SFA Founders - Home

INTERVIEWS
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Leah Chase
Norma Jean Darden
John Egerton
Jessica B. Harris
Ronni Lundy
Louis & Marlene Osteen
Marie Rudisill
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

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Interviews by SFA Members and Friends

Project sponsored by Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q

Norma Jean Darden

[Mealtime] was a time to get together and discuss the news of the day and I don't think we take time like that. A lot of people have their meals in front of the television, so they're not expressing; they're just absorbing and shouting back into the television. And so culturally, food--the high-art of dining has dissolved into televisions--fast-food and television--and I think that's the thing that the Southern Foodways [Alliance] is bucking. And it's nice to know that a lot of people are bucking it at the same time.

— Norma Jean Darden

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Norma Jean Darden is the author, along with her sister, of Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine: Recipes and Reminiscences of a Family. Their memoir-cum-cookbook underscores the import of family by way of food.

A native of North Carolina, Ms. Darden is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Now a resident of New York City, she owns Spoonbread Catering and two restaurants, Miss Maude’s and Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too.

In addition to her talents in the kitchen, Darden is an accomplished actress. She has produced a one-woman play, Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine, inspired by her book of the same name. In 1998, Darden performed her play at the inaugural Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford, Mississippi.

Listen to this 3-minute audio clip of Norma Jean Darden talking about the foods of her childhood.[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: Norma Jean Darden, SFA Founding Member
Date: March 23, 2005
Location: Miss Mamie’s Restaurant-New York, NY
Interviewer: Tonya Hopkins, SFA Member

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Tonya Hopkins: It's Wednesday, March 23rd (2005); it's about 7:15 p.m. I'm at Miss Mamie’s Restaurant with Miss Norma Jean Darden. All right, so the first question we have here on the SFA Founders Oral History Project questionnaire is how did you come to be involved in the Southern Foodways Alliance?

Norma Jean Darden: Well, John T. Edge called me up and asked me to come down and perform my play [Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine] about three summers ago at the University of Mississippi at Oxford; and that was the first I knew of Southern [Foodways] Alliance. I was very happy to go and to be a part of a wonderful conference for the weekend. And I met a lot of wonderful people, some of whom I'm still in touch with…And I had just done it at the American Place Theater in New York, and I guess that's how he heard of me. And then I met again with them in Birmingham when they went to the Southern Living Magazine headquarters and unfortunately I haven't gotten back to any of the other meetings.

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What do you recall about [organizational meeting in Birmingham in the summer of 1999]?

I remembered going to the wonderful restaurants in Birmingham, the great food, the nice hospitality we received at --at the Southern Living Magazine headquarters, the beautiful way that they were blended into nature and the stones in the water.

What was your vision for the Southern Foodways Alliance when it began?

Well that they would keep the wonderful tradition of Southern cooking alive in people's minds and--and revitalizing the notion and getting away from so much standardized food and fast-foods and keeping the wonderful individual touches of slow-cooked food.

[H]as your vision evolved in any way and if so, how?

Well, I'm careful to not do anything with shortcuts…We do everything the long, old-fashioned way--from our potato salad to our ribs to the collard greens--and we have nothing canned or preserved that would detract from, you know, the old-fashioned concept of Southern food.

[L]ike you said, you use whole potatoes; you don't use--you're not using a box, you know.

No, not a box for anything…And that resolve—is the strength in my resolve not to go into things that are cheaper in a restaurant, things that are cheaper and easier but stick to the hard and fast task of old-fashioned Southern foods.

Did you attend the first symposium in 1998 and--and what do you recall of that?

I think that's the one that was at the Oxford--in Mississippi.

At the same time that you performed the play?

Yes; I think that was '98, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay, what do you recall about that?

Well, that was marvelous! It was the first time that any of us had come together. People came from Barcelona, Spain--came from all over and to know that you had something in common with all these people from Texas and Louisiana and--and Charleston; it was just marvelous to know there were people in the world with the same thoughts that you had. And that's what John Edge accomplished by bringing everyone together.

[A]re there any particular moments from that gathering or from others that stand out in your mind--any specific moments?

Oh, there for me [Emphasis Added] first of all, was performing my play in front of the Confederate Flag in Oxford, Mississippi! [Laughs] That I'll never forget. The second one was discovering someone who was from my mother's birthplace who was in the audience and knew some of the people that I was talking about in the play. That was just extraordinary.

And where--where is your mom from?

Camden, Alabama.

So performing the play in front of the Confederate Flag and then how--?

Yeah; and in front of the statue that they put--that had been put there by the Daughter's of the American Revolution. [Laughs]

How--how did that make you feel, specifically?

