From Dolly and Loretta to Miranda and Trisha: country's women cook up legacies

For as much as Ashley McBryde and Carly Pearce's 2023 Grammy Best Country Duo or Group Performance victory for "Never Wanted To Be That Girl" is huge recent news for the genre's female stars, there could be a much larger -- and more delicious -- story developing:

Dolly Parton's cheddar biscuits are delicious. But Miranda Lambert, Loretta Lynn and Trisha Yearwood's biscuits are, too.

If you're a fan of country music's leading female superstars of the past five decades -- especially Parton -- you're in the midst of a season where you'll be super-served food passed down from generations.

Notably, the fruits of Parton's second year of partnership with Duncan Hines -- featuring a Buttermilk Biscuit Mix, Sweet Cornbread & Muffin Mix, "Fabulously Fudgy," and Caramel Turtle Brownie Mix have arrived in the marketplace.

Couple that with menus at two of Nashville's Lower Broadway haunts -- Miranda Lambert's Casa Rosa bar and Yearwood's husband Garth Brooks' forthcoming Friends In Low Places honky-tonk -- featuring menus aided by selections from the two female country music legends. Then throw in Lynn's timeless country-to-kitchen legacy influenced by her Crisco biscuits and chicken and dumplings -- a moment is again happening for country music's female superstars and their love of cooking.

"Food -- like country music -- is a huge part of how the American South defines comfort," says Erin Browne, a food blogger whose "Unofficial Dollywood Cookbook" will be released in April 2023 via Simon and Schuster.

"Memories of certain dishes, like the memories we attach to songs sung by female country stars, transport you back to warm, feel-good places and times in your life."

Loretta Lynn: From Coal Miner's Daughter to Crisco Chef

By 1979, Lynn was a decade into a chart-topping country career and a year away from achieving global cinematic renown via her biopic "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Her next move at that point may seem strange at first, but upon deeper review makes all of the sense.

She accepted a sponsorship offer from Crisco.

For seven decades prior, Crisco had evolved into a confectionary industry leader in producing vegetable oil-based shortening.

Though not a world-class chef, Lynn was a matronly rural-born East Kentuckian and country music superstar who loved baking pies and making chicken and dumplings for music stars who stopped through her eventual West Tennessee estate in Hurricane Mills.

Lynn's face was synonymous with everything from Crisco-sponsored album covers to having her four-ingredient shortening pie crust recipe (flour, salt, cold water and Crisco) plastered on the backs of cans of the product. Notable, too, were her many television commercials -- featuring her husband Doolittle and six children -- during the era as well.

Lynn served as a sponsor for the brand through 1989.

Lynn's success proved so significant that in 1986 the book "Cooking With Country Music Stars" -- featuring Parton, plus Reba McEntire, Tanya Tucker, Kitty Wells and more -- was released by Pelican Publishing.

In 2004, Lynn released a cookbook, "You're Cookin' It Country: My Favorite Recipes and Memories." The book contains over 120 of her favorite recipes, plus stories of the Country Music Hall of Famer hunting for rabbit and possum to the story of Jack White sealing the deal that brought Lynn to the studio for the 2004 album "Van Lear Rose" over a dinner of chicken and dumplings.

Lynn's print and screen history set a standard that has opened a four-decade-long marketplace for superstar women to extend their brand past records into greater renown in adjacent lifestyle areas related to the genre.

Trisha Yearwood's in love with the kitchen, too

Two years following Lynn's deal ending with Crisco, then-rising country star Trisha Yearwood had achieved chart-topping success with her debut mainstream country single "She's In Love With The Boy." Similar to Lynn, Yearwood -- born on a farm in Monticello, Georgia (population, roughly 2000 when she was born there in 1964) -- was a small-town Southerner. However, different than Lynn, Yearwood was profoundly gifted in the kitchen.

Though not a classically-trained chef, she notes in a 2017 interview that she "grew up in a house of cooks."

After two decades of chart-topping acclaim, in April 2008 -- alongside her mother Gwen and sister Beth, with forward by her husband Brooks -- she released the eventual New York Times best-selling "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen." Again, 120 recipes (similar to Lynn's cookbook five years prior) passed down through generations of her family were included. Since then, Yearwood has released three other cookbooks, including "Trisha's Kitchen" in 2021.

Yearwood has launched both a food and dinnerware brand with Williams-Sonoma, and for the past decade, she has been an Emmy Award-winning culinary program host for the Food Network-broadcast Trisha's Southern Kitchen."

