Perre Coleman Magness – Memphis Flyer

There are worse ways to go than getting your latest book written up by the New York Times. The Southern Sympathy Cookbook by local food writer Perre Coleman Magness did merit a recent NYT feature. It’s a fun, fun book — peppered with outrageous obits and funeral memories as well as some very Southern recipes.

Magness took some time recently to answer a few questions.

What is it about funeral foods that drew you?

I think funeral food is the ultimate comfort food. It’s made with love and for love. When people make a meal for a friend in need, they choose the things they do the best, so it is always good, home cooking. And I love the traditions around Southern funerals and how people truly come together to celebrate life. Plus, reading obituaries from around the South and gathering stories about funeral traditions has been very entertaining!

The subtitle is “Funeral Food with a Twist.” What’s the twist?

The recipes are true classics, with some creative twists and modern takes. I think the funeral spread has often been the realm of canned soup and packaged mixes. I’ve reworked traditional recipes to use fresh ingredients — like chicken spaghetti that uses freshly roasted poblano peppers, fresh tomatoes, and real cheese, or Jack and Coke Cake, a traditional Coca-Cola cake with Jack Daniels. I’ve covered everything from breakfast to snacks to casseroles and sweets. And of course, it’s a Southern funeral food book, so I couldn’t skip the gelatin salad — but I promise they are fresh and good, with nary a dollop of Cool Whip in sight!

Is there a wrong dish one can bring to a wake? Cupcakes?

Ha! I’d leave off the sprinkles and the candles. I think as long as it comes from the heart, it’s the right thing. But come on, take the chicken out of the bucket.

What is your favorite funeral food?

You can’t go wrong with caramel cake, and for me, pimento cheese is always the right thing. Like a lot of people I spoke to while working on this project, I think you can’t go wrong with fried chicken. I know it can get a bad rap, but a ham really is useful. And hey, I’m a born and bred Memphian, so pulled pork with a good sauce.

You seem to focus in on Southern cuisine. Will you be branching out?

Southern cooking is where my heart is. There is such a rich diversity and history, and I feel like I am constantly discovering new ideas or learning more about old ones. We’ve got such an abundance of beautiful, local, and regional produce and so many people creating interesting products that I find it endlessly fascinating. I do branch out — I travel quite a bit and love to explore new cuisines and ideas, but I always seem to come back to my roots.

We all know that most book clubs are about the drankin’. A new book club collaboration between Ghost River and Novel gets straight to it. The inaugural meeting, held last Friday, revolved around the book Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. This book, super creepy, most certainly led to a juicy discussion. The book club is held on the third Thursday of every month. Stay tuned for next month’s selection. Ghost River’s Suzanne Williamson fielded some questions about the club.

Where did the idea come from?

Ghost River came up with the idea and reached out to Novel to partner. Novel is very excited about the partnership. We are excited to work together and have a successful club.

How did you choose the book?

Novel chose the first book. We thought that we would discuss future titles with members of Get Lit(erary) early on. Every club has a feel, and we want to see where that lands.

What do you envision for the book club?

Memphians and Ghost River have a great interest in Novel’s success. We also thought that it would be a great idea to connect young and old, bridge downtown and East Memphis through this book club. Ghost River’s Tap Room has always been a community Tap Room, and this is another opportunity to host the community.

How frequent is it?

We will be meeting once a month — the third Thursday of every month.

What’s the next book?

We have a selection, but have decided to get input at our first meeting. We want to make sure our club reaches most of our member’s interests.

Pimento Cheese: The Cookbook (St. Martin’s Griffin) is exactly what it sounds like: an entire cookbook devoted to the classic Southern spread. Written by Perre Coleman Magness, creator of the Southern cooking blog TheRunawaySpoon.com, Pimento Cheese: The Cookbook includes more than 50 recipes that feature the flavors of pimento cheese. The Flyer met with Magness to find out what inspired her cookbook and to hear her secret to mixing up the perfect batch of pimento cheese.

Flyer: How long have you been cooking?

Magness: My whole life. I’ve never been a chef; I did some cooking classes to determine whether I wanted to go to cooking school, and I decided I didn’t. But I’m from a family of people who cook. When I was a kid, my favorite thing to do was make dinner. Both my parents were always big cooks, too, so that’s always been my favorite passion.

Is this your first cookbook? Why did you choose to feature pimento cheese?

This is my first cookbook. Well, I love pimento cheese, mainly, but I love making pimento cheese. I’ve used the flavors in a lot of different ways, and it just occurred to me that no one has written a book about pimento cheese, the different things you can do with it, and ways to adapt it. The ideas just kept flowing, and I turned it into a book.

Perre Coleman Magness

The book’s introduction says you weren’t raised on pimento cheese. When did you first experiment with it?

When I came home from college. When I was a kid, I thought anything with mayonnaise was gross. But when you start going to a lot of luncheons and wedding showers, baby showers, and graduation parties, people serve pimento cheese, and to be polite, you eat it. And it was good! It’s really, really good. So I started eating it and then developed my own recipe. Now, any place I go, if there’s pimento cheese on the menu, that’s what I order.

How long did it take you to perfect your pimento cheese recipe?

I started really simply with just the cheese, mayo, pimentos, and a few spices. Then over 10 years, I picked up little things that other people do. My “house” pimento cheese recipe has pecans in it, which I picked up from someone who put walnuts in theirs. When smoked paprika became a thing, I liked to put paprika in there. Now, that’s my favorite way to make pimento cheese, but you can start going off in really interesting directions. One of my favorites is a barbecue pimento cheese, where I use smoked cheddar cheese, my house barbecue spice rub, and green onions. I was born and raised in Memphis; I had to do something with barbecue.

What are some of your other favorite recipes in the book?

From the spreads, I would say the barbecue and, of course, my house pimento cheese. I love the pimento cheese biscuits. They’re so good with a bowl of soup or with some bacon. The pimento cheese waffles with pimento syrup and bacon — that’s very good. The pimento syrup is kind of like pepper jelly, syrupy. I do a pimento shrimp with cheddar cheese grits, and there’s bacon in there and creamy grits. And then there are a lot of classic Southern dishes, like squash casserole and green beans where you just add those flavors of pimento cheese.

In sampling pimento cheese everywhere, what’s been your favorite?

I was in Atlanta this weekend, and at Empire State South, they do a big plate of food in jars, like a catfish mousse, field pea hummus, and they do this pimento cheese in a mason jar with bacon marmalade on top, and it’s very good. There are a lot of good ones in Memphis: Trolley Stop [Market] makes a good one; Holiday Ham has a good one; Sweet Grass has a burger with pimento cheese on it; Second Line has French fries with gravy and pimento cheese. In Charleston, South Carolina, [I had] a pimento cheese fritter that was like a fried ball of pimento cheese with a green tomato chutney jam, and that was delicious. So, people all over the South, and probably all over the country, are doing really interesting things with pimento cheese, and that’s fun to sample.

Do you have any future cookbooks planned?

I do, but I’m not ready to announce anything. But looking into Southern food and Southern tradition has given me a lot of ideas. Hopefully new things will be coming soon.