Oh… you've sent me down the memory rabbit hole.

I remember Gran making sausage and ham. She butchered her own yearling hogs (I was never privy to that process) she'd raised. Her sausage was better than Neese's any day! Gran also made this amazing pecan nut cake every holiday season. Grandpa Jack made the best snap beans (green beans from their own garden) and "new Irish potatoes" — they were cooked together with seasonings ends (pepper cured ham bits). He and Gran used seasoning ends in lots of stuff. One of my favorite vegetable dishes as a kid was the garden fresh black-eyed peas and snap beans with brown speckled limas made with the seasoning ends. When they were out, they defaulted to fatback (blegh).

Did you know brown speckled limas are indigenous to North America and more drought tolerant than the green variety? But, you can't find the brown speckled limas anywhere these days.

I also recall snuggling on Great Gramma Mary's lap. She always smelled sort of buttery and cinnamony. She made the best apple pecan praline pie, and cherry-peach pie. I wish her recipes had been handed down. Her butter-bread and apple cake with pecan crumble was awesome too. She apparently didn't use recipes, so no one has been able to reproduce her treats. She had her own pecan trees and a fruit orchard. She also made the best chicken and pastry; at least that recipe made it into everyone's kitchen because it was a staple meal.