Mary Johnson was a young child when she started taking cooking instructions from her grandmother.
It was the kind of teaching that can’t be taught in schools, and some of the recipes won’t be found in cookbooks.
“It was like she didn’t go by any recipe,” Johnson told The Enterprise-Tocsin in a recent interview. “She didn’t measure. She just cooked, and she taught me to cook by ear. After you’ve done this so many times, you already know how much salt goes in here and what seasoning to put in there.”
Today a catering specialist, and soon to be the owner of her first restaurant, Johnson is combining the things she was taught at such an early age with the fundamentals she has been learning in culinary arts school the last couple of years.
“My grandmother taught me how to cook, but I wanted to learn about cooking different foods, as opposed to what I grew up eating,” Johnson said. “Soul food, that’s No. 1 for me, but I’ve always wanted to explore and learn to cook different foods.”
Johnson said that desire led her to enroll in Mississippi Delta Community College’s culinary school, under chef David Crews.
Now nearly 60, Johnson said she has not only learned more about cooking, but she feels the classes have prepared her for her new business venture, a restaurant called Mary J’s Soulful Kitchen she hopes will be open this spring in Indianola.
Johnson began cooking professionally under the mentorship of Evelyn Roughton, owner of The Crown restaurant. She said that started in 1987, when The Crown was still located in the rural part of Sunflower County.
After about eight years, she branched off on her own.
“I would cater people’s foods for the holidays and special occasions,” she said. “I started out doing it that way and cooking for my church.”
She held her own in the catering world for a long time, but she said there was something missing from her business, which led her to pursue the MDCC program.
“I wanted to learn fundamentals I knew I didn’t know,” Johnson said. “The biggest thing that I have learned, that means so much to me that I’ll use daily, is learning how to control food costs. Learning the business side. It’s more to food than just cooking. It teaches you how to go into the grocery store and be aware of the price, be aware of what’s in this food.”
Johnson said it’s that attention to detail she believes will complement her already stout cooking resume.
It’s certainly made planning the business side of the new restaurant easier than perhaps it would have been without the formal training, she said.
“Going into it is kind of a breeze, to a point, because now I know what to expect opening a restaurant,” Johnson said. “I know what to expect. The school has been a blessing to me, to prepare me ahead of time. If this is seriously what you want to do, they prepare you from day one.”
Johnson said the experience has been mutually beneficial for the her and the class, as she has been able to impart some of the wisdom she learned as a child.
That knowledge, she joked, isn’t always consistent with the textbook answers.
When she was put in charge of frying during one class, she said, a classmate asked how she knew when the fried chicken was done.
Her instincts took her back to her grandmother’s kitchen.
“When my grandmother fried chicken, to know that the chicken was done, she would know by the sound of the frying stage,” Johnson said. “One of the students asked, ‘How do you know it’s done.’ The answer should have been, ‘Get your thermometer and use it.’ But I didn’t think that way. I just said, ‘Once it slows down on the sizzle, once it quiets down,’ and they laughed like crazy. The instructor laughed, but he said, ‘Mrs. Mary, that is not the answer.’”
Johnson said she now faithfully uses that thermometer.
She said she is currently working on a cookbook, hoping to share some of her own recipes with the cooking world.
As for right now, she and her husband, Ricky R. Johnson Sr., are getting the storefront ready at 2010 Hwy. 49 East.
Johnson said they plan to open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner, with possibly a Saturday brunch and lunch after church on Sunday.
Johnson shared a couple of menu items to look out for.
One is her signature peppersteak with garlic mashed potatoes, Italian green beans and Hawaiian rolls. She also said another favorite is southern meatloaf with creamy mashed potatoes, Italian green beans and Hawaiian rolls, and of course, her seafood boils with homemade garlic butter sauce.