From winning over Brooks' two children from his first marriage with her mashed potatoes to selling biscuit mix, cakes and cocktail mixes, plus making comfort food on national television, Yearwood has extended Lynn's standard.

What's next for Yearwood? Well, at the April 2022 press conference announcing his forthcoming Friends In Low Places honky-tonk on Lower Broadway, he noted the following to The Tennessean:

"We'll have food there, too. And I don't think I know anyone in my family who knows anything about food…"

Brooks' wife could be staring at crafting a bar menu that serves as her country-to-culinary legacy.

"That's gonna be some damned good food," said Brooks.

Dolly's kitchen expands her legacy

Post-COVID era country is witnessing the culinary rise of two other country names whose work creates a tie between four decades of genre-redefining success: Dolly Parton and Miranda Lambert.

For Parton, her love of the kitchen is renowned. It has been a part of her branding, in various formats, since the 1986 opening of her Dollywood amusement park, including her beloved banana pudding on the menu at Aunt Granny's Dixie Fixins' Restaurant and creamy vegetable soup as a part of the dinner accompanying the nightly "Dixie Stampede" variety show.

Two decades later, those -- among many -- recipes were included in her first cookbook of over 100 recipes (following Lynn and Yearwood), "Dolly's Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter, and Lots of Good Food" from Penguin Group's Viking Studio imprint.

About the book, Parton noted via her website, "[The book is filled with] good, hearty food rooted in Mama's cooking and those country gatherings of my childhood. It's the food from those Mom and Pop joints that welcome you in as if you're family. We really just want food that is lovingly made and joyfully served up."

Dolly's upbringing is as much a part of her musical catalog via songs like "Coat Of Many Colors" as appearing on her Dollywood menu via Frannie's Famous Fried Chicken Sandwiches and Grist Mill Cinnamon Bread.

"[Dolly Parton] is arguably the queen of adding that particular something special of herself, in everything she does, that gives her fans more of her [brand and person] to cling to," says Browne.

2021 and 2022 saw Parton release a popular, limited-run line of Strawberry Pretzel Pie ice cream via boutique brand Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams.

The past two years, though, have seen Parton double down with Duncan Hines. She has joined the 2022 release of her Southern Style Coconut Cake Mix with February's drop of four new flavors, plus a limited-edition run of tea towels and spatulas.

Regarding whether she's likely to eat any of her creations, the 77-year-old icon jokingly told USA Today, "I mostly have to live on a low-carb diet (when I’m performing). My clothes are so tight, there’s no room for nothing else in there but me."

Miranda Lambert's (and others') mogul growth involves food

"Whether she’s cooking up omelets in her tricked-out Airstream to serve with Mimosas or laying out the Whiskey cupcakes next to Nonny’s Banana pudding, "Y’all Eat Yet?" delivers food you want to make alongside charming stories that show just why Miranda Lambert is one of the most beloved artists in country music today," states a press release hearkening the April 25, 2023 arrival of the award-winning country legend's initial foray into the cookbook marketplace.

This follows Lambert's successful 2006 launch of her Red 55 signature wine collection, which, as a press release notes, "celebrates traditions inspired by Miranda’s multi-platinum, Grammy-winning music, named in honor of Miranda’s first truck, a candy-apple-red 1955 stepside."

As well, Lambert's Walmart-released Wanda June dinnerware line celebrates what she calls the "chipped, mismatched China" passed down through three generations of her family that was used to serve pot-luck meals and offered a "special kind of warmth and grace."

The cookbook, dinnerware and wine line pair well with Casa Rosa, tho two-year-old Lower Broadway honky-tonk that bears her name, plus -- apropos of her life, style and work with chef Tomasz Wosiak -- "Tacos, Tex-Mex and tequila, a little taste of Texas in Tennessee."

Lambert's not the only one adding to the legacy Loretta Lynn birthed at the turn of the 1980s. For the first time since 1986, Reba McEntire will be releasing a cookbook expected in fall 2023.

"Reba is universally beloved for her talent, humor, and unapologetic authenticity,” said Michael Aulisio, vice president and publisher of Harper Celebrate. “This book will offer readers a seat at Reba’s table as she shares her hard-earned wisdom on what it means to live a good life. And let me assure you, there will be a lot of fun had along the way."

When asked about the permanence of her -- and numerous country superstars -- growth in the food marketplace, blogger Browne offered a thoughtful note:

"The best country music -- just like the best recipes -- tell stories that trigger memories. Experiencing the genre with all five senses strengthens how well these stars can maintain their success."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Country legacy: Why Dolly Parton is not alone with her Duncan Hines line