Food For Thought: The Don Effect Blog

The Don Effect: An Evening of Food, Performance, and Stories, an original dance theatre piece created by Goat in the Road Productions, explores the struggle to recreate originals, including family recipes. Not only do we try to recreate the food, but also we try to revisit the memories connected to the taste.


1. This blog is a place for you to contribute your story.

What is your favorite family recipe and why? What is the story behind it? How is it made? Have you ever tried to recreate it? What moment or person does it bring you back to?

We invite you to share your ingredients and your memories with us. Post a recipe story below and it may become a part of the Performance and the Archive.


2. You can ALSO exhibit your personal artifacts at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum


GRP is partnering with the Southern Food and Beverage Museum

(SoFAB) to make this Don Effect experience one that also documents memory, food and dance.


In addition to sharing recipes & stories here, bring a personal food memory artifact - a menu, recipe box, or other - to the show.


GRP will guest curate an exhibit of these audience-donated items as SoFAB, making memory tangible long after the curtain closes.


You may also visit the museum and leave your artifacts there. Receive one half off the regular price of admission to SoFAB with your ticket to The Don Effect.


Performance Info: 

The Don Effect

Goat in the Productions

June 10-13th 9:00pm (followed by food, drink, and merriment)

Candle Factory: 4537 North Robertson

Tickets $10 at the door



Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Nanny's Biscuits

My mother's story of trying to make my great-grandmother's biscuits is one of the stories that prompted me to work on this theatrical piece.

As a teenager, my mother wanted to know how to make Nanny’s biscuits, so she asked for the recipe. Nanny didn’t have a recipe. She didn’t use recipes. She grabbed fistfuls of flour, spoonfuls of Crisco, heaping piles of collard greens, and never measured or timed a thing.


So my mother decided that she would write a recipe for Nanny’s biscuits. My mom was either in high school, or just out of high school, and she was on her annual summer vacation visit to Nanny’s kitchen in Paris, Tennessee. My mother followed Nanny around the kitchen one day while she made biscuits. Nanny would grab a handful of flour. My mother would stop her, hold out a measuring cup, and ask her to drop the handful of flour into the cup. Of course, it was never an exact ½ cup or 2/3 cup, but some nebulous measurement in between. Nevertheless, my mom would write down the measurement as best she could, wave Nanny on, and Nanny continued cooking. My mom continued this way with the buttermilk and bacon grease. She watched her work the ingredients into a dough, and wrote down Nanny’s descriptions. “You want to incorporate the flour into the buttermilk and grease until all the four is moist, but not too wet, not too sticky.” My mom watched her create a well in the flour with her knuckles; pinch the dough into ‘golf-ball sized pieces’; pat the balls with her knuckles into little disks; and so on. My mother followed Nanny, measuring, timing, transcribing every action.

She went home with the recipe. She bought the right ingredients. She followed her directions. To this day, they have never tasted the same.


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