Mildred Council - Mama Dip’s Family Cookbook

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK to my community. As I look back at the community in Chatham County, North Carolina, where I grew up, I would say it was a community of farmers, including my Papa, who was a single parent rearing seven children in the time of the Great Depression. During this time, the cutworms and boll weevils ate the cotton, the fox ate the chickens, and the snakes ate the hens eggs, but everybody worked, laughed, and played. We never heard the word poverty or poor unless we were skinny. The women in the community at church made quilts, sheets, and clothes to share Papa. We all felt cared for. What this community gave us didnt come in a box wrapped with ribbon. It came in words and deeds.

Papa was soft-spoken, and every word had its meaning. He dedicated his life to his promise to my Mama, who died when I was a baby, to raise the children. Many times after supper he would tell us about how things had always gotten better for him and Mama and that things would be good for us too. He often sang the spiritual Gods Gonna Trouble the Water So Look Away to the Kingdom. I believe the kingdom was the community where people shared their time and talents with us.

This book is also dedicated to my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. To my children: thank you for knowing that work is part of lifes struggles. Thank you for teaching your children important life skills. To my grandchildren: remember all of the life and cooking skills that you learned and pass them on to my great-grandchildren. Always remember the holidays when we came together as a family and talked about growing up, along with all the lessons you learned from your Sunday school teachers, schoolteachers, football coaches, and many others.

I have found that my writing group has come together again to work on this cookbook, and I want to thank so many people for helping me to write a second bookJudie Birchfield for editing and assisting me, turning so many pages over and over again; Joe Nathan Council for baking the desserts and making sure that the recipes are accurate; Annette Council for typing up all the recipes; Spring Council for assisting with all the recipes; Tom Finn and Chelsea Birchfield-Finn for taking pictures of me and my restaurant for the book. I want to thank all of them for their patience and for helping me when I struggled to remember many of the recipes that I have cooked over the years in different places and different jobs. I want to thank the employees at Mama Dips for making sure that the restaurant continued to be me while I was away traveling with the first cookbook and for keeping the food going out with the same level of quality as if I had never set foot out of the kitchen. I also want to thank the UNC Press for suggesting that I put together this second cookbook.

I would also like to say thanks to Sandra, Geary, Annette, Joe, Tonya, Stephanie, Spring, and Evan for choosing to make Mama Dips a family business. Id like to thank the children for all of their specific contributions to the business. Food has always been at the heart of our family. My daughter Elaine is the general manager of the restaurant. Annette worked for the town of Carrboro for years but never really left Mama Dips and now is the full-time company accountant and business manager. Geary sold furniture in Charlotte for eight years but also worked in food, and then he came back to cook in Mama Dips kitchen. Joe Nathan is the baker in the business. Tonya is a waitress and dining room supervisor. Evan has been working in the kitchen since he was 11 years old. He assists the waitstaff in cutting and putting up the desserts. Stephanie is the cashier, and she takes all the party orders and take-out orders. Spring has been a cashier and assistant to Elaine and Annette.

William has his own business in Charlotte, North Carolina, but also cooks for the community. My oldest daughter, Norma, started Little Teddies Daycare, and my daughter Julia owns Bons BBQ restaurant in Carrboro.

I also want to thank Eugene, Kenny, Emanuel, Robert, Della, and Andrea for choosing Mama Dips restaurant for your career for the past 18 years. We are all in the family. May God forever bless you. Thank you to Della for being one of the best cooks in the kitchen next to me. To all the students who have worked at the restaurant: I hope Mama Dips has helped to meet your needs, even if it was just with mashed potatoes and two pieces of white meat chicken, while you were at the University of North Carolina. I enjoyed all of your willingness to work without worrying about the issue of race. One of the things the students first learned was to follow the rules. It is an educational process for them to work some while theyre still young, and they meet people and learn how to deal with them. A restaurant is good for that.

I want to thank people who wrote after reading the first cookbook to share their stories of country life and laugh about things that we all did on the farm. Now that we are older we see the deer coming into our backyards in town, where we used to see them in the cornfields in the country. Good luck to all of you in your cooking.

I am a known dump cook, having come up in the late 1930s and 1940smeasuring cups and spoons were not available at my house. I have found from getting calls and letters from people all over the United States that some recipes work well in some areas and dont work so well in other areas. So I suggest to you to make the recipe as you would a skirtmake it to your size and taste and never throw it out. If its meat, add gravy. If its a dessert, add sauce and ice cream and serve it. Just make it pretty, and thank you for your suggestions.

Finally, I am grateful to my team of workers. Thanks to you allwherever you may be. I hope life is serving you well.

Mama Dips Family Cookbook