How Dolly Parton became unexpected cooking icon after incredibly humble beginnings
Dolly Parton sadly passed away at the age of 80 this week, and fans have been revisiting her love of food and cooking.
The country music icon had humble beginnings, learning to cook southern dishes for her 11 siblings, and said it was 'out of necessity'.
Parton was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee, in 1946, and she once told PEOPLE how she and her siblings 'never actually starved, but sometimes we never had quite enough to eat.'
She recalled her first cooking lessons as a child with her mother, and said “We knew how to cook beans. Mama had taught us how to put a pot of beans, how you had to soak them, how you had to do this and all that.”
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Her favourite dishes were all inspired by 'Southern hearty foods that all the women used to bring to the church socials'.
Those essential skills soon turned into a passion for cooking though, which she loved to share with her fans.
Following the news of her death, many people have been making some of her best-loved recipes in tribute of the star.
A video has gone viral where she talks about making a cake with a cup of flour, a cup of sugar, a can of fruit cocktail with the juice, before serving it over ice cream.
One of her most famous recipes was chicken and dumplings, and she said it came down to a secret ingredient: “It’s just like Mama said, ‘It’s just got love in it.’ I just put a lot of love in it.”
Parton herself found it hard to choose a favourite: “They’re like having kids. They’re all my favourites, it just depends on the time of day and what kind of mood I’m in and what my tastes are calling for.”
She and her sister Rachel wrote a series of cookbooks together, too, and Parton also released a range of freezer meals that stuck to her roots.
While promoting one of their books, Good Lookin’ Cookin’: A Year of Meals — A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food, Parton joked: “Tell them how famous I am for my chicken and dumplings.”
Her sister agreed: "Dolly is great at that," however the singer joked: “And my version is not in the cookbook because it isn’t good lookin’ enough."
Rachel argued: “Because you won’t tell anybody the recipe!”
“No, I won’t because it’s not good lookin’. It just tastes good,” insisted the singer.
That's what matters!
While the star loved baking as well as cooking, she insisted that cooking was her strongest asset, and that's why she produced a line of baking boxes that you 'couldn't mess up'.
They were hard to miss on the shelves, with her iconic bright pink branding and a caricature of her with her signature big blonde hair.
The range included Chocolate Cake Mix, Yellow Cake Mix, Cinnamon Crumb Cake Mix, Blueberry Muffin Mix and Banana Nut Muffin Mix.
She confessed that chocolate was a favourite flavour to make, for a very sweet reason, explaining it was the love of her late husband, Carl: “My husband’s a big chocolate fan, so I’m always cooking him chocolate.”
You can be sure that any chocolate cake made by Parton included her 'Dolly dollop', too, the unofficial measurement that she loved to use.
“I just like sauces, and I like creams, there’s never enough for me," she confessed.
"So when I do a Dolly Dollop, I just do a good, good, good hearty spoonful.”
One of her favourite things, along with her chicken and dumplings, was bread, of any sort.
“I still love the smell of bread cooking… whether it just be some loaf bread that Rachel’s doing or some cornbread. I just think nothing says [home] more than just the smell of bread," she said in an interview in 2024.
It's because of this love that fans have been promising to visit the Dollywood theme park and order the viral cinnamon bread, that regularly has people queuing out of the door to get their hands on one.
Described as a ‘warm, gooey pull-apart yeast loaf’, the infamous loaf is baked fresh daily at The Grist Mill and coated in butter and cinnamon sugar.
Fans are also recommended to serve it with icing, or Parton's favourite apple butter.
She once told a fan that she refused to choose between the two, and would eat it with both.
Jen Thomas