“Cornbread,” a poem by Kentucky writer Silas House, is thick with sensory memories of Appalachian cooking and family: scooping cornmeal by hand and “the splash of egg, the gallop of buttermilk.” The poet recalls his mother cooking after work, the lessons he learned from his aunt, and his grandmother’s stories. The poem conjures the ache of memory and how food itself becomes a way of “eating our own history, tasting the past.” “Cornbread” is from House’s poetry collection All These Ghosts (Bookshop|Amazon) and is used here with permission from the book’s publisher, Blair. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Cornbread,” a Poem About Appalachian Food, Memory, and Family”
Kentucky poet and novelist Silas House writes often about growing up in Appalachia, and I wanted to read one of his poems.
It’s called Cornbread.
I like to scoop the meal up by hand, no spoon, so I can feel the grain on my fingers, wonder at the fields that gave it life.
I love the splash of egg, the gallop of buttermilk.
When I mix all of this, I see my mother cooking for me after a long day bent over stoves, spent serving all of the mean children at the Lilly Elementary School.
I see my aunt, cigarette planted firmly between her teeth as she holds the bowl against her belly, eyes on the young and the restless while the cast iron skillet of grease heats in the roaring gas oven.
I see my grandmother and every woman before her in my family, and, yes, even the occasional man who lowered himself to cook, who secretly enjoyed fingering the meal.
And here I am too, time sick once again.
If I could go back, I would tell my mother to go, sit down, and rest.
I would memorize every word my aunt said as she taught me how to cook, how to live in this world, how to be myself.
I would kiss Mama on the forehead and spend time with her at her little wooden table, savoring every bite, listening.
I’d ask Granny to tell me that story one more time, please.
This is the curse of who we are as a people, always eating our own history, tasting the past.
That is such a perfect encapsulation of food and memory.
And it evokes my own experience with my own family in Southeast Missouri, which has a lot in common with Appalachia, you know, cornbread and the skillet.
Even the cigarette dangling while you cook.
Mhmm.
Yeah, this is a poem you can almost smell, right?
Oh, yeah.
I can smell the bacon fat that you keep in the refrigerator that you pull out to grease the pan with before you pour the cornmeal batter in there.
Oh, yeah.
The poem and the author again.
It’s Cornbread by Silas House, and it’s from his collection called All These Ghosts.
We’ll link to Silas House’s book on our website at waywordradio.org.
Martha and I love to hear what you’ve been reading, whether it’s poetry or literature or something else.
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