When I moved from Texas to Indiana, I brought my 99-year-old grandmother's cornbread dressing recipe with me. Well, ok, my mom had to email it to me because I couldn't find my copy, but the knowledge of how to make it, how it's supposed to look and taste, I brought that.
Every family in the south, it seems, has their own version of cornbread dressing, so ours is unique to our family. It meant a lot to me yesterday to be making it and know my sister was making the same thing in Los Angeles. I thought about how my grandmothers before me probably never thought the dressing they cooked out on the farm in Texas would be made in places so far away.
When I told my friend, Jennifer, what goes in our dressing she said you can tell they were using what they had and did their best to make it special. It's special to me, now, because this relatively inconsequentional bit of knowledge that allows me to assemble a humble dish of cornmeal and flour, made special with eggs and broth, celery and sage ties me to those women across the years. And I'm hoping that my daughters will be willing to learn it and carry it on and feel the ties to their family when they make it, no matter where their futures take them.
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