Very, very strange since I was--a lot of my play dealt with slavery.

Did it make you feel uncomfortable or--?

No, I thought it was very liberating for the people there.

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Tell us about your role in developing the Southern Foodways Alliance mission…and vision and programming?

Well, I live it every day in the restaurant. Yes. And what was nice was--was to know that people are doing this all over the United States and all over the world.

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The SFA focuses upon food as culture. What does that mean to you both intellectually and personally?

Well personally it meant that meals were a time to come together and talk, and the family came together every day at a certain time, and we never failed to do that, and we didn't take calls when we were eating. Now of course, I think that kind of dining is almost over with. [Laughs] People have cell phones; they're interrupted. They spend half their meal talking on the cell phone. Nobody ever says I'm having a meal; can I call you back? anymore. If you call them they'll just talk to you right through that time, and I think that's unfortunate because mentally it keeps you so alert when food and thought are all streaming together. But people eat on the run these days. They grab a McDonald's, eat it in the subway, and that's lunch.

That's interesting--I like what you said about food and thought. What do you mean?

Well because it's a time to relax [coughs] your body [takes drink] and nourish yourself and your--and--and I think the dining allows people to express themselves. It was a time to get together and discuss the news of the day and I don't think we take time like that. A lot of people have their meals in front of the television, so they're not expressing; they're just absorbing and shouting back into the television. [Laughs] And so culturally, food--the high art of dining--has dissolved into televisions—fast food and television. And I think that's the thing that Southern Foodways is bucking. And it's nice to know that a lot of people are bucking it at the same time. And you find little children with the keys around their neck; they go home and they just eat out of the icebox. You know there's not really a meal put down; they'll grab a pizza, put it in their little microwave, turn on the television and watch cartoons. [Laughs] And I just see that the socializing effect that meals had when I was young is sort of vanishing. You know, I imagine a few people are keeping it alive, but in the big cities it's very hard…And people have so many--such hectic schedules that you can barely get a family to eat together at the same time. This one is going to ballet, you know, the mother is at the gym, the father is still at work; it's very hard to come together for meals like we used to, which was just our daily ritual.

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You--you grew up down South or--?

I grew up half in Newark, New Jersey, where my father had his practice, and half in Wilson, North Carolina, where my father was from, and where we spent our summers.

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Okay, do you have any ideas for the future of the organization? Any specific projects you'd like to see happen or topics that you would like studied?

Well, I was very happy to see they came out with a cookbook. I thought that was wonderful! John T. Edge went all around and put a book together. I thought that was wonderful and I’d love to see--that was great coming out of that experience.

So you'd like to see more--?

See more books, yes…more books would be great.

[W]e kind of touched on this a little bit but [what is] the date and place of your birth?

Oh, goodness. Well I don't generally share that, but I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and when I was nine months old I was taken to Wilson, North Carolina, and that's again the trek of my life--going back and forth…I was born November 4th, and I'm a Scorpio.

And you're going to--okay we got the date but you're going to supply--?

And you never ask a Southern woman her age! John T. knows better than that. [Laughs]

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Okay, please tell us about the food of your childhood--who prepared it, what were some typical meals and--?

Well, my mother prepared the food in our household and her--one of her big claims of fame was her soup. They were alphabet soups. And this was soup so hearty it could be a whole meal. In fact, my father ate it with just a sweet potato added to it, and that was the whole dinner. We really looked forward to it because she would boil bones and with some--well I don't know what kind of meat it was now. But it would boil for hours and she would add her tomatoes and okra and corn, and we just felt that that was the most--and our father brainwashed us into thinking we would never get sick if we ate this hearty soup in the winter. And she would make oh, just goo-gobs of it and freeze it, and we would have it for all the winter. And she was very known for that. And the other thing that was so precious that she would do with us, when the first snow would fall we would go out and collect snow, and we would have snow ice cream…you collect the fresh snow before it gets too — before — when you have enough, you put in cream and sugar and vanilla and that's it…And oh, we just thought that was the best stuff in the world. And you'd eat it fast before it would melt.

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[D]escribe the ceremony of those meals that you'd had--those meals of your childhood.

Well the other meals I remember, of course, were Christmas and Thanksgiving because they were big ceremonial meals. And we would have the obligatory turkey that was a dried mess. I always hated turkey until recently. [Laughs]…[B]ecause it was always so dry because they used to cook the turkeys for eight hours. They thought that was sanitary, but it's much better to have it a little more moist. And they would baste it, but I just remember how dry it was. And it used to be we had fancy china and company and your party dress, and it was all very formal. And champagne was served, and we would get ginger ale in our--in our [champagne] flute.

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When did you first cultivate an interest in food? What and who was the catalyst?

