Whilst Peggy was with us she cooked some traditional southern US food. This bowl is full of pinto beans and ham hock or hough as we say in Scotland, it was very tasty. I suppose it’s peasant food but that’s my favourite kind and the weather was cold enough to want winter warmers. If you’re interested you can see a recipe similar to the one Peggy used here.

The photo below is of hoecakes which are made from cornmeal which Peggy had to bring with her as you can’t get it in the shops in Scotland. Again, very tasty, like thick pancakes with a distinctive flavour of corn. You can read about them and see a recipe here.

Peggy also brought a tub of grits with her. I had always wondered what grits were, now I know, it looks similar to porridge but again has a corn flavour. I preferred it straight but it can be eaten with syrup, I tried that but it drowned out the corn taste. A lot of southern US food does seem to be very sweet, or has syrup added where I wouldn’t expect it to be, which reminded me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird when her lunchtime guest from school asked for syrup for his ham, much to her disgust. She got skelped for that!