Southern Recipe Restoration Project

The recipe for chess pie is so simple -- eggs, butter, a little buttermilk, a little cornmeal -- it almost makes you wonder why it’s remained so popular for so long in the South. But don’t let the humble ingredients or ultra-quick cooking method deceive you.

The contributor: Deidra Poucher, a clinical research consultant and mother of three who grew up in East Point and now lives in Duluth with her husband, Doug.
The story: “My stepmother, Lou Cox, ... is a fabulous cook. Our whole family has always loved her classic chess pie -- especially my middle son, Jonathan. He demands it at all major events.
“Lou says that her mother used to make chess pie. But after her mother’s death, she was not able to find her recipe. Over the years, she tried many slices of what was called 'chess pie,’ but they were never what her mother made. Then one day, she ran across a recipe for it. She made it and it proved to be exactly the pie she remembered.
-- Susan Puckett, for the Journal-Constitution