By Lula Maggard
She never wrote it down. Here it is, measured.
100 old mountain and Southern recipes with the cups, spoons and oven temperatures Mama kept in her head, and what to do when yours doesn't come out right.
$37 That's 37¢ a recipe.
Get the book for $37Instant download to your phone, tablet or computer. You can print it at home. 30-day refund, and you keep the book.
You remember exactly how it tasted. You just can't make it taste that way.
You've stood at the stove with the skillet hot and tried to make her cornbread. It came out crumbly. Or the biscuits stayed flat. Or the gravy went lumpy, and you couldn't think what she did different.
That's because she never measured. It was "a little buttermilk," "till it looks right," "a hot oven." She knew it by heart, and nobody thought to write it down while she was here to ask.
This book writes it down.
Every recipe gives you the measure, the look, and the fix.
Most old-time cookbooks hand you a list and wish you luck. Each recipe in Like Mama Made It gives you six things:
- Real measurements
Cups, spoons, pan sizes, oven temperatures and minutes. No "a pinch of this."
- How it should look, feel and sound
The signs the old cooks went by: the sizzle when the batter hits the skillet, gravy thick enough to coat a spoon, biscuit dough soft as modeling clay.
- Why yours didn't turn out
The common failures for each dish, with the cause and the fix. The back of the book indexes all 398 of them by problem, so you can look up "flat biscuits" or "lumpy gravy" and turn straight to the answer.
- Cooking for one or two
Every recipe shows a smaller batch, or how to make the whole pot and freeze it.
- What it costs
An honest cost per serving at average US grocery prices from fall 2026. Skillet cornbread is about 35¢ a wedge and a bowl of soup beans about 50¢. 88 of the 100 recipes come in under $2 a serving.
- Then and now
Where the old way and today's food-safety advice differ, the book gives the safe way and says why. The canning recipes follow tested methods from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
100 recipes in 14 chapters
The plain dishes from mountain and Southern kitchens, the ones people ask about most.
Cornbread & corn breadsSkillet cornbread, crackling cornbread, hot water cornbread, hushpuppies
Biscuits & breadsButtermilk biscuits with lard, cream biscuits, milk toast
GraviesSausage, sawmill, chocolate, red-eye, tomato, water gravy
BreakfastCountry ham, butter-fried apples, grits, basted eggs
Beans, peas & greensSoup beans, black-eyed peas, leather britches, pot likker
Garden sidesFried corn, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, stewed turnips
SaladsKilt lettuce, cucumbers and onions, pimento cheese
Soups, stews & dumplingsChicken and rolled dumplings, potato soup, beef stew
Meats & suppersSkillet fried chicken, salmon patties, pot roast, hog jowl
One-pot suppersHamburger and beans, cabbage casserole, green beans and taters
Pies & cobblersFried apple hand pies, chess pie, vinegar pie, pinto bean pie
CakesApple stack cake, jam cake, depression cake, gingerbread
Candy, cookies & puddingsDivinity, cocoa fudge, pralines, banana pudding
Putting upApple butter, fourteen-day pickles, chow chow, sauerkraut
It also explains how to read Mama's measurements ("a lump of butter the size of an egg" is about ¼ cup), how to care for a cast-iron skillet, and what to buy when you can't find lard or self-rising cornmeal.
A look inside
These are real pages from the book.
Big type you can read at the stove.
The text is 14-point, bigger than most cookbooks, in a typeface based on the Braille Institute's design for people with low vision. Measurements are in bold, and fractions are printed full size, so a half cup never looks like a quarter.
You get two copies:
- One for reading on a phone, tablet or computer, with warm paper-colored pages and color illustrations.
- One for printing at home, with white pages that won't drain your printer ink. Print the whole book, or just the recipe you're cooking tonight.
What you get for $37
- Like Mama Made It: 346 pages, 100 recipes, 114 hand-drawn illustrations
- The print-friendly edition, the same book on white pages
- The "Why Didn't It Turn Out?" index of 398 problems and their fixes
- Pay once. No subscription, and nothing to sign up for.
