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Bob was completely happy eating parsnips, rutabaga, turnips, and such. And although I did like my mother’s asparagus (which my schoolmates called “sparrow grass”), her cauliflower, her green peas with dumplings, and her spinach with nutmeg and sour cream, I never looked forward to broccoli, Brussels sprout, or parsnip days. My father disliked parsnips as much as I, so Mother usually made them for my brother whenever my father was away on business.

I don’t remember my mother ever cooking corn except on the cob, I don’t remember her doing anything with yellow squash other than boiling and buttering it, I don’t recall her cooking collards, certainly never okra, grits, or black-eyed peas. And rarely rice for that matter. When it came to starch, Mother preferred Irish potatoes. She may have baked sweet potatoes a time or two, but she never improvised upon them as Southerners often do.

The only southern sides my mother truly relished were what she called “congealed salads” made with Jell-O. Her southern friends and neighbors were forever giving her new recipes for them (a couple of the best are included at the end of this chapter).

This is not to suggest that my mother was a lousy cook. It’s just that she was a New England–educated Midwesterner who was accustomed to cooking vegetables most of my school chums had never heard of, let alone eaten. Then, too, my father-the-botanist would occasionally bring home some “exotic” to broaden our palates. I remember avocados, in particular (a fruit, yes, but one treated like a vegetable). Daddy halved it at the dinner table with great ceremony, twisted out the seed, then scooped some of the buttery flesh onto our plates and told us to spoon a little of my mother’s oil and vinegar dressing on top. I wasn’t impressed—then. I also remember celery root, which my mother shredded like cabbage and dressed like slaw, and a Hubbard squash that Daddy split with an axe. Mother baked biggish chunks with brown sugar and butter. All are commonplace today but in the Raleigh of my youth, they were unknown.

I always liked to go home from school with southern friends whose mothers might serve a mess o’ greens for dinner, or fry up some yellow squash, or make a big batch of sweet slaw. To me these seemed more exotic than the vegetables we ate at home.

Over the years as I’ve traveled about the South, I’ve added many more southern vegetables to my repertoire: cymlings (patty-pans), mirlitons, salsify, turnip greens and collards, black-eyed peas, pole beans, and more.

Recipes and recollections follow.

The only good vegetable is Tabasco Sauce.

—P. J. O’ROURKE, THE BACHELOR HOME COMPANION

NANA’S LIMA BEANS

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

There were only two girls in my neighborhood when I was growing up: Virginia and Nancy Mumford. Though both were a little younger than I, we had many things in common, not least of which was our fondness for the way their mother, Cleone Mumford, prepared butter beans or “limas” as the Mumfords called them. Nancy (now Nancy Mumford Pencsak) recently self-published a collection of favorite family recipes, Footsteps in the Kitchen, and there among the side dishes is Mrs. Mumford’s lima bean recipe. “Nana was famous for these,” says Nancy. Her older sister, Virginia Mumford Nance, adds, “My children would rather have had another bowl of lima beans for dessert than anything else. I’d often catch them making an after-dinner raid on the leftovers and the lima beans would go first. Perhaps the greatest compliment my children gave me was the time they said, ‘Mom, these are almost as good as Nana’s!’”

¼ cup diced ham or better yet, country ham (about 2 ounces)

1 teaspoon corn oil

4 cups water

3 cups shelled baby butter beans or one 16-ounce package solidly frozen baby lima beans

3 tablespoons “pot likker” (cooking water from the beans)

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour blended with 1/3 cup cold water (thickener)

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

Pinch of sugar

1. Sauté the ham in the oil in a large, heavy