Marion Spear
Breakfast in the Foothills of the Ozarks
When I started working on this book, I wanted to visit a part of the country where,
I thought, maybe nothing had changed in the past thirty years. I suspected I would
find that in Fox, Arkansas, but Marion Spear, who prepared breakfast for me in her hideaway
home there, proved me wrong.
An herbalist, Marion teaches herbal cooking at the Ozark Folk Center
in nearby Mountain View, the old-time country music capital of the
world. To get to her house, at the bottom edge of the Ozark plateau, she
drove me down the rockiest dirt road I had ever been on.
Her cookbook collection alone should have given me a hint about her:
Diana Kennedy, André Simon, and James Beard. “I like James Beard
because he gives you a basic recipe and lots of cooking possibilities, then he turns you
loose, he sets you free,” said Marion.
An experienced home brewer, Marion has papered her kitchen with colorful labels from
the sides of six-packs. Jars of pickled eggs, hot pepper jelly, and wild plum shrub line the
walls. Iron skillets decorate another wall in front of a Home Comfort Range made in 1881,
which Marion told me cost $37 new. Always up for an adventure, she often packs her stove
on a truck for demonstrations of cornmeal doughnuts for the Ozarks Foothills Handicrafts
Guild.
As we talked, she prepared the greens for our breakfast omelet from her latest
inspiration, Japanese cooking. She ran out to
the garden and cut some arugula,mustard
greens, and cilantro that were growing near the
bok choy and other Asian greens, all good
winter vegetables. “I’m a top-of-the-stove,
scratch cook,” she said apologetically. She
turned on an electric skillet and poured the
eggs in. Then she piled the greens on top and
steamed them in the eggs. She served the
omelet with a grilled bagel and her pepper
jelly—it was a breakfast I will never forget.
Marion Spear