Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 30

GEORGIA Cooks
Sisters Lucy Brown
of Metter and Mattie
Collins of Cobbtown
take a break to visit at
the Gathering Place at
Brown's farm.
By Tom Oder
L
From Metter
with love
The cooking sisters of South Georgia
ove of food is rooted in family, land and hard work.
Mattie Collins and her sister, Lucy Brown, learned
to love food at an early age while growing up in a cooking
family in what they call " the country in South Georgia. "
Visits to the farm their grandparents owned in Twin City were
especially memorable, particularly the whole-hog barbecues on
holidays.
Now, as seniors, they love food, family and fellowship as
much as when they were children.
" We have a pavilion at my sister's farm in Metter in Candler
County, " says Collins, who lives in Cobbtown in neighboring
Tattnall County. " It's called the Gathering Place. "
Originally built for family gatherings, the closed-in facility
with a commercial kitchen has become so much more. Church
groups and business leaders in Metter, for instance, like to meet
there to share a simple but tasty breakfast or lunch prepared
by Brown. In fact, Brown says, the kitchen in the pavilion is her
kitchen away from home, and she does all her cooking there.
" Lucy always wanted to cook and feed somebody, " Collins
explains. " It didn't matter who it was. We would make an excuse
to cook, and then we would invite some people [to the pavilion].
They would come over, and it was like they had gone to heaven
30 Georgia Magazine February 2024
and come back. It was crazy. "
Though the sisters don't cook for large gatherings as much
anymore, when they do, they specialize in what Collins says is
" simple food, " much of it from nearby fields or farms. Greens-
collards, mustard and kale. Turnips. Lima beans. Potatoes for
potato salad. Dressing. Fried chicken. Always fried chicken, best
when soaked overnight in salted water.
Pecans came from some of the 760 trees on a farm run by
Collins and her husband, Curtis. Vegetable dishes were Brown's
domain because the sisters agreed she cooked them so well.
Collins specialized in desserts, especially a pecan chewy cake
like her mother, Fannie Mae McCrary, made, but also pecan
pies from a recipe on a Karo Syrup bottle.
" We would just sit down and chat and have fun, " Collins
says. " You might not even know the people sitting at the table
with you, but by the time you left, you would have had a great
experience because people don't sit and talk anymore. It's a
pleasurable thing to do, to sit and talk and eat. You learn so
much, and it's just good for you. "
If that sounds like a recipe for life, Brown thought the
same thing. In fact, she wrote a self-published book, " Miss Lucy
Brown's Recipe for Living A Good Life " (2022).
CRYSTAL DALGARD PHOTOGRAPHY

Georgia Magazine - February 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - February 2024

Contents
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Intro
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Cover1
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Cover2
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Contents
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 4
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 5
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 6
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 7
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 8
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 9
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 10
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 11
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 12
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 13
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 14
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 15
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 16
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 17
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 18
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 19
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 20
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 21
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 22
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 23
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 24
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 25
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 26
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 27
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 28
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 29
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 30
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 31
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 32
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 33
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - 34
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Cover3
Georgia Magazine - February 2024 - Cover4
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