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| (photo: Randy Evans) | |
Jason Smith is a self-taught cook and baker from Kentucky, and a winner on three different Food Network shows: Holiday Baking Championship; Holiday Baking Championship--Kids vs Adults; and Next Food Network Star. He is known for his traditional Southern recipes, elevated with fresh ingredients and a "country bling" twist. His first cookbook, Lord Honey: Traditional Southern Recipes with a Country Bling Twist (coming from Pelican Publishing on August 28, 2023), shares his favorite family recipes and his own creations along with family stories and photos. He lives in Lakeland, Florida.
Take us through your cooking journey.
I was raised on a huge tobacco farm in Kentucky. Everyone had to work--it didn't matter if you could barely walk, you had to do something. We'd be in the fields, walking behind the tobacco setter or sowing corn or tending to the cattle. My grandmother always did all the cooking: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We'd all eat at Granny's house every day, and I noticed that every time people would eat Granny's cooking, it made 'em so happy. I wanted to make people happy through food. At about six years old, I asked if I could stay and help her instead of going with everybody else.
The very first recipe I ever learned from Granny was chicken and dumplings. My recipe [in the cookbook] shows how to do 'em quickly, because when we made 'em, we'd kill, dress, and cook the chickens, and it took us three or four hours. I had such an awesome childhood, living on that farm, cooking for all of my family. Granny got older, and I kind of took over the cooking part. My mother is more of a dessert cook. Granny always taught me to do the dishes as we went along. I still have that rule: I do the cookin', somebody else does the cleanin'.
In our family, food brought everybody to the table. You could always sit down at our table, and by the time you were done eating, you forgot about all your problems. I noticed that as a teenager: food was the common factor that drew people into a group, and it didn't matter if you'd had the worst day, you could set down and have that meal and it washed all the worries out of you. I still believe that. Food is that one common denominator that really got people to change their outlook. Food didn't drive our family, but it brought our family together.
At 15, I started a catering company. I would cater church picnics and baby showers and wedding receptions. I'm a licensed and master florist and owned a flower shop for years. Then I was a substitute cook in the school system, and a cafeteria manager in the elementary schools. I'm a cosmetologist; I've managed restaurants; I've been a florist, but everything kept bringing me back to food. I eventually sat on a board for the School Nutrition Association, and I started writing recipes for different states, Texas, Florida, the Carolinas. I was writing these recipes and all these schools were loving them. The kids loved them, too.
It was a cold February day, barely spitting snow, and I was sitting with my laptop and I thought, I'd love to be on Holiday Baking Championship. I've always been a competitive person. So I applied, and they called me the next day. I went on there and I won, and fell in love with being on TV, in front of the camera. Even though I was competing, I was also teaching people how to cook and bake. The producers loved my style and accent and personality, and they wanted to pitch a show to the network. I said yes! I wanted to teach people what my grandmother and aunts and mom taught me.
Tell us about your "southern bling" cooking philosophy.
I've always loved bright flashy clothes, glitter and all that. On Food Network Star, they wanted me to stick with the glitter, the bright colors, and the patterns. I figured I could really show people my true inner being through my style, my cooking, and my attitude toward life.
I have 292 flashy jackets--they are rotating. You can only wear 'em on TV once. I donate a lot of the old ones to charities. I sign 'em and they auction 'em off and use that money for their charities. I was raised to always help others and I stay true to that today.
What's the most surprising recipe in your book?
Butternut Squash and Kale Salad! This is a mash-up of several different recipes. You have butternut squash, bacon dressing, kale salad with raw kale. I thought: How can I take these wonderful recipes and make them new and make them something different?
People also pick out my recipe for bourbon and sweet tea fried chicken. They say, "What's with the bourbon?" In Kentucky, we're known for horses, bourbon, and basketball. In that recipe, the bourbon and the sweet tea make that chicken so tender and flavorful. Bourbon breaks down the chicken and makes it tender, and the sweet tea brings in a little flavor. My grandmother would have never used bourbon, but I know she's smiling on me and my cooking journey.
What do you hope readers and/or home cooks get out of your book?
I want people to not only look at this book as a cookbook, but to actually use it. To bring their own family and friends back around the table, and turn the recipes into their own memories. My ultimate dream is for people to use this as a map for their own journey through the culinary world. You can bring family, strangers, whoever, to your own table.
It always comes back to food for me. It just carried me through my life and still does every day. Every recipe in the cookbook has either been handed down through my family or through friends and their family, and a lot of these recipes are heirloom recipes. They're heritage recipes.
I want people to really enjoy this book. You may not even cook! But this book is more than just cooking. It is a road map of where I came from. People can find motivation, inspiration, and stories in it. I can't wait for people to get this cookbook. --Katie Noah Gibson