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By Root 942 0

and by gosh cook.” She rarely resorts to precise measures because she instinctively knows when something’s right or wrong. This time I made her use measuring cups and spoons for this old word-of-mouth recipe. Kim has improved the original by using self-rising cornmeal and her pancakes practically rise off the plate. Linda’s boyfriend, Eric Eibelheuser, a transplanted New Jersey–ite now working in North Carolina, joined us the day Kim tested Aunt Bertie’s cornmeal pancakes and, like the rest of us, was blown away by them. “You could make a meal out of these!” he said. Quite so. Serve them for breakfast, lunch, or supper accompanied by sourwood or tupelo honey or, if you prefer, homemade muscadine, damson, or fig preserves. Note: Kim says that only a well-seasoned cast-iron skillet will do for frying the pancakes. She pours in about ¼ inch of vegetable oil, then sets over fairly high heat until it’s “spitting-hot.” Kim’s skillet is small—only eight inches across—so she must cook the pancakes in three batches. In my ten-inch skillet, I can do it in two.

½ cup unsifted self-rising, stone-ground yellow cornmeal

¼ cup unsifted all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2/3 cup cold water (about)

11/3 cups vegetable oil (for frying)

1. Combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and pepper in a medium-size mixing bowl, then whisk in just enough water to make a batter slightly thicker than pancake batter.

2. Pour the vegetable oil into a 10-inch cast-iron skillet and set over moderately high heat for about 2 minutes or until ripples appear on the skillet bottom.

3. Reduce the heat to moderate and fry the pancakes in two batches, dropping the batter into the skillet by rounded tablespoons, spacing them well apart, and browning 45 seconds to 1 minute on each side or until crisp and golden. Drain on paper toweling.

4. Serve the cornmeal pancakes hot with honey, jam, or preserves. No butter needed, although Aunt Bertie usually put out a plate of butter as well as a pot of honey and jars of homemade jams and preserves.

HOT DINNER ROLLS

MAKES 2 TO 2½ DOZEN ROLLS

Florence Soltys, one of Chapel Hill’s most accomplished hostesses, often serves these rolls at luncheons and dinners. The recipe, she tells me, is one that she remembers her Tennessee aunt, Rhoda Gray, making when she was a child. Florence also tells me that she descends from two old East Tennessee families: the Grays on her father’s side and the Hills on her mother’s. “We were hill people who settled around Cades Cove,” she adds. That nineteenth-century village is now a major attraction of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The dairy farm where Florence spent her childhood—“not far from Gatlinburg”—is still in the Gray family. Her brother, a retired veterinarian, now runs it. Note: This rich yeast dough can be shaped into cloverleaf, fan-tans, Parker House rolls, pan rolls, anything you fancy. I personally favor cloverleaf rolls.

1 cup milk

3 tablespoons butter or vegetable shortening

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

One ¼-ounce package active dry yeast dissolved in ¼ cup very warm water (105° to 115° F.)

1 large egg, lightly beaten

4 to 4½ cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon butter, melted

1. Heat the milk in a small, heavy saucepan for about 3 minutes over moderate heat or until it steams. Pour the milk into a large heatproof bowl and mix in the butter, sugar, and salt; cool until an instant-read thermometer registers 105° to 115° F.

2. Mix in the yeast mixture, then the egg, and finally 4 cups of the flour. Mix well by hand, adding more flour as needed until you have a soft but manageable dough; this will take about 3 minutes.

3. Shape the dough into a ball, place in a large buttered bowl, turn in the bowl so the buttered side is up, then cover with a clean, dry cloth and let rise in a warm, draft-free spot for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

4. Punch the dough down, then shape into cloverleaf rolls, fan-tans, Parker House rolls, or pan rolls—whatever you fancy—placing in greased