That's 37¢ a recipe. Pay with any card or PayPal through Hotmart's secure checkout.
Giving it to Mama or Grandma?
A lot of these books get bought by sons and daughters for the cook in the family. After you pay, the files are yours right away. Email them to her, or print the print-friendly copy at home, slip it in a binder with a ribbon, and she'll have her own kitchen book by Christmas.
Want her to have it in your own words? Write a note on the first page before you print it.
Cook from it for 30 days.
Make the cornbread. Make the gravy. If the book isn't what you hoped, email help@lulamaggard.com within 30 days and you'll get every dollar back. You don't need a reason, there are no forms, and you keep the book.
About Lula
I grew up in eastern Kentucky, in a holler that sat low down by the creek. I learned to cook standing on a kitchen chair beside Mama's stove. She made biscuits every morning for over fifty years and never once dirtied a measuring cup. When Daddy came in from the woods, supper was on the table, and not one bit of it was written down.
I raised my own young'uns on that same cooking, and I've been at the stove better than fifty years myself. Somewhere along the way I started asking why the old tricks work: why Mama poured boiling water into her bacon grease, why a hot skillet makes a better crust. Most of the time the old way turns out to be plain good sense. Once in a while it doesn't, and then I'll tell you straight and show you the safer way. That's what my videos are about.
This book is the part a video never has time for: a hundred recipes with the cups, spoons and oven temperatures Mama kept in her head, and what to do when yours doesn't come out right. I made it for everybody who's ever said, "I just can't make it like she did." You can. Start with the cornbread.
Questions
I'm not good with computers. Is it hard to get?
Not at all. After you pay, you'll go straight to a page with two big download buttons. Tap one and the book opens on your phone, tablet or computer. Hotmart also emails you a receipt and a second way to get the book, and if you ever lose it, write to us and we'll send it again. There's nothing to install and no account to make. If you get stuck, email help@lulamaggard.com and a real person will walk you through it.
Can I print it?
Yes. You get a print-friendly copy with white pages made for home printers. Print the whole thing, or one recipe at a time.
How big is the type?
The text is 14-point, bigger than most cookbooks, in a typeface made for low vision, with measurements in bold and full-size fractions. On a tablet or computer you can zoom in as far as you like, and the print copy can be printed larger on your printer's settings.
I only cook for myself. Will this work?
Yes. Every recipe has a "cooking for one or two" note with a smaller batch, or tells you how to make the full recipe and freeze it in single meals.
Do I need a cast-iron skillet or a wood stove?
No. Everything works on a regular electric or gas stove. Where a recipe calls for cast iron, any heavy oven-safe skillet will do. Cast iron makes the cornbread better, and the book shows you how to care for one, but you don't have to have one.
Are these real old recipes, or fancy new ones?
They're the plain dishes from mountain and Southern kitchens: soup beans, cornbread, gravies, stack cake. The changes are measurements where there weren't any, and safer methods where the old way could make someone sick, like canning. When the book changes something, it tells you why.
Who will I see at checkout?
Payment is handled by Hotmart's secure checkout. It lists the seller as infosays, the publishing name we sell our books under. That's us.
What if it's not for me?
Email us within 30 days for a full refund, and keep the book.
Can I share it with my family?
Please share the recipes with the people you cook for. We ask that you don't post the file online or resell it, so we can keep making books like this.
Not sure yet? Try five recipes free.
Put in your email and you'll get five recipes from the book right away: skillet cornbread, soup beans, chocolate gravy, butter-fried apples and two-ingredient cream biscuits. They're the same pages, with the same measurements and fixes.
We'll only use your email for the recipes and an occasional note about the book. Unsubscribe any time.
She'd want you to have it.
Make the cornbread the way you remember it, and write the next batch down for whoever comes after you.
Get the book for $37Instant download. You can print it at home. 30-day refund, and you keep the book. Pay with any card or PayPal.