Recipes

 Recipes for food that can be served at book club meetings for A Lesson Before Dying.

Thelma had the stewed shrimps, a green salad of lettuce, tomato, and cucumber, a piece of corn bread, and a glass of water on the counter, waiting for me.

Inez dished up the food. She had cooked a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, onions, bell pepper, and garlic. She also had rice and mustard greens, green peas and corn bread.

 The deputy went through the basket of food. Fried chicken, bread, sweet potatoes, tea cakes.

 Tea Cakes

“All right,” I said. “But when I go back, I’m going to tell her that you and I sat on the bunk and ate, and you said how good the food was. I won’t tell her what you did. She is already sick, and that would kill her. So I’m going to lie. I’m going to tell her how much you liked the food. Especially the pralines.”

 After warming the coffee, I poured each of us a cupful. I cut two slices from the chocolate cake my aunt had in the safe, then we sat down at the table, facing the yard and the field.

(Cabbage, Potato and Bean Soup)

“He eats one hot meal a day and a sandwich. Lots of beans, cabbage, potatoes, rice                  - you know.”

She (my aunt) was at the stove, making coffee. You could smell that Luzanne coffee all over the kitchen.

“I want me a whole gallona ice cream,” he said, still looking out the window. I saw a slight smile come on his face, and it was not a bitter smile. Not bitter at all. “A whole gallona vanilla ice cream. Eat it with a pot spoon. My last supper. A whole gallona ice cream.” He looked at me again. “Ain’t never had enough ice cream. Never had more than a nickel cone. Used to run out in the quarter and hand the ice cream man my nickel, and he give me a little scoop on a cone. But now I’m go’n get me a whole gallon. That’s what I want - a whole gallon. Eat it with a pot spoon.”

She (Thelma) went back into the kitchen and dished up some rice and beefsteak and sweet peas, and she added a little lettuce-and-tomato salad and a couple of slices of light bread.

The deputy returned to the day room and told Miss Emma what had happened. She had already set the table, and she and my aunt and Reverend Ambrose had taken their places, leaving a space for Jefferson. The food - beef stew and Irish potatoes - was still in the pot and covered. A tablespoon and a paper napkin lay beside each tin pan, on a white tablecloth.

Miss Emma put rice in each pan, then she poured gumbo over the rice until the pan was nearly full. Besides shrimps, she had seasoned it well with green onions, file, and black pepper. Gumbo was something you could always eat, even if you were not hungry. I started in. But I was the only one. And I soon realized why.

“May we bow our heads,” the minister said, after I had put down my spoon.

 “You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m calling Dora to keep the children. I have some red beans and rice back there. Couple of fried pork chops.”

 Pan-fried Pork Chops

I went into the cell with a paper bag full of baked sweet potatoes.

 shef guiry ax me what i want for my super an i tol him i want nanan to cook me som okra an rice an som pok chop an a conbred an som claba an he say he gon see what he can do an say what i want for desert an i tol him jus a little ice cream in a cup an a moon pie