Customer Reviews

Mary Mac's Tea Room: 65 Years of Recipes from Atlanta's Favorite Dining Room

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Just a glance at the cover of MARY MAC'S TEA ROOM makes mouths water, while the 125 recipes culled from the records of this Atlanta landmark restaurant will have you racing to the grocery store then heading for the kitchen. Forget haute cuisine and think down home comfort food, whether it be macaroni and cheese or fried chicken (yes, the secret to this succulent fried chicken is buttermilk).

Many of the recipes are almost identical to those served 65 years ago when Mary Mac's opened in 1945. Today it is the last of 16 tea rooms that served Atlanta in the 1940s - long may she offer new guests "a complimentary cup of pot likker and a piece of cornbread"!

After a warm, affectionate Foreword by Marie Lupo Nugren, daughter of Mary Mac's owner for 30 years, Margaret Lupo, the seven chapters offer Appetizers; Beef, Pork & Poultry; Bread & Beverages; Seafood; Pickles & Canning; Sides; and Desserts (including an irresistible Peach Cobbler topped with a flaky pastry crust and served with vanilla ice cream).

To choose a favorite recipe from among all of these would be an impossibility. The Mr. at our house would be happy if I just began at the beginning of the book, cooked my way through, and then started all over again! However, if pressed he'd have to admit to leaning toward the Country Fried Steak and Gravy with Peanut Butter Pie with Chocolate Crust for dessert.

Today Mary Mac's is owned and operated by John Ferrell who promises to keep the tea room's traditions of friendliness, hospitality, and home cooking alive. He's aided by a faithful staff, many of whom have been with Mary Mac's for some 35 years (Shirley Mitchell baked their yeast rolls, corn bread, peach cobbler and cinnamon rolls for over three decades and is still busy in the kitchen). A loyal, happy staff and legions of delighted customers say more than words ever could about Mary Mac's Tea Room.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

People in this part of the country know where to look for different types of food:

For seafood, you go (or went, anyway) to New Orleans. (Also for a general range of incredibly good and spicy dishes.)

For barbecue, you go to Birmingham (The Golden Rule and/or Dreamland), Memphis or Chapel Hill.

For just flat out full-tilt-boogie Southern cooking done right, there's only been one place for years - Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta.

I must confess, i haven't eaten there in ten years or so, but if it had seriously changed for the worse, i'd have heard. Everyone in Atlanta would have heard.

Mary Margaret Lupo founded the place in 1945, and at the time there were sixteen tea rooms of the same type in Atlanta - today there's only one. You walk in, sit down, read the menu that's printed fresh every day as what's available changes, and you write your own order on a little order ticket and hand it to your server.

The standard meal has always been a fixed-price meat and two or three sides plate - three or four meats to choose from and several different sides. You can order a la carte, but it's not recommended if the rest of your group goes for the package deal, because it takes longer.

And, if you've never been there before - some advice - arrive early.

You will find letters and testimonials from all over the world on the walls - including one from the Dalai Lama. Jimmy Carter and James Brown are other habitues you might have heard of.

Back in 1983, they published a cookbook with several of their most popular recipes.

Now, the current owner (he's owned the place since 1994) has published a new cookbook.

You need it.

Buy it.

Recipes that don't call for fancy seasoned salts, or Madagascar peppercorns? Is there something wrong here? No, of course not. I was reminded when reading and cooking from Mary Mac's Tea Room that a recipe can just be a recipe without all the frills that modern gastronomy seems to insist upon -- recipes like they used to be. I am generally so caught up in local, seasonal, fresh, top quality ingredients that I forget that food, and recipes at one point in time used only the basic larder ingredients: things like white flour, table salt, white sugar, and ground black pepper in a tin. Very little had a foreign provenance, or the words sel de mer, or Tellicherry on the labels.

This book by John Ferrell, the current owner of Mary Mac's Tea Room, is an homage to an Atlanta institution. The restaurant has been existence since 1945; Ferrell purchased it in 1994 after being hand-picked by long-time owner Margaret Lupo. The book is chock-full of 125 recipes, employee biographies, old menus, postcards, and artwork from the restaurant's history. Serving as many as 1,000 customers a day many of those are, and have been politicians, sports figures and well-known celebrities from Cher to Richard Gere and the Dalai Lama. Sprinkled throughout are photographs of the many local, regular patrons as well as those of Hillary Clinton, President Carter and First Lady Rosalyn Carter, the Dalai Lama, and Richard Gere.

I'm a sucker for food history and I loved this snippet from the front cover flap: "In the 1940's, there were sixteen tea rooms in Atlanta. They were opened by ladies as a way to make extra money, but the name was a misnomer; a tea room wasn't a place to have tea, but a nicer version of a "meat and three." These meals appealed to folks who had moved to Atlanta from small towns in Georgia because they reminded them of their moms' cooking." Mary Mac's serves old-fashioned comfort food, Southern cooking.

