O
VER THE YEARS, Scott Peacock’s relationship
with Thanksgiving has had its highs and
lows, its sweet bites and burnt edges. As a
boy growing up in the small town of Hart-
ford, Alabama, he says, “I was obsessed with Thanks-
giving. It was my absolute favorite holiday.” But during
the two decades he spent running professional kitchens,
including the acclaimed Watershed restaurant in De-
catur, Georgia, the James Beard Award–winning chef
lost some of his appetite for it. “There were years where
roasting a turkey was the last thing I wanted to do,” he
admits. Sometimes he joined other people’s holiday
tables, and sometimes he and his dear friend (and leg-
endary southern chef) Edna Lewis would pass the day
quietly in the apartment they shared. After Lewis’s death,
he would often travel over the long weekend. “Thanks-
giving can be stressful,” says the soft-spoken chef. “Es-
pecially when, like me, you’re an introvert at heart.”
But Peacock’s views shifted about a decade ago, when
he retired from Watershed and, seeking a peaceful retreat
in Alabama’s Black Belt region (named for its rich soil),
bought a soundly built but slightly crumbling house in
Marion. One of the first objects he found in the 1830 dwell-
ing—which was still stuffed with the belongings of the
family that had lived there for more than a century—was
a child-size Pilgrim hat. “I felt like it was a signal,” he
says, “telling me there would be special gatherings in the
house.” And true enough, it’s here that Peacock, arguably
the country’s most renowned master of classic southern
cuisine, has reclaimed his love of Thanksgiving.
He’s invited an intimate group of out-of-town friends
and “Marionettes,” the people who welcomed him to
the community, and created a menu that brims with
ingredients grown right in his backyard—from the white
lammas wheat used for his buttermilk biscuits to the per-
simmons sweetening the chicories salad. And he’s moved
his antique dining table to the upstairs sitting room to
bask in the warm light and those lovely cracked yellow
plaster walls, which he’s in no hurry to fix. “There’s a beauty
in their history,” he says. “It’s a room for time-traveling.”
It’s that respect for the past and Peacock’s willingness
to take the slow, patient path that his lucky guests taste
in every dish. “His biscuits are like nothing else,” says
friend Ethel Waite, reaching for seconds. “Nobody but
Scott makes them like that anymore.”
Left: Peacock and his dog, Buddy. “I found him right here in
Marion,” he says. “I went out one morning to water the
rice, and I found him watering my rice.” Below: The chef’s
collection of English ironstone and Old Paris porcelain.
✦
94
