Old Time Mountain Recipes

By Susan M. Thigpen © 1989

Issue: September, 1989

Old Time Soda Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 cup thick sour milk
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lard

Sift together soda, flour and salt. Work the lard into this until the mixture looks like meal. Add milk gradually and mix with a knife to a rather soft dough. Turn on to lightly floured board and knead until the dough feels smooth and velvety. Roll and cut. Put in a pan and bake in hot oven. Serve piping hot.

Graham Cracker Cake

1/2 pound butter
1 pound box Graham Crackers, crushed
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 cup sweet milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup grated coconut

Cream butter and sugar; add eggs, one at a time. Add baking powder to crumbs. Add milk and coconut. Mix well. Bake in 3 pans 350 degrees, 25 to 30 minutes. Spread can crushed pineapple between layers.

Lima Bean Sausage Skillet

1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced celery
2 tablespoons fat
1 cup canned tomatoes
2 cups cooked or canned limas
1/2 pound sausage

Cook onion and celery in fat. Add sausage and brown. Add remaining ingredients, cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Baked Squash

Boil squash until tender, remove from heat, let cool, slice in two and scoop out seeds. Put pulp into mixing bowl, add grated cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and put back in squash shells with butter on top. Bake until nice and brown.

Noodles with Ham

1 cup flour
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash black pepper
1 tablespoon water

Put flour in bowl; add salt and pepper, mixing well. Make well in flour, drop in egg and water and begin to mix with a fork. Mix until a stiff dough is formed, adding more flour if necessary, knead thoroughly; when dough is no longer sticky, place on well floured surface and roll as thin as possible. Spread on towel and allow to dry. When dry, cut or break into strips or pieces.

Most delicious when cooked with a ham bone for 30 minutes or until tender.

Breaded Carrots

Cook whole carrots until almost tender in boiling salted water. Drain and roll in melted butter, then in find bread crumbs. Brown in 350 degree oven. Garnish with carrot tops.

Fried Carrots

Grate enough raw carrots to make one cup. Add a beaten egg, a cup of milk and flour to spoon. Add a little salt and pepper. Fry on hot griddle.

Cheese Grits

Mix 1 1/2 cups grits and 6 cups water and cook until thick. While on stove add 1 pound cheese, 1 1/2 sticks of margarine, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Beat 3 eggs and add this to mixture. Put in buttered baking dish. Cook one hour at 300 degree oven.

Share Your Favorite Old Time Recipes

Editor's Note: We are always hearing from readers who say how much they enjoy the old time recipes. We hope you will enjoy the ones we are printing this month. They're good old time eating. Some of these recipes, like the homemade noodles cooked with a ham bone, go back to pioneer days when settlers from the old country adapted old world recipes such as noodles, to their new environment.

If you have any favorite old time recipes, you have an open invitation to share them with our readers. Just send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and we will print them if they are not a duplicate of a recipe we have already printed.

We will be looking forward to hearing from you. Good eating!

Susan Thigpen