All recipes

Old-fashioned stuffed cabbage rolls: ground beef and rice rolled in tender cabbage leaves and baked for 1 hour 30 minutes under foil in a tomato sauce with brown sugar and lemon. Golumpki, halupki, holubtsi, all the same good dish.

Indiana sugar cream pie made the old way: sugar, flour, heavy cream, vanilla, butter and nutmeg stirred right in the unbaked crust, with no eggs at all.

Old-fashioned American Sunday spaghetti: a thick ground beef meat sauce simmered an hour and a half with a teaspoon of sugar, then the noodles stirred right into the pot and left ten minutes with the lid on.

The classic Minnesota tater tot hotdish: seasoned ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, green beans and cheddar under a top of frozen tater tots standing in tight rows, baked until golden and bubbling. A 9x13 pan, 15 minutes of work, dinner for eight.

The classic Texas sheet cake: a thin, tender chocolate cake baked in a jelly roll pan, with a boiled chocolate pecan frosting poured over while both are warm so it sets into a glossy sheet. Feeds a crowd, ready in under an hour. Cups and grams.

Old-fashioned Depression-era water pie: plain water poured into an unbaked deep dish crust, flour and sugar sprinkled over without stirring, vanilla and five pats of butter. Cups and grams, and why it only sets once it is cold.

Classic chicken fried steak: cube steak pounded thin, dredged twice in seasoned flour and buttermilk egg, fried in a cast iron skillet until deep gold, and covered in white pepper gravy made from the drippings in the same pan. Four steaks in 40 minutes. Cups and grams, plus the reason the crust slides off and how to stop it.

The Friday night salmon patties made from one can of pink salmon, crushed saltines, an egg and a little onion, fried in a cast iron skillet until the outside crackles. Six patties in 25 minutes, with creamed peas on the side. Cups and grams, and the two reasons they fall apart.

A big pot of Sunday stovetop beef chili: ground beef browned hard, spices toasted into the meat before any liquid, two hours on low, and the beans left to you. With the masa trick that thickens it and makes it taste right.

Real Southern buttermilk fried chicken in a cast iron skillet: an overnight buttermilk soak, seasoned flour in a paper bag, and the lid-on-then-off method that gives a shattering crust and juicy meat every time.

Old-fashioned Southern buttermilk pie: a sweet, tangy custard filling that sets with a thin golden skin and a crack when you cut it. Six ingredients, one bowl, a store-bought crust if you like, and the wobble test that tells you when it is done.

Classic Southern chicken salad: chopped cooked chicken, celery, green onion, mayonnaise, Dijon and lemon, with the grapes and pecans left to family opinion. How to poach chicken so it stays soft, and how to serve it on a lettuce leaf, on saltines or in a sandwich.