Farewell Pie

A reflection on my heritage of service - through food and love - as I say farewell to my term on the Shelby County Commission.

Teen Tam angrily on dish duty while Granny cooked in our kitchen in Mason, TN featuring her famous chocolate cake.

“To whom much is given, much is required.” My mother often recited this gospel to me when I complained about duties: setting the table, shredding the carrots, or making the desserts at Christmas. We weren’t wealthy like Paris Hilton or Phillip Banks. But, as Black people in the South, we were extremely privileged and financially secure (most of the time), and Gladys wasn’t going to let us forget that our privilege was tenuous and required of us humility and service.

In 1949, Bernice Swansey, at the age of 16, gave birth to her first child in the Negro hospital, John Gaston. She took Gladys, named for her mother, home to the small house she shared with her her father and youngest sister, on the rear side of Decatur in N. Memphis. Eventually, Granny moved to be with her mother, and my mother and eldest Uncle began their life in Chicago. Later in her life, my mom would tell me stories about food insecurity. She would laugh when I asked questions in a “woke” way. “What is food insecurity, Tamara? Were we hungry? Yes. Very.” She once laughed while telling me how much she hated that her stepfather would eat the good pieces of the chicken, leaving the nine children in the house with the less favorable pieces or the leftover chitlins. She told me about butter and sugar sandwiches. She smiled as she remembered the feasts they’d have at the beginning of the month when Granny’s check came. “Mama didn’t save. Aunt Mary liked to save and her kids ate good all month. Mama would go out on the first and buy all this good food and we’d be eating beans by the 15th.”

By the time my mom had me, she was an entrepreneur and married to an accountant (hey dad!). My brother and I had snacks in the fridge and wore Osh Kosh. When I was about 6, Granny came to live with us. Food was an adjustment and sometimes a battle. Granny used every part of the bread. Michael and I didn’t eat the butts. A refusal to take a sandwich to school because she used the end of the loaf resulted in a lot of old school name calling on her end and tears and pouts on ours. Granny was a great cook from a different era. Her oatmeal was awful because it wasn’t something she was used to making. I once cried and told her that whatever she put in the oatmeal made it taste bad. “It’s not like Mommy’s,” I complained. “YOUR MAMMY (emphasis on the a) AINT HERE. I AM. EAT THE CEREAL.” Complaining about some hot oats was not the way to start Granny’s day. One year, my dad banned fried food and red meat from our house. Granny would mutter as she cooked in the kitchen, “Gotta make tilapia cuz Andy don’t want no red meat.” But she would make that fish to perfection and with love.

I was about 10 when Granny pulled up to Cub Foods in the suburbs of Chicago and sent me inside with a list and a book of food stamps. I looked at the stamps and looked at her and said, “Why do you have these? Mom and Dad have money.” If she could have murdered me and gotten away with it, I would not be writing to you right now. I then told her that I was not going inside with the food stamps. “THEY BUY THE SAME FOOD YOU EAT ALL THE TIME! YOUR GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES GRILL JUST THE SAME WHETHER THEY WITH STAMPS OR DOLLARS! YOU AINT TOO GOOD TO GO USE SOME STAMPS!” I lost that war and had to go inside Cub Foods, book of stamps and all.

When Granny moved in with us, she stopped working. Well, living with us was a full-time job, yes, but she was able to have more leisure time. She filled a lot of that time with church and bingo, but she also volunteered monthly at a shelter on the Southside. I tagged along, at first because I had to, and then because I loved it as much as she did. I remember faces lighting up when they realized Granny was in the kitchen. The people coming in for a hot meal knew they were in for a treat. They had some of the same joy that I felt when she set a bowl of chili on the table, perfectly seasoned and extra cheesy just for me. She taught me the importance of community service and not casting judgment on people’s circumstances just by having me stir the potato salad.

Mommy in our kitchen in Evanston, IL, circa 1984.

Memory is a funny thing. I had peanut butter toast today. For a while, it was the only thing I would eat to protest Granny’s cooking (which I grew to love and emulate). I made a latte in the Nespresso machine that my mother bought me because she hated how much money I was giving to “the folks at City & State.” One of the items that I came across when my mom passed was a note in Granny’s handwriting of her final Thanksgiving meal. My nieces spent the last year with my mom, their Nana, learning to cook. They can make mac & cheese and fried corn, lol. Food was the foundation of my mom and grandmother’s love language. Feeding people was an act of service that they performed with intention and purpose.

I started writing this entry because I was reflecting on my term as Commissioner ending. I wanted to chart my maternal history and wound up doing so through food. I was born to a mother who was born to a teenage mother in North Memphis. 69 years after my mother was born, I became a representative of the same community my mom and granny were raised in. My mere presence on the dais defied every odd placed on the life of a Black girl co-raised by a Granny with an 8th-grade education but a Ph.D. in living (and cooking lol).

I was loved by two Black women in powerful, complicated, butter-rich ways. Whether with food or duty, they kept me humble and raised me to be a strong woman committed to my family and community. It has been a privilege to serve Shelby County. I dedicate every moment, the heartwrenching ugly ones and the beautiful glimmers of hope, to Bernice Hunter Swansey and Gladys Hunter Sawyer. Because of them, I was and am.

Bernice’s Sweet Potato Pie

“Actually, it's Bernice's recipe and measurements are estimated.” - Mommy

4/6 medium sweet potatoes
4 -5 eggs
2-3 cups sugar
1 stick butter melted
2 tablespoons vanilla flavor
1 tablespoon lemon flavor
2 teaspoons nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and boil potatoes.  Drain and blend in mixer. Add eggs one at a time and beat well. Add sugar to taste. Melt butter and slowly pour into batter. Add flavors and nutmeg.  Blend well and taste in order to adjust for sweetness.  Pour into pie crust at 3/4 full and bake until brown on edges and firm in middle (45 - 90 minutes).