Paula Deen: Populist Cook or Diabetic Scam Artist?

By now you've probably heard about the controversy surrounding Paula Deen, the southern cook whose butter-soaked, sugar-fueled meals and home-grown style made her a hit on the Food Network. Since admitting to having contracted Type 2 diabetes three years ago and signing on to be a diabetes drug spokeswoman, her publicist has quit, she was condemned as a food hustler by fellow celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, and many have gloated that the old gal got what she deserved. The Deen brand is not in good shape.

I'm not much of a Food TV person, but I am a North Carolinian who has lived most of my adult life in New York City. Every time a restaurant opens here promising me "southern" cuisine, I get excited, and then ultimately disappointed. How hard is it for Yankees to make grits?? Very hard, I conclude, staring at the lumpy mess on my plate where a shimmering heap of buttery corn goodness should be. 

If I want sinfully delicious southern eats, I usually have to make 'em myself. Paula Deen's recipe for tomato pie is one of my summer favorites. Layers of juicy, ripe tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, and a topping of shredded cheese held together by mayonnaise. That last part probably freaks out a lot of health conscious folks. But it's a treat that I make probably four times a year and it reminds me of all the lovely things I connect with eating in the South - abundance, hospitality, and sun-steeped afternoons. When people in the South get together, they like to do so over food. In North Carolina it's a Pig Picken'. In South Carolina it's a Low Country Boil. Oyster roasts, fish fries -- are all occasions to celebrate the warmth and delight of sharing grub and good times together.

There are also things about southern cuisine that leave something to be desired. When I was a kid, I thought that fruit came out of a can, as in fruit cocktail, a syrupy mixture that, when poured into a bowl, constituted a form of "salad." Another special salad was half a canned pear sitting on a leaf of iceberg lettuce and topped with a dollop of sour cream. Unlike the stereotypical southern woman, my mother didn't particularly like to cook, and she would usually rely on prefab ingredients whenever possible to pull something together for dinner, or "supper," as we called it. She worked full time, and as my dad was neither handy nor eager to help in the kitchen, the idea of preparing elaborate meals was beyond her physical and mental stamina at the end of a day teaching. There was something else, too, about that reliance on prepared foods that I didn't understand until later. But it has to do with women and class and rural experience -- a fraught combination that may not register for a young generation of city-dwellers.

My mother was raised on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, where there was always fresh food no matter how pinched the family might feel in other ways. But the difference between this fresh food and the items I buy at Whole Foods was this: my mother had to work hard for that food. Very, very hard. If her brothers went fishing, it was the women who would have to clean and gut the heaps of catch. If there were vegetables, they had to be grown, and tended, and picked, and cleaned, and put away for the winter. If there was pork -- let's not even go there. On a farm, there was no break from this constant work, and women bore the brunt of it. No wonder that in the 1950s, as canned and prepared items became available, rural women often rushed out to buy them. Being able to afford such items was often a luxury, and it was prepared food, rather than fresh food, that served as a class marker in rural areas. Very likely the casseroles and what-not put together with endless cans of cream of mushroom soup and processed cheese were not very good for anybody. But in a time when people got far more exercise, the effects were probably slower to register. Research shows that fifty years ago, even suburban women doing housework burned up many more calories than we do today.