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Kappa Sigma Fraternity: Jean Foster, Cook

“[I]f I [cook] one more year, that’s going to be it…I ain’t decided yet if I’m going to do one more…I don’t know. Honey, I’ve been in the kitchen for about forty years. It’s time for me to come out.”

--Jean Foster

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.

HOUSE: Kappa Sigma Fraternity at The University of Mississippi
SUBJECT: Jean Foster, cook
DATE: April 6, 2004
LOCATION: Kappa Sigma Dining Room

Amy Evans: All right, this is Tuesday, April sixth, two thousand and four. And I’m at the Kappa Sigma house with Jean Foster…who is a cook in the kitchen here. And, Mr., Foster, if you wouldn’t mind saying your full name and also, if you don’t mind, your age for the record.

Jean Foster: Jean Foster. Sixty.

And how long have you been working here at the Kappa Sigma house?

Eight years.

And what did you do before that?

Worked at the Beacon Restaurant [in Oxford].

Oh, okay. How long did you work at the Beacon?

Twenty years.

My goodness…That’s some time in the restaurant industry….Are you from Oxford originally?

No, I’m from Marshall County.

[H]ow did you get to be in the restaurant business and--and become a cook?

Oh, I just—you know, that’s something that I kind of liked doing was cooking so, you know.

Did you learn from a family member how to cook or teach yourself?

No, I went to some food shows in Joh—in Jackson.

Oh, really.

Took-- took a food class. Uh-huh.

So what—what do you think sparked your interest in—in cooking.

Uh, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to cook. [Laughs]

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Do you have, um, any brothers and sisters.

Mmm-hmm.

Do they cook?

No. Nobody in the family cooks but me. You know, that’s got a job cooking. Mm-hmm.

Growing up, did your mother cook?

Mmm, uh-huh. She did. Yeah.

And you say you went to food shows and things in—in Jackson…What did you learn there?

Yeah, they--they taught us how to stir a lot-- stir dishes, you know. And taught us, you know, carried us over recipes and stuff like that, you know.

Have you come up with any of your own recipes?

No, I never really tried. But you know, I don’t hardly use recipes.

Oh, really.

No, I just cook with my imagination. I use--

Ohh, by feel.

Yeah, uh-huh. And, you know. I—you know, I measure by, you know, by my own thoughts.

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Do you cook at home?

Um-hmm. All the time.

What kind of stuff do you make at home?

Uh, you know, just normal stuff: spaghetti, chicken, broccoli casserole, you know. Green bean casserole. Just little normal food, you know.

Are you married and have a family at home?

Um-hmm. I’m married but all my children grown.

How many children do you have?

Five.

Do any of them cook?

Um-umm [No]. Matter of fact, all of them teach school.

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When you—when you got into, um, the business as a professional cook, did you expect—I mean, cooking in big quantities like you do in a restaurant is very different from cooking at home. Was that something that you had to get used to or that you expected?

Yeah, Yeah, yeah. You have to get used to cooking a lot, you know. Yep, you have to get used to that.

Um-hmm. Do you think you picked it up easily?

Yeah, pretty easy, you know. You just kind of have to judge it out with your own thoughts, you know, on how much to cook. You know, how much this to put in this, you know.

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Well, I know that the Beacon has lunch specials every day and…things like that—did you have much say in what they put on the menu?

Oh, yeah.

What kind of things did you like to make over there?

Oh, we made dressing, chicken and dumplings, all sorts of stuff. Squash casserole, Salisbury steak—we—we made all--everything. Made it from scratch. Biscuits. Rolls. You know, everything.

Why did you leave the Beacon?

Well, because they wadn’t, uh, you know, you had to work on Sunday…And I just—it—I was getting older and it was time for me to get in church…So I just left. But me and Tony [Mize] got a good relationship...I just wanted to be off on Sundays where I could go to church on Sundays.

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And so how did you know that there was an opening here at Kappa Sigma?

A guy named Peter Johnson. He worked over there at that [fraternity] house next door, and I told him to look out for me something wh—out here where I could be off on weekends.

What’s it like cooking for a bunch of young boys?

