Secret is in the sauce: Recipes keep family history alive

My friend from college visited Macon all the way from Williamsburg, Virginia, last weekend, so of course, I made sure to take her to all the good eateries and tasty spots around town.

We partook in delicacies from Layers bakery, H&H and Macon Bagels, to name a few. I’ve never had a visitor who hasn’t enjoyed eating their way through Macon. 

We also traveled about 30 minutes outside of Macon to Juliette. Last time I drove through the winding roads of Monroe County, I was headed to an interview with a famous wiener dog — the Usain Bark of dachshunds and a three-time champion of the Cherry Blossom Festival wiener dog races.

We weren’t there to see a low-riding, four-legged running prodigy this time, though. 

My friend, Zicky (college nicknames sure do stick sometimes) is a huge fan of the book “Fried Green Tomatoes” and its movie adaptation. As most locals know, the movie was filmed in Juliette, where folks can still enjoy a hot order of fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, just like Idgie and Ruth. 

We arrived in Juliette coincidentally during the Green Tomato Festival. Local vendors packed the street and a constant stream of visitors came in and out of nearby shops. 

We took lots of pictures and visited a couple shops, packed to the brim with vintage knickknacks and souvenirs for fans of the movie and book.

The street, with its rows of wood buildings and big porches, offered a kind of whimsy that my friend said felt as if we had traveled back in time.

At an antique booth, a painted metal recipe tin caught our attention. It overflowed with hand-written recipes and old newspaper clippings and cutouts from the back of ingredient boxes.

We suspected the tin must have sat on someone’s kitchen counter for many years — collecting a lifetime of recipes from Watergate cake to pecan pie to meatloaf. Some of the recipes, pulled from a newspaper in Tennessee, dated all the way back to the mid ‘70s. We rifled through a lot of Jell-O and Cool Whip recipes to prove it!

Zicky and I decided to split the recipes in the box, so we could both try some old-school comfort foods in our kitchens. 

The little tin with its hodgepodge of old recipes reminded me how often they become family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, a testament to the belief that taste and smell really are powerful senses of the memory. 

In many families, the same food-stained and yellowed notecard written in a great-great grandmother’s swooping cursive makes an appearance every year on holidays or special occasions. My mother still makes her grandmother’s lentil soup, and we still use a holiday cheese log recipe that my grandmother once pulled from the back of a Kraft cheese container. 

This week I’ll share one of those recipes with you — Deviled eggs are a hit or miss party appetizer. I find that a lot of recipes are too dry and mustard-y for my taste. I like mine to be creamy, doused in paprika and containing the most important secret ingredient: sweet pickle juice. 

Perhaps this isn’t such a super secret ingredient, but Zicky is the only other person I know who makes deviled eggs this way. I think we can both agree it adds a touch of sweetness and a bit of needed moisture. 

My grandmother and mother used to measure this recipe out with their heart, but I’ve written it down since then. 

Hopefully you’ll give this recipe a try and let me know if the secret is in the pickle juice.

— 6 hard boiled eggs

— 1/3 cup of mayonnaise 

— 1 tablespoon of sweet pickle juice

— 1 teaspoon of mustard

— 1/4 teaspoon of onion powder

— 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder

— 1/4 teaspoon of pepper

— 1/2 teaspooin of paprika

Halve each hard boiled egg the long way and scoop out the yolks. Set the whites aside and mash the yolks in a bowl with a fork. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Use either a spatula or a frosting bag to fill each egg white with a dollop of yolk. Sprinkle with extra paprika for a pop of color and enjoy!