Dolly Parton’s Childhood On A Plate: How Food And Family Inspired Her New Cookbook
Dolly Parton and her sister, Rachel Parton George, recently took a stroll down memory lane — while enjoying a strawberry shortcake from their new cookbook, Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A Year of Meals – A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food. But what really had them reminiscing was something far simpler, something the Parton family lovingly called “left-handed gravy.”
“Our daddy was left-handed,” explains Dolly during a conversation with PEOPLE. “There was two or three of us in the family that were lefties. So if Daddy was making his gravy, when our mom would be sick he’d make the breakfast, he’d stir it with his left hand.”
Rachel, 65, chimes in, “We always thought that his gravy was so much better than Mama’s because it was left-handed gravy,”
“And it was!” Dolly said.
Family and food are so enmeshed in the Partons’ lives that meals like this hold more than flavor-they hold memories.
Growing up in boisterous household in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, there were always plenty of mouths to feed. For the Parton family, cooking was about necessity as much as bonding. “I still love the smell of bread cooking whether it just be some loaf bread that Rachel’s doing or some cornbread. I just think nothing says [home] more than just the smell of bread,” the singer recalled.
Rachel said, “My mama probably just wanted me out of the way, so she pulled up a chair and had all the things and she had it in a bowl. And she said, ‘Here, you get to make cornbread tonight.’ So I was working hard at making that cornbread.”
Dolly also ventured into the kitchen out of necessity. With a house full of siblings, helping out was part of life. “We’d have to climb up on the chairs to peel potatoes, turnips or whatever. We were really helping out when Mama was not well, or in bed with a kid or having a new baby or whatever… so my first [lesson] came out of just really being a necessity of us helping mom as the older girls,” the 78-year-old shares.
Due to a shared love of cooking, born of their poor upbringing, the sisters created Good Lookin’ Cookin’ to be released September 17. It celebrates their family’s heritage and love of Southern food, but in a healthier way.
“Southern food is actually healthier than people assume it is, anyway,” Dolly says, adding, “And Rachel has a way of not going overboard these days. You can learn to cook good southern food without putting as much grease, lard, bacon grease, whatever you do, or butter.”
To the Parton family, mealtime wasn’t as much about the food itself but about the gathering. “We’d always eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together,” says Dolly. “Daddy would come home and we’d all sit around the table, talk and eat with a mouthful,” she says with a laugh.
Their recollection of flavors from childhood ranges from ordinary to unforgettable. Dolly recalls that her mom made the family’s dad’s favorite dish, groundhog. “A groundhog is just like a big fat hog that runs around in the woods. But Mama called them whistle pigs because they were that much like a pig. It tastes very much like a pig, but I wouldn’t want to eat one now.”
Squirrels and rabbits were also staples on the menu, courtesy of their brothers and uncles who hunted. We always loved rabbit and squirrel, because our brothers hunted with our uncles and dad. They would often bring home rabbits and squirrels and that’s some of the best eating you’ve ever had,” she recounted.
From ham and biscuits to ribs and, of course, strawberry shortcake, this cookbook includes more than 80 recipes. The dessert even features a signature “Dolly Dollop” of whipped cream. When asked for the definition of a Dolly Dollop, Rachel laughs as she responds with, “A generous helping, how’s that?”
Dolly chimes in with, “There’s never enough for me. So when I do a Dolly Dollop, like Rachel says, I just do a good, good, good hearty spoonful. Rachel might put it on to be pretty and not mess up the rest of it.”
One recipe, though did not reach this status-Dolly’s famous chicken and dumplings.
“Everyone in the family has their own version,” says Rachel, who added, “Our family, we all have a different recipe, and sometimes if we’re having a get together, someone will say, ‘Well I’m going to bring chicken and dumplings.’ And I’ll say, ‘Well, I might bring chicken and dumplings.’ So we might have five versions of chicken and dumplings.”
