Best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling and her memoir, Cross Creek, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was as comfortable in the kitchen as she was at the typewriter — maybe more so, as cooking was a joy to her, whereas she belonged to the “writing is agony” school of thought.

Rawlings collected the recipes of her time and place in Cross Creek Cookery (1942).

For the most part, the recipes are simple and familiar, with a decidedly Southern accent. Still workable if not always healthful (lots of butter and sugar!),  some of the dishes would now be considered a extreme and gross  — Alligator-Tail Steak and Minorcan Gopher Stew among them. Read More→