Flavors: A Grandmother’s Storied Rolls, a Swig of Eggnog and a Touch of Divinity

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These time-tested recipes speak of community, connection and tradition.

Amid Uncertainty, There are Rolls

In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic last winter and spring, yeast and flour suddenly became valuable, and very scarce, commodities, as Americans returned to the comfort and security of baking. Store shelves were cleared of these basic kitchen staples.   

Like many other Americans, once we were able to secure the precious ingredients, we resurrected recipe files long forgotten, to celebrate the centrality of bread. This is one of those cherished recipes we will now return to during the holidays.

The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, originated, in part, because of a pan of rolls. Held every October since 1973, the festival brings visitors from all over the world. The festival’s founder, Jimmy Neil Smith, learned to appreciate the telling of stories in the home of his grandmother, Pearl Jackson.

“My favorite storytelling memory is, as a child, sitting around the dinner table with my family, long after the dishes were washed and put away, nibbling on my grandmother’s leftover Parker House rolls and listening to stories,” recalls Smith.

He never forgot the connections and the memories those rolls created within his family. Years ago, he shared the recipe with us.

Pearl Jackson’s Parker House Rolls

  • 1 pint milk (In Mrs. Jackson’s parlance, “sweet” milk)
  • 1 package dry yeast or fresh cake yeast
  • ¼ cup lukewarm water
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter or margarine
  • 5 - 6 cups plain flour
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • ¼ to ½ cup melted butter or margarine

Scald milk until a skim comes on top. Set aside to cool. Now dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water and allow to get bubbly. Place the milk in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining sugar, melted butter, yeast, half the flour (2 to 3 cups), and mix well. Cover mixture and let set for an hour. Next, add the remaining flour with salt added. Add more flour if needed to make a stiff dough. Cover and let rise to double thickness (approximately 1½ to 2 hours). Punch down and knead on a floured board. Roll dough out on the floured board to ½-inch thickness.  Cut in rounds, dip in melted butter, and fold over. Place in a greased pan about ½ inch apart. Cover with waxed paper in a warm place for 45 minutes or less until almost double in size. Bake at 475-500 degrees until a medium brown—around 10 to 15 minutes.

Divine Secrets of Syrup and Sugar

At Christmastime, the young women in Ada Hornsby Earnest’s home economics classes at East Tennessee State College (now East Tennessee State University) took home more than knowledge. For the train trip back home, they packed away cartons of divinity candy, stirred and stiffly beaten by the hands of their experienced teacher, who claimed her foamy formula “never failed.”

Mrs. Earnest taught in one of the original departments, Domestic Science, after having enrolled as a student in 1912, during the first academic year of East Tennessee State Normal School’s existence. According to an early catalogue, the required course in home economics covered “the necessities of daily home life, the material and forces with which the housekeeper has to deal.” For Mrs. Earnest, divinity candy was a way to add grandeur and elegance to those necessities, elevating the most accessible of ingredients—water, sugar, syrup, eggs, vanilla and nuts—to a confection worthy of its churchly name.

Ada Hornsby Earnest, who died in 1982 at age 96, used to recite the “Prayer of a Homemaker” to each one of her home economics classes at East Tennessee State. She did so for the final time in 1963, eight years after she had retired from teaching. The prayer speaks of the homemaker seeking sainthood not by quiet contemplation and study but through the dignity of work, “by getting meals and washing up the plates.”

Folks around East Tennessee who have made her divinity candy late in December for years without blemish, fault, or imperfection say her prayer was answered.

Mrs. Earnest’s Never-Fail Divinity

  • ⅓ cup water
  • 1⅓ cups white sugar
  • ⅓ cup white Karo syrup
  • 1 egg white, stiffly beaten
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ cup chopped nuts, coconut, or candied cherries. (Mrs. Earnest used green and red cherries at Christmastime. The nuts she used were typically pecans or black walnuts.)

Cook together the water, sugar, and Karo syrup until it spins a thread. (Some old candy thermometers have a marking for “Thread,” at around 230 degrees. The “thread” is a very thin, wispy filament that appears when you dip a spoonful of the mixture out of the pan.) Pour half the syrup over the stiffly beaten egg white, beating all the time. Cook the remaining syrup to the “crack” stage (300 degrees) when tested in cold water. Continue beating the first mixture while pouring the rest of the syrup into it. When it begins to hold its shape, add vanilla and nuts, coconut, or cherries. Continue beating until it holds its shape well. If it should not hold its shape as desired, add a tablespoon of sifted powdered sugar, or 2 tablespoons, if needed. Drop from a teaspoon onto waxed paper. Cool and store in an airtight box.

Eastern Kentucky Eggnog

Dr. Joe Florence, now of Jonesborough, Tennessee, was a country doctor in the community of Ary, Kentucky, when a colleague showed up at a Christmas party in 1983 carrying a punch bowl full of this eggnog that she had learned to make in Upstate New York. Now it’s one of the most popular offerings during gatherings in Tennessee’s oldest town.

Eggnog to Eat or Drink

  • 6 eggs at room temperature
  • ¾ cup sugar, divided
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 pint half-and-half or whipping cream
  • Whole milk
  • Half gallon of vanilla ice cream
  • Freshly grated nutmeg to taste
  • Optional:  Rum or Kentucky bourbon to taste

Beat egg yolks with ½ cup sugar. Add vanilla, half-and-half, and enough milk to make 1½ quarts of liquid. Beat egg whites and ¼ cup of sugar until stiff. Fold egg white mixture into milk mixture and add the ice cream. Guests can add nutmeg and rum or bourbon to taste.

Fred and Jill Sauceman study and celebrate the foodways of Appalachia and the South from their home base in Johnson City, Tennessee.   

The story above appears in our November / December 2020 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!