Southern hostess Paula Deen, known as the “Queen of Southern Cuisine” burst on the food television scene in 2001 when she filmed a pilot called “Afternoon Tea Party” in 2001. In November 2002, the Food Network found a place in its regular schedule for her trademark hit show, “Paula’s Home Cooking.” Recipes from the show can be found on Paula Deen’s web site and on the Food Network’s site.

Paula’s Early Years

Paula’s overnight success on “Paula’s Home Cooking,” making recipes she has been working with all her life, followed many years of work in the restaurant, cookbook, and catering business. With her sons Jamie and Bobby, who often help cook recipes on “Paula’s Home Cooking,” Paula Deen owns and operates a successful restaurant, The Lady & Sons, in Savannah, Georgia.

Paula had a tragic early life, losing both her parents to death when she was 23 years old, and coping with bouts of agoraphobia while she struggled to make ends meet as a bank teller.

The 1990s

In 1989, after divorcing her first husband, Paula transformed her home cooking recipes into a catering business called The Bag Lady. She made sandwiches and other potable dishes, which Jamie and Bobby delivered to keep the business growing.

The Savannah catering business was extraordinarily popular, and in 1996 the catering business grew into the popular Lady & Sons restaurant, which popular newspaper USA Today named “International Meal of the Year” in 1999. Paula’s home cooking, along with recipes for Southern dishes like cheesy meat loaf, hoecakes, and garlic cheese biscuits, made the restaurant a perennial favorite with Southerners.

Cookbook Author

Paula incorporated her home cooking recipes in several cookbooks, notably “The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cooking” and “The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cooking 2.” She has since published two more cookbooks. In addition to her appearances on the Food Network, she has appeared many times on QVC and even on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

In 2007, Paula Deen published her autobiography, “It Ain’t All About The Cookin’.” The Food Network has also aired a video biography of Paula Deen on its biography series, Chefography.

Television and Film Star

In 2005, Paula Deen made he film debut in the Kirsten Dunst, Orlando Bloom “Elizabethtown,” playing a character much like herself in real life. The Food Network created a special presentation, “Paula Goes Hollywood” to commemorate her success.

Since 2005, Paula has filmed “Paula’s Home Cooking” and prepared recipes for the show, from her lakeside Savannah home.

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A fine distinction exists when you are talking about different cuisines, particularly when the term southern cooking comes into play. The cuisine found in the South is quite distinct as it heralds from many different backgrounds and histories throughout the years. Southern cooking can be applied to a general type of food made in the kitchens south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

A Brief History

Southern cooking is a basic food genre that gets its influences from a variety of traditions carried over from the settlers, native people and even slaves who inhabited the area for many years. In essence, you can tell the history of an area based on the food that is traditionally served. For instance, wheat was not a common crop of the southern United States because it was the wrong climate and therefore corn was grown instead and used in a variety of applications from liquor to breads.

In addition to money making crops like cotton and maize, farmers also ended up growing a large number of vegetables that excelled in the soil and climates here like peppers, beans, squash, tomatoes, okra, onions and more. Southern cooking influences from the settlers like the French made a huge impact on such areas as Louisiana where Cajun food rules. Most Cajun cuisine is a direct result of the French heritage with the different spices, sauces and combination of foods together.

Slaves that were shipped to southern plantations to work the fields were also a great influence to the southern cooking you know of today. What many people term “soul food” is a direct result of the slave influence as are several Cajun dishes like gumbo and jambalaya. The slaves ate a lot of vegetables, beans, rice and stews in their diet and when they planted their own gardens to feed themselves, they planted a lot of greens, beans, okra, sweet potatoes and more. Eventually, these foods became a mainstay and integrated into southern cooking.

A Look Today

Today, southern cooking has broader connotations and usually people think of wholesome, fattening comfort foods. Mashed potatoes, cornbread, meatloaf, fried chicken and biscuits and gravy are just a few staples of southern cooking cuisine. In fact, there are several restaurant chains that base their existence on their southern cooking practices and have extended their reach into the northern areas of the United States.

There is no doubt that southern cooking is its own genre or cuisine in the world of cooking and baking. A rich and colorful history precedes this special type of cuisine and while most people don’t really think of that history, they certainly enjoy the “fruits” of those influences.

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The Freshness of Country Cooking

The basic difference in country cooking and kitchens is the freshness of the ingredients used in cooking. All food is cooked from scratch and from what is available.  In kitchens we pull out pre-cooked food from refrigerators lying in cold storage for weeks and flavor food with packaged and ready-to –use ingredients.  Country cooking requires much more ingenuity and creativity.

Country cooking is more of a community activity rather than a single family-based activity.  Different people do different things to prepare the meal.  The first thing to be done is to get the fire burning which is done outdoors, weather permitting, on stones and wood collected from the forests.  Country cooking makes use of wild vegetables, fruits, fish and wild game from the wilderness.  On bad days, it is not unusual for the community to be partially or totally vegetarian.

Country cooking is often high in fat and carbohydrates as the community is usually involved in hard manual work.  The easiest way of cooking meat is roasting on skewers over the flames.  Roasting is preferred to grilling as the oil that drips from the meat can be collected in a pan and reused.  Most country cooked dishes have flavors of the smoke on which it is cooked.  It takes time to get used to this smoky taste, but the freshness of food surpasses all smell and taste.

In the earlier days, utensils used in country cooking were mainly of clay/earthen pots and wooden spoons.  The common way of cooking in country kitchens is a simple covered pit with fire under it.  Another common method is wrapping food in clay and leaf wrapping.  Banana leaves are extensively used as it does not burn easily over a flame.  One very down-to-earth method is placing food on heated stones or dropping a heated stone into a pot.  Modern day country cooking now uses solar cookers.

The outdoor country cooking activity unifies a community that works together, cooks together and eats together.  The helping, giving and sharing creates lasting bonds of friendship and love.

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As people in other parts of the United States begin to appreciate southern cooking, there is little known, by northerners, about its history. As people in the south are well acquainted with French and even Chinese food, southern cooking remains a mystery to most of the country. Traditional southern food remains a major part of the history of the region where economics and history are reflected in the food and how it is prepared. Without the wheat farms, for example, corn became a major staple, making corn bread one of the best known example of southern food.

With much of the land in the south used for growing cotton, farmers also grew crops they could eat and most southern cooking evolved from the harvest. Irish, English and German ancestors brought their cooking knowledge into the south with some influence of the French and Dutch. Many in the south in early times were economically disadvantaged and learned to cook with and eat their own harvest as well as whatever grew naturally.

Native Americans had a great influence on southern cooking as well and southerners learned to use wild crops and wild game in their main course meals. Early African-Americans also introduced other items into the southern cooking staple such as okra, black-eyed peas and sweet sorghum, and many other items that remain a major part of cooking in the south.

Early Settlers Provide Cooking Influence

Along coastal regions of the south, Spanish and French settlers has a tremendous influence on southern cooking and Canadian-French settlers brought their cooking style, referred to as Cajun into Louisiana. These influences are still strong in most of the south and many of the dishes conjured up in southern kitchens are considered comfort foods, as they provide as much psychological comfort as well as great taste.

Other forms of southern cooking, sometimes referred to a soul food, is often a combination of food and spices from the difference influential factors that has made cooking in the south what it is today. Being able to cook by frying, roasting or deep-frying many of the natural foods was necessary in many parts of southern Appalachia, where buying food was simply out of the question in early times.

For many cooks in the northern part of the country, southern cooking remains a mystery. Accomplished cooks in the south however, are often mystified how northern cooking is acceptable without using the many flavorful spices and herbs that are necessary in southern cooking recipes.

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