It’s all right. It’s not bad. It’s not bad cooking for them.

How would you say it’s different than the Beacon?

Well, it ain’t quite as hard as the Beacon. You know, because when you’re at the Beacon, you know, you’re just—cooking, you know, to--for how ever many come in, you know. But here you’ve go a number for, so you know what you’re cooking for. So it’s a little easier [here].

Do you have some input in what—what comes out of the kitchen?

Yeah, me and Ms. Gough [the House Mother] usually sit down and make out the menu together. We sit down and go over the menu and make it out. First she give her advice, we give our advice. That’s the way we do it.  Mm-hmm.

And what is your relationship like with these boys? Do you have some that—that keep in touch with you over the years?

Well, not really. Uh, we—some of them we have good relationship with. Uh, we got some that’s gone still calls us and do—you know. We have some that we have good relationships with. I think every group of boys, you know, you’ll pick you three or four out that you'll have a good relationship with, you know.

Um-hmm. Because this—I mean, on the—obviously a big difference here is that you have much more of a nurturing role…with these kids because they’re here every day.

Every day, uh-huh. Yeah.

And, uh, it’s—I would imagine that it would be a lot easier to have those kinds of personal interactions—

Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

And so can you describe, um, a typical day here? When you come to work and what happens when you get here?

Uh, we—I come in August. You know, when school first started back. I think they had been open like two weeks, and I come like the middle of August.

And what do you do over the summer?

Nothing.

Nothing? [Laughs] Just rest, huh? Get ready for the next year.

Yeah. Getting ready to put it down though. My time about to wind up.

Oh, you’re going to retire?

Yes, ma’am. [Short laugh]

How soon do you think that might be?

Well, if I do one more year, that’s going to be it…If I do one more. I ain’t decided yet if I’m going to do one more…I don’t know. Honey, I’ve been in the kitchen for about [short pause] forty years. It’s time for me to come out.

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Well, Ms. Gough was telling me about—there are also some, um, special events that the fraternity hosts and especially in the fall—

Yeah, we have a tent, you know, called—for the ball games and, uh, then we usually have a little special dinner for the parents and, you know, little stuff like that for the parents. We usually have a graduation dinner for the ones that’s graduating, you know. She’s going to have it this year.

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Is there a comm—a community of like fraternity and sorority house cooks on campus that [allows] y’all to get together sometimes and have a picnic or something.

Nah.

Maybe swap recipes or swap stories or something like that?

Nah, uh-uh. That would be nice for us to do though. But we don’t. Uh-uh.

It seems like maybe there should be a campus cookbook or something, and y’all have some…recipes published or something.

Everybody puts some recipes in there. Yeah, that would be nice. Yeah.

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[W]hat’s it’s like to—to cook for so many growing boys because I know they have appetites, and it would be interesting to know—

Yeah, they eat. They eat good. In other words, if you’re cooking for a hundred, and you’ve got to cook for like two hundred, you know, you’ve got to cook them two a piece, you know.

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Do the guys have some--some favorites that they tell you about?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they have favorites…Tacos, chicken strips, you know, hamburgers. They just children—little stuff like that. They don’t care nothing about no—lot of hard food. They like fried chicken. But, uh, they just like simple food.

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[A]re there guys who come in during the course of the day when there’s a meal? Who just come in and snack or ask you to make something or--?

Yeah, we have some that come in and want to make a grilled cheese or want to get peanut butter and jelly and something like that. Or ice cream or something like that.

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I haven’t asked you if you have any--any stories that stick out in your mind after eight years being in a fraternity house.

No, I don’t guess so. [Short pause] No. [Short pause] I don’t guess—well, one--one time they had a homecoming game and one of the boys, his name was Josh McKay, he took us to the, uh, over in the grove to the game. And it was so crowded over there, I tell you, we had to walk back, so I almost fell out trying to get back. [Laughs]…He wanted us to go to the game, but when we got over there it was so crowded, so me and Sarah [Sarah Frison, another cook at Kappa Sigma] said, “Let’s walk back to the house.” We walked back to the house.

[Laughs] Wasn’t worth it, huh?

Ohhhh! I ain’t been back in the grove since.

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.