daughter of the son, who has been a lifelong friend of mine,
took the seven guests, sang " Nearer, my God, to Thee " over them, and buried them in the family plot. There the seven rest to-day.
Now the social system of the South rested on the slave, and the three pillars of the substructure were the overseer, the black mammy and Aunt Dinah, the cook. But for Aunt Dinah would the master have had the heart for such hospitahty? Would the guest have found it so hard to get away ? Would stories like these ever have been born ? Would the Kentuckian have had the brawn and brain that have given him such a history ? Would Kentucky have sent the flower of her youth, forty thousand strong, into the Confederacy; would she have lifted the lid of her treasury to Lincoln, and in answer to his every call sent him a soldier practically without a bounty and without a draft; and when the curtain fell on the last act of the great tragedy would she have left half of her manhood behind it — helpless from disease, wounded or dead on the battlefield ? I think not.