Introduction, with things to eat

Cheesy grits and shoofly pie is a pretty good description of our son Jacob’s pedigree: cheesy grits from the South Carolina Lowcountry and shoofly pie from the Old Order Amish and Amish Mennonites of Indiana and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. My family always knew about our shoofly pie part, but discovering my wife’s South Carolina Lowcountry and other origins has been a real eye-opener. She has always thought of herself as more or less entirely a Yankee—an athlete, cheerleader, and prom queen, no less—born in Norwalk, Connecticut and raised in nearby Southport. All that’s true, of course, but it turns out to be far from the whole story. I’m going to have a crack at telling more of that story here, but I’m going to start with food rather than relatives.