I think when I finished college I suddenly got interested in food. [At] Sarah Lawrence. And I remember making some sautéed bananas with a strawberry sauce on it, and some little boy called me on the phone, and I burned my entire kitchen down. That was my first experiment with cooking. [Laughs] And I thought my mother would kill me.

In the college dorm?

No, in my house. And my mother had just redecorated her kitchen, and the bananas flambé caught on fire and went all the way to the ceiling and melted down the thing that was holding the lights. And when we got--we were nervous wrecks and our mother had gone to pick up our Aunt Norma from North--who was visiting us from Wilson [North Carolina] that summer, and we didn't know whether to call the Fire Department. We were swatting flames, and I remember that being my first meal, and I almost burned down the house. [Laughs]

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So how did you get your first job working, writing, or dealing with food?

Let's see; I was working on a movie called The Cotton Club and the food editor--no, no, no. And Channel 13, they had a Producer, Yvonne--I think it was Yvonne--but she had a party for all the Channel 13(ers) and she invited me and everyone was to bring a dish, and I brought a quiche. And they loved my quiche, and they asked me to do a party there for grandchildren and grandparents. It was Grandparents Day, and my sister and I made little cheese sandwiches and flowers and--and ducks, and the little kids loved them, and we had painted cookies. And the adults thought they were so pretty. So Channel 13 hired me again and again and again, and we didn't even know we were caterers until after about six or seven jobs. [Laughs]…It led to a whole career…I went to the New York Restaurant School and took a course, yeah.

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So how have you seen Southern food evolve over the course of your lifetime?

I've seen it disappear. When I used to go to Wilson, North Carolina, and when I would go to Opelika, Alabama, there would be little restaurants that had all their own food. Now when I go to Wilson, I don't know if I'm in Wilson or Opelika because they all have Pizza Hut; they all have Burger King; they all have McDonald's; they all have Pancake House. And the chains have gobbled up everything. So you almost never see the--the little--the little guy in his little restaurant cooking his own thing. And the food is flattened out into burgers, and it's just flattened out terribly, and I just hate that…I've just seen the growth of fast-food just take over and dominate everything, and people can't compete with the prices.

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You were talking about Southern food when you go in—to the South. What about Southern food outside of the South, like--?

Oh, there you fair very well. And in the bigger cities there's a whole wave of people who are doing what I do, so that's a good thing. But in the little towns it's very hard for people to compete with the chains because they have such great prices, since they buy in such bulk, you know. So it's hard for them to charge the right price and still make a profit. So you see so many little people going out of business in the little towns in the South.

That's really kind of ironic, isn’t it? So it’s in the cities where the food is that--actually--…I still haven't gone to all of the places up here, but the idea of the Southern food is Harlem is, you know--

Yes, well it's so natural.

Why is that?

Because Harlem is composed of people who come from the South. Or at least in the old days it was. Now you have a lot--now of course you have a lot of Latin people and a lot of Caribbean people, so Southern food is an anachronism for them. [Laughs]

Well that’s a good thing you said that because I've noticed--I've noticed the things on the menu like jerk chicken and rice and peas and--are those classic Southern?

No; that is--that's a bow to our Caribbean brothers and sisters who are now in--the great majority in Harlem; uh-hm.

Okay; and so do you see it as a natural extension of the offering?

Yes, I do see them as further South. [Laughs]

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Please describe a meal that you would characterize as totemically Southern.

Well, we had figs in our back yard and we had pecans in our back yard. So pecan pie was a natural and fig preserves were natural. Also we grew tomatoes. We grew string beans in our back yard, so those things would have to come. And my Aunt Lizzy had a peach tree, so the things that are Southern to me are the things that we grew and had naturally. And I remember my aunt--my very, very refined aunt--had chicken, and she would take the chicken and wring its neck and then plunge it in hot water, and we would have to pluck its feathers out. [Laughs] So chicken on Sunday was a must. And then every so often the minister would come and have dinner with you, so she would have a peach cobbler or maybe we would have watermelon rind pickle, chicken in some form or fashion, either smothered or with dumplings or fried or baked or roasted with stuffing. And of course we had hot bread--either cornbread or homemade rolls with our peach preserves and corn--fried corn or corn pudding or corn in some fashion. And the vegetables that were fresh from her garden. And stewed tomatoes or fried tomatoes. That would be my most Southern-most meal. And then of course breakfast we had brains--scrambled brains. [Laughs]…We thought it would give you greater mental powers. Or shad roe--some type of salt fish for breakfast and grits. Those would definitely be on the menu for breakfast…Grits, that was very typical. And then maybe some fried green tomatoes. That would be our very typical breakfast.

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