Damon Lee Fowler talks about cooking, his writing and the old South during his visit to Savannah on Aug. 21.
By Marcia Barnes
Feature Writer
From the beginning Damon Lee Fowler was imbued in the South’s way of looking at food. The food writer, cookbook author, culinary historian and also editor and recipe developer of “Dining in Monticello” was born in Georgia.
“I was born in Newnan, the county seat of Coweta county, just south of Atlanta. We lived in Palmetto, but Newnan was where the nearest hospital was located,” Fowler said.
“We moved to the South Carolina Piedmont area when I was nine months old and I grew up in Cherokee and York counties. My father was a Baptist minister. He pastored First Baptist Palmetto, Grassy Pond Baptist outside Gaffney in Cherokee County, then First Baptist in Clover in York County.”
Fowler began his work life as an architect, but the love of writing about food finally won out and he began a new path. He is a nationally recognized authority on Southern cooking and Fowler has been sharing his knowledge of good Southern food all the way through the nine cookbooks he has written.
“Classical Southern Cooking” which is a collection of more than 200 recipes was a touchstone volume of ingredients and instructions that stood above most books on this region’s cuisine. The cookbook was nominated for both the Julia Child Cookbook Award and the James Beard Award.
What is most interesting about Fowler is the way in which he has written cookbooks. Pages of recipes from “Classical Southern Cooking” read like love letters, like the recipe for tomato sandwiches. Fowler ploys the essence of summer in the South so that even a novice in the kitchen knows how to proceed, but he lets the cook know that it’s best to eat these over the sink while wearing an old T-shirt.
“You can be sure juice will run down your arms and squirt all over the front of you,” Fowler writes. All of the recipes in “Classical Southern Cooking” have letters from Fowler. Sometimes they reveal the history of a particular food or beverage, sometimes a story about the recipe’s source. Research led Fowler to truths about Southern food and that has earned him respect from peers and cooks alike.
Fowler said that books still in print are “Beans, Greens & Sweet Georgia Peaches,” “Essentials of Southern Cooking” and “Savor the South:Ham” which is a part of the University of North Carolina Press’s Savor the South series of single subject cookbooks.
After writing nine cookbooks, Fowler said that “Dining in Monticello” was in addition to the nine books. What does the author, editor and food contributor do day to day?
Fowler now resides in Virginia and cooks from a small and bright yellow kitchen when he’s not writing.
“I’m semi-retired so I’m basically a writer/house-husband. It’s not terribly interesting, I’m afraid. I’m working on fiction these days, but don’t have anything published yet,” Fowler said.
Fowler’s website: “Southern Spoken Here” precludes any idea that his life is not terribly interesting. Should Fowler write another contribution to Southern food, cooks above and below the Mason-Dixon Line will celebrate.