Of the recipes I tried there were more than a few stand outs including 'Daddy's Oyster Stew,' 'Fried Chicken,' 'Black-Eyed Peas,' and 'Blackberry Jam Cake.' I chose the fried chicken recipe because I thought fried chicken would be a true test of the restaurant's talents with Southern cooking. It passed the test, perfectly cooked, with a crunchy buttermilk crust. A recipe I'd make again. Shellfish and the south go hand in hand to me, and oysters cooked in milk has always been a favorite dish so 'Daddy's Oyster Stew' was another choice. Here's the fun part about this recipe that goes back to my earlier conversation about ingredients. It calls for "1 pint of fresh raw oysters, juices reserved." I read that and thought but there's very little juice in fresh, raw oysters? At the fish counter while shopping I stood before the fresh, raw oysters in their shells unsure until I noticed a shelf of seafood products in jars and cans: a 10 oz. jar of 'fresh oysters' in their juices! A very simple yet comforting dish, warm oysters in milk with garlic and onion. Black-Eyed Peas, salt pork, fatback, onion and the peas - 'nuff said. The most popular dish I tried was the Blackberry Jam Cake with Caramel Frosting. It consists of cocoa powder, blackberry jam, and apple sauce making it one of the moistest cakes I've ever eaten. The addition of the caramel frosting made it a full-on sugar coma inducing experience. There are only two of us in the house so a big ole wedge went to a neighbor. She liked it so much she asked for the recipe.

One other aspect of Mary Mac's Tea Room I liked was how Ferrell incorporated the restaurant's long-time employees into it. There are photographs, histories and personal stories throughout the book. There's even a whole section devoted to "Our Staff." Many have been with Mary Mac's for over thirty-five years. That's remarkable in a restaurant these days. It speaks to the type of place it is. A place some might consider a second home, a welcoming down-to-earth establishment very comfortable in its own skin. In other words, a true Southern restaurant. This book evokes all that and more. It may be a book of restaurant recipes but it easily becomes a book of recipes one can cook and enjoy at home.

This is an excellent book with old time southern Recipes updated.
This not an entirely objective review because I was acquainted with the original owner of Mary Mac's Tea Room (Margaret Lupo) and used to eat at the Tea Room every time
I was in Atlanta. I have some of the original books of recipes from Mary Mac's Tea Room. In about 2000 Margaret retired and the Restaurant was bought by
John Farrell who has published this book about the still popular Tea Room. I have not been to Atlanta since Mr Farrell has owned the tea room and was quite
pleased to see how Mr. Farrell has maintained the good old fashioned Southern Hospitality and updated the recipes. They are all excellent and give one the sense that you
have kept up with old South's culinary taste at its best. Along with the recipes is a well written history of the 65 years that have made Mary Mac's what it is today.

This cookbook is so well done. The commentary on the history of this iconic Atlanta eatery is so interesting and intriguing. The section on the employees is entertaining and so well deserved...many employees have been working at Mary Mac's for many decades. The chapter on the customers was fascinating from the regulars and Presidents to the Dali Lama. And of course, the recipes! For those of us who have had the fortune to have been eating at Mary Mac's our whole lives, now we know some of the secrets! A top notch delight and a great gift. The story "Martinis at Mary Mac's" on page 69 is my favorite.

I gave this cookbook to thirteen people for Christmas - folks all over the country and have heard back from Oregon and California that Southern parties have been huge hits this season. What a fun idea! The book is so interestingly written, that anyone would enjoy its history and the recipes - scrumptious!

Love this book - Mary Mac's Tea Room has been and guess it always will be a "true southern" restaurant icon...This is more than a cook book: lots of history here, as well as, photo's memo's of staff and "famous" guest - Tim Conway/Harvy Korman, Richard Gere (who seems to have a received a proposal from one of the waitresses), just to name a few...WOW! These receipes are great (i.e., "Cream Cheese Pound Cake", Peach Buttermilk Pancakes, collard greens and "pot likker", Blackberry Jam Cake to name a few) and you've just not eaten until you've had Mary Mac's "Georgia Peach Cobbler!!! I loved the photo's of food/staff/friends. What more can you ask for in a cookbook! Not only are there awesome receipes awaiting, but the history in these pages makes for down right "good" reading. I truly enjoyed eating at Mary Mac's while working at Ga Tech... ordered an extra copy for my son as he loves to cook "southern".

I recently received and have read from cover to cover this wonderful southern cookbook. Having grown up in the South, I know a thing or two about what it takes to make southern soul food. I can say this book is a real classic. Greens and Pepper Sauce go hand in hand and the Pepper Sauce from Mary Mac's is the best. If you have never tried it you must. This is southern to the core. Sip some Sweet Ice Tea and endulge.

After reading the glowing reviews of this cookbook, I could hardly wait to read it. (And I do read cookbooks just like they are a novel. However, I was disappointed in the recipes. The behind-the-scene stories of Mary Mac's is a great read. I loved the ever-loyal staff and the wonderful customers they have served over the years, but I get a cookbook for the recipes. Sorry...it just didn't live up to the hype, in my opinion.

I'm a real push-over for the Old South and this book takes me back. Every recipe that I've made from this book has been delicious. I also enjoy reading the memoirs in this book and reminising about old times in Atlanta from the 70's when I first ate at Merry Mac's to the present. I'm so thankful to John Ferrell for carrying on this true Southern tradition.