Edna Lewis: The Southern Cook Who Brought Farm-to-Table to the Front Porch
Edna Lewis was a true Southern Food Pioneer
© 2025 SteveWill Production
Growing up, Edna Lewis was in every family member’s kitchen. My grandmother, a true southerner, knew many of the recipes Lewis cooked. Not because she found them within her books, but because she grew up on many of them. As a child, I would often dislike eating foods such as braised chicken gizzards, any type of preserves, or buttered beans. Actually, I dislike shelling peas and canning all things which my grandmother did at specific times every year and religiously. However, when I became an adult and listened more to her amazing stories, I saw why those foods were staples; the food was raised or grown on the farm, which made it accessible. Edna Lewis grew up in a world where food came straight from the land. No shortcuts. No pretense. Just real food, cooked in rhythm with the seasons.
That world wasn’t so different from the one my grandmother knew. Edna Lewis and my grandmother shared similar upbringings, and I believe that's why Lewis’ story resonates with me so well.
So before "farm-to-table" was a movement, it was just called living — at least in Montgomery County, Georgia, for my grandmother, and Freetown, Virginia, where Edna Lewis grew up. Born in 1916 in a community founded by formerly enslaved people (including her grandfather). Lewis was raised on homegrown tomatoes, hand-churned ice cream, and the kind of cornbread that doesn’t need sugar because the corn was fresh and the cast iron skillet was always ready. Lewis learned to cook the way generations before her had: by feel, by season, and always from the land around her. She didn’t just follow recipes — she passed down a way of life.
Edna Lewis didn’t just preserve that tradition—she elevated it. Her 1976 book The Taste of Country Cooking is more than a collection of recipes; it’s a time capsule of rural Southern life, where every dish told a story. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t just tell you how to cook, but why you wait for the peaches to ripen, why you walk out to the garden barefoot, why a summer supper is best eaten on a porch with the windows open.
That’s not nostalgia. That was just life. It was how they lived—close to the earth, close to the kitchen, and close to each other.
Here’s one of Edna’s recipes that still feels like summer in the South: simple, honest, and so good you don’t need to dress it up.
Edna Lewis’s Cold Cucumber Soup
(adapted from The Taste of Country Cooking)
© 2025 SteveWill Production
This soup is perfect for when the heat rises and the cucumbers are cool from the garden. Serve it with cornbread or cold sliced ham, and you’ve got yourself a meal that doesn’t ask for much—just good ingredients and good company.
Ingredients:
3 large cucumbers, peeled and finely grated
1 quart buttermilk (full-fat, if you can find it)
1 small onion, grated or finely minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Salt and black pepper to taste
Optional: a splash of lemon juice or vinegar if your buttermilk isn’t tangy enough
Instructions:
Grate the cucumbers and let them drain in a colander for 10–15 minutes.
In a large bowl, mix the buttermilk, onion, dill, and drained cucumbers.
Season with salt and pepper. Taste it. Adjust if needed. Chill well.
Serve cold, preferably in chilled bowls, maybe even under a shade tree.
There’s a reason Edna Lewis’s food still resonates. It’s not because it’s fancy—it’s because it’s true. She cooked the way my grandmother did: with intention, with care, and with respect for what the land gave. That wasn’t a movement. That was survival. That was pride. That was love.
And if you’ve ever snapped beans on the porch or shelled peas with your grandmother, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Let’s keep that spirit alive—not just in the kitchen, but in how we live.
Works Cited
Franklin, Sara B. Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
Lewis, E. (2006). The taste of country cooking. Alfred A. Knopf. (Original work published 1976)
White, T. (2023, June). What made Edna Lewis the mother of soul food. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved May 20, 2025, from Smithsonian Magazine website https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/edna-lewis-the-mother-of-soul-food-180982117/