Dishing with Martha Foose

She has trained at a famed French pastry school, opened iconic bakeries, served as Executive Chef for a cooking school, and written a James Beard Award-winning cookbook. But these days what chef-turned-storyteller Martha Hall Foose enjoys most is savoring the colorful culture and storied foodways of the Mississippi Delta. Having left her fast-paced culinary career behind, Martha spends her days at Pluto, her family’s farm just outside Tchula, Mississippi, celebrating the simple beauty of Southern culture, unplugged. We recently pulled up a chair to her kitchen table and asked Martha to regale us with a few tales about her favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

martha-foose
Photo courtesy Chris Granger

Tell us about your Thanksgiving dinner in the Delta.
Our Thanksgiving is always a raucous affair. We tend to take all comers and average feeding about 35 people over the holiday weekend. I usually start cooking on Tuesday and have a steady stream of cousins, friends, children, and dogs running in and out the whole time.

What time do you eat Thanksgiving dinner?
We sit down around 2 p.m. and graze for a couple of days.

What’s your favorite easy appetizer?
I love a good ol’ block of cream cheese with Pickapeppa sauce and crunchy wheat crackers and assorted vegetables and pickled things, like okra, snap beans, eggs, etc.

Five famous people you’d love to have at your Thanksgiving table?
Living guests: Morgan Freeman, Harry Shearer, Michelle Obama, Roy Blunt, Jr., and Bonnie Raitt. Revived guests: Eudora Welty, Billie Holiday, Julia Child, Robert Johnson, and Willie Morris

Sweet potato casserole: marshmallows or pecans?
Pecans, with a bourbon streusel.

Favorite Thanksgiving tradition?
Making the pinecone and kiddie handprint centerpiece is a must for the table—it’s one of my favorite traditions.

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without…?
My mother Cindy Foose, my sweet husband Donald Bender, and our son Joe.

Dressing: cornbread or biscuits? Any surprises thrown in?
Cornbread with crushed soda crackers, chopped boiled eggs, and a ton of celery, onions, and bell pepper. The stock must be flavored with bay leaf and made from turkey parts, not chicken.

What else goes on at your house on Thanksgiving besides cooking?
Really every conceivable type of hijinks. Plus some deer hunting, playing of music, and lying around on the couch watching old movies. And lots of taking to the bed for reading and naps.

What’s for dessert?
Dessert includes but is not limited to caramel cake, chocolate chess pie, sweet potato pie, molasses cookies, and apple brown betty.

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