Michael Stern - Southern Country Cooking from the Loveless Cafe: Fried Chicken, Hams, and Jams from Nashvilles Favorite Cafe

G rowing up in a large family, I look back now with the respect that only comes with age at how my mother was a short-order cook most of her adult life. It was my dad, though, who was always yelling for one of us ten siblings to start the grill and cook something. In other words, Get your mom out of the kitchen. We learned things people pay culinary schools lots of money to learn, and, yet, they still may not learn the same thrifty style that we were taught as kids. We learned cooking techniques; we learned all the ways to useand not to usea knife; we learned ways to extend ingredients to feed more people. And we became experts on the grill. (I still say the true test of a chef is being able to take a cheap cut of meat and make it tasty. Face it, filet is easy.) The running joke in our family was that as much cooking as we did, one of us should be in the food business. I was the one whose life has been spent in the food service industry, owning a fine dining restaurant and a movie catering business. Still, it is the Loveless Motel and Cafe that has brought me full circle, that has, in a culinary sense, brought me back home.

Comfort food is the heart and soul of southern cuisine. It encompasses a time when people ate what was indigenous to the area in which they lived. Before the super highways, the rural South was a remote area with back roads leading to treasures known only to those who ventured down them. For years the Loveless was one of those treasures, a place where Annie Loveless served fried chicken out the front door of her home. Those lucky enough to discover Annie and her husband Lon ate on picnic tables in their front yard. Return trips were planned around this stop, and lifelong rituals began.

The Loveless Cafe represents a time when people knew how to make red-eye gravy and scratch biscuits and took the time to do it. Back then, meals were the focal points for the day. Upcoming plans were discussed over a hearty breakfast. The noontime meal was fashioned around the previous nights leftovers, accompanied by iced tea. Supper was where we all got together to discuss our dayswhat went right and what went wrong. It was the highlight of the day, and Mama spent most of the afternoon preparing it. The food was not processed, an apple a day did keep the doctor away, and vegetables were the main staple. The ingredients were all local, usually from the farm or garden. Gardens were a ritual of rural life and what was planted was a science, ensuring produce from early spring until the last harvest in late fall. Country hams were part of the fall harvest. They were cured to last without the luxury of freezers and without the need to feed the pigs through the winter. Cornbread and biscuits were fillers, and gravy was the sauce that made the meal complete. Hunting and fishing provided the variety. Folks remember those times when they come to the Loveless.

The Loveless is a cherished community asset that in todays fast-paced world could easily have been torn down to make room for another fast food joint. It is a treasure trove of memories out Highway 100, and generations of families come back to relive those memories. Many who visit the Loveless for the first time are taken back to their own memories when life seemed slower, simpler, sweeter. The Loveless is so much more than a restaurant. It will survive.

In the pages of this cookbook are the stories, the pictures, and, most important, the recipes that make the South, southern cooking, and the Loveless special. If you cant make it to the north end of the Natchez Trace Parkway, you can now enjoy a bit of the Loveless in your own kitchen.

To my friends Chuck and Trisha, my wife Kathie and the staff that poured all their energy into this effort, thank you. To Jane and Michael Stern whose recognition that the Loveless truly is a jewel, thank you. To the families of the Lovelesses, the Maynards and the McCabes that came before us, thank you. This cookbook represents part of that tradition, enjoy!