Shirley and George Poole with one of Shirley’s famous pound cakes.
By Dan Aubrey
“I love to cook,” says Shirley Poole, the woman named by members of Shiloh Baptist Church, in downtown Trenton, as the one to share a Trenton holiday recipe with local readers.
“People enjoy eating it; so I guess you can say my food is pretty good,” she says when she’s told that word of her cooking has spread beyond her home and church.
George Poole, her husband of 55 years, isn’t surprised and says his wife’s ability is in deep in her DNA. Shirley ponders the thought for a few moments before admitting, “All my family cooks well.”
Shirley’s expertise is southern or soul cooking, something she learned when she was young Shirley Tillotson in Seneca, South Carolina.
“I was raised by grandparents, and my grandmother always had something cooking in the kitchen,” she says about her love of cooking and sharing food. “When I was eight my grandmother was making biscuits. I asked to help her. She instructed me and I followed. When the biscuits were out (of the oven), they looked just like hers. I’ve been cooking since,” she says.
Shirley arrived in the Trenton area just after she finished high school in 1956. She was following others in her family during the Great Migration, when Americans of African heritage left the South for employment and opportunities in the North. “My mother was here first and then sisters and brothers. I lived in Princeton. The person my uncle he was working for needed someone, and I watched children.”
Within in a few years, Shirley met George — who surprisingly had attended the same high school before her — and joined Shiloh Baptist Church, where the couple was married by the Reverend S. Howard Woodson Jr. in 1959.
Since then the Pooles raised four children (the youngest now 42) and had careers. George began and retired from his own masonry business and then worked as a facilities manager for HomeFront. Shirley coordinated food services for several schools in Hamilton, where they live.
She also helped prepare five decades of meals for Shiloh Baptist Church functions. “I would help out in the kitchen when we’d have big affairs. We would bring the food in. People would come together and volunteer,” she says.
They would also share and compare, and Shirley became known for several dishes, including her fresh collard greens.
“Collard greens is a big dish, and it is easy,” she says as she shares her recipe.
Her first step is into her garden, where her collards are grown from either seed or garden-shop seedlings. “I go pick the greens; they’re not hard to clean. Young ones, you cut them up. The large ones you devein. Plants last all winter. Knock the snow off it and continue to use it. The snow tenderizes the heads. Some people use the whole leaf, but I cut it. So cut it as small or large as you want.”
When the cutting is done, she says, “I put them in a pressure cooker and add four large spoonfuls of olive oil, but you can use as much as you want. Then I add a tablespoon of sugar and salt and then a green hot pepper. I cook it in the pressure cooker for five minutes. A large pot will work too, but it will take an hour. I wouldn’t put it on boil. Some people like it real done, but I like mine done but green. Either way it’s good. Green is healthy.”
She says that she began to cook “healthy” when she realized that the pork, salt, and fat often used in soul food recipes was contributing to health problems in African-Americans, so she began to make variations on old recipes. “I thought of using olive oil myself. It’s healthier for you.”
In response to a question about the ingredients for a pie for which she is known, she laughs and replies, “You’re going to give away all my secrets?” But George tells her that while people may have her recipe, they miss something that she adds.
She thinks about his comment for a moment and says quietly, “When you love doing something, it is always better.”
Here’s her holiday gift to the community:
SHIRLEY POOLE’S COLD OVEN POUND CAKE
Ingredients:
2.5 cups plain flour
1/2 cup self-rising flour
3 cups sugar
4 large (or five small) eggs
1 cup sweet milk
2 sticks margarine
1/2 cup Crisco
1 tablespoon vanilla or lemon flavoring (or 1 teaspoon each)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder.
Method:
Cream the margarine, Crisco, and sugar. Beat eggs one at a time into mixture. Sift flour together. Add milk and flour alternately until mixture is well blended. Add baking powder and flavoring. Pour into well-greased tube pan. Place in cold oven, and then set at 350. Bake for 1 hour, then check (exact baking time depends on the oven).
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