I wrote a country cookbook about life in the South in the 1900 to 1950 period with recipes used during this time.  

Country Cookbook and Country Stories is a collection of country recipes that vary–from easy to cook recipes such as Cowboy Beans to challenging recipes such as Red Velvet Cake. Mouth watering country food on every page along with short stories from the early 1900s as told to the author by Grandpa and Grandma.

Grandpa’s Whiskey Still and the Bailey cabin built in the early part of the last century is included in the picture section along with mules pulling a cane juice mill to squeeze cane juice. The author demonstrates how early farmers sharpened their tools on a foot powered grind rock. Several other pictures show scenes from early farm life. Recipes, stories and pictures describe how the early settlers lived in the southeastern part of the United States in the early part of the last century.

The author sincerely hopes you enjoy the recipes and the stories from a time that will never come again. Remember cooking is an art, so feel free to change the recipes to your liking and to the way your stove cooks. Names, dates and locations have been changed to confuse you although the stories are based on actual events that happened during the nineteen thirties and forties in the South.

This is the first book in a series with short country stories and old country recipes. This book is about countrywomen who created dishes from what they had on hand while doing farm chores and chasing critters away from children and livestock. Sometimes food was plentiful and sometimes not. Working farmers were always hungry and the food disappeared at the first sitting.

The author remembers living in tenant houses on old farms in south Alabama, with outdoor plumbing facilities and a fireplace for heat in the winter. One house we lived in had cracks in the kitchen floor so big the rooster stayed under the house whenever we were eating. If you dropped a biscuit on the floor you had to move fast or he would have his head through the crack and grab the biscuit before you could reach it.

A short walk across the yard with a gun and you were in the woods after a squirrel or rabbit. The food was fantastic. Country cornbread and fresh buttermilk straight from the churn with all the fried chicken a growing boy could eat.

This book is dedicated to my mother, Alma Bailey Robbins. She married at a young age and can remember living in those times. She raised four sons and a daughter while living in the country in south Alabama.

My book is available at xlibris.com.

J. D. Robbins