Last month for my assignment as the Vintage Kitchen columnist over at OKRA magazine, I tested an old Alabama recipe for Cardamom Sour Cream Pound Cake with Burnt Sugar Ice Cream.
The recipe came from Sook’s Cookbook, Memories and Traditional Receipts from the Deep South which I came across in a box at an estate sale. The cookbook is a compendium of old recipes from the Faulk family of Monroeville, Alabama. Sook Faulk was Truman Capote’s great aunt and her special fruitcakes are immortalized in Capote’s lovely and sad short story “A Christmas Memory.”
Compiled by Marie Rudisill, Sook’s niece, the recipes date as far back as 1836 in plantation record books. Marie and Truman started work on the cookbook in 1947 but put it aside until 1972 when they collaborated again, mostly by phone.
Marie wrote a great deal about the characters in the Faulk household: the cook, Little Bit; Corrie, the housekeeper and sometime cook; Sem Muscadine, another cook and handyman; and Truman, Aunt Jenny, and Aunt Sook.
Truman Capote’s Aunt Sook, as illustrated by Barry Moser.
The cookbook is a charmer and the pound cake and ice cream recipes were fantastic! I will definitely be making these again. Pop over to OKRA, the digital magazine for the Southern Food and Beverage Institute (SoFAB), and check it out.
Looks delightful. I would love to make this and cut into little squares for one of my vintage tea parties. I talk about that and many other vintage things, like jitterbug, vintage fashion, movie & book reviews and crafts at girlinthejitterbugdress.com. I will pop over to OKRA to check out more recipes as well as tweet! YUM! PS love the vintage pic of the gal feeding the chickens.
Hi Tam: this pound cake would be perfect for one of your vintage tea parties. It’s tender but not too crumbly so would hold up to being cut into 2″squares or fingers. I can’t wait to check out girlinthejitterbugdress.com. I love vintage (books, cookware, art, tools, jewelry, appliances etc.)