Taproots of Tennessee: Historic Sites and Timeless Recipes

Abstract

Award-winning Christian recording artist Lynne Drysdale Patterson invites the reader to “travel these trails” of the Tennessee Historical Commission's 17 state-owned historic sites. Taproots of Tennessee is based on Patterson's song “Trails of Tennessee” and is part cookbook, part historical souvenir book. Each chapter journeys through grand homes—the “taproots”—and the lives of the wealthy, white settlers who occupied them. The second half of each chapter provides the “timeless recipes” based on what was grown and eaten in the respective home. This new book is the second time this singer-songwriter has forayed into the world of historically based recipes.The 17 chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the oldest historic site named Rocky Mount (built ca. 1772) and ending with the Alex Haley Home Museum and Interpretive Center (built 1919). Because Patterson uses build dates, not geographic locations, the book moves temporally from early colonization to the Civil War. The chapters succinctly survey the basic historical backgrounds of the sites. Every chapter begins with a quote labeled “taproots,” though the author's intention behind this word is never fully explicated. Patterson then describes the building of the house or acquiring of the land and ends with the year the Historical Commission acquired it. Jeffrey Stoner's photographs complement each chapter, illustrating Patterson's remarks on the architecture and decor. The book begins by upholding the “bravery” (p. 134) of the early settlers and ends with tales of the Lost Cause South.The bulk of each chapter is dedicated to recipes. Patterson writes that Tennessee cuisine “tells the story of time and place” (p. 85) and “follows its terrain” (p. 53). The recipes and even the lyrics to an old song are described as “timeless” (p. 77). Patterson's introduction led me to expect that most recipes were recouped from scraps in the archives, but she notes only a couple of instances of archival sources. The rest are recipes of her own creation (and sometimes from Bon Appétit, the New York Times, and Ronni Lundy) that resemble what may have been cooked at that time. These are “modern takes” on old foodways; it is unclear how timeless the actual recipes are if they include modern vegetable varieties and ingredients that did not exist in the eighteenth century, like butternut squash.As a cookbook, Taproots includes a good mix of recipes: mains, sides, breads, desserts, and drinks. The recipes have little tips, called “tidbits,” which are helpful and informative. Each chapter includes its own medley, and some have settings like “church picnics” or food served at an inn. This book highlights the kitchens, and thus the lives, of the antebellum South. However, there is only fleeting reference to those who cooked the food. For a book that makes historical domestic subjects its focus, it is decidedly not about the women or enslaved people who did most of the cooking—begging the question, What does “timeless” mean to Lynne Patterson?For a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant woman, this book might be similar to literary comfort food. It's the kind of book I would give to my Southern aunt. The target audience is white Southerners such as the author herself. Patterson clearly intends this book for those with a similar background and station as herself by describing words as originating in “our English heritage” and referring to an “Old South” that exists today, though she does not explain what is included in the Old South nor what she means by it (p. 85). Those who know already know. This book glorifies settler colonialism by using glowing terms to describe the homeowners’ lives and foodways. A common theme of land acquisition pervades the pages. White settlers received land from the government. There was no regard back then, nor in the pages of this book, that this land was already occupied when it was ceded away. Patterson's research methods are unclear. Her in-text citations include one master's thesis, the Encyclopedia Britannica, some historical texts, and a few agricultural surveys. She looks at land records and deeds in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, but the omission of a bibliography or appendix makes it hard to further explore any of her primary and secondary texts.While this book contains in just 300-some pages an impressive amount of research—especially on place names and native plant species—it does not advance foodways studies, folkloristics, or historical discourse. For those interested in Tennessee history, it is a welcome addition to the bookshelf. For those interested in colonial recipes, there are many delightful ones to try. Patterson has—perhaps unwittingly—illustrated how inextricable food is from its historical and social contexts. However, this book does little to question or even acknowledge the political, socioeconomic, and racial implications of that food.She points out that the slave quarters “succumbed to weather and age” (p. 120) and are no longer standing. There is much parallel between the historic homes and sites that still stand and the ones that no longer exist. They are much like the historical record that Patterson brings to us: the stories of affluent white people who endure in the history books and archives. As readers, we rarely learn the names of marginalized and oppressed individuals in these tales. As folklorists, we tackle the uneven historical record; we “rethink history,” in the words of Henry Glassie. Patterson has not attempted to rethink the historical record, but rather has added more detail to the already detailed.I tested some of the recipes, which are appealing, but still need a sharper editor before they can be circulated to a larger audience. For example, the recipe for Appalachian shepherd's pie is riddled with typos, with ingredients listed (such as chicken broth) that are changed or omitted in the preparation instructions. Patterson provides no temperature settings for the oven. She omits salt in some recipes but not in others.The year after this book's publication, protests for racial equality and justice multiplied around the country. More Confederate monuments were pulled to the ground than in any other year in US history. On March 9, 2021, the Tennessee Historical Commission voted to remove the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, from its 40-plus-year display in the Tennessee State Capitol. Though not carved in stone, foodways can also romanticize racist histories. Similar to the monuments, this book follows a well-trod literary path of white forefather veneration and Lost Cause rhetoric without acknowledging the racial and political contexts in which these sites and recipes arose.