History: The Spoonbread Lady

Stepping slowly between tables in a long cotton frock, curls swept up in a matching calico headscarf and thick gold hoops swaying from her ears, Irene Griffin cut an unforgettable figure as she made her way through the dining room of the Poinsett Hotel. But what really stood out and gave her an enduring nickname, as well as a well-earned place in Greenville history, was her spoonbread.

Every Sunday, beginning in the 1940s and continuing through several decades, Irene, “The Spoonbread Lady,” would handcraft and personally serve casserole dish after casserole dish of spoonbread. For the uninitiated, spoonbread is a quintessential comfort food. Using cornmeal as a main ingredient, the dense, pudding-like Southern favorite is made with butter, eggs, and buttermilk to give it a consistency that is more like a cross between a soufflé and Yorkshire pudding than a bread. It is meant to be eaten hot from the oven with a spoon, hence the name.

Families who flocked to the Poinsett for Sunday brunch came to know Irene simply by her nickname, and soon her reputation extended far beyond the borders of Greenville County. Irene once recalled seeing a billboard as far away as Virginia advertising the hotel and her spoonbread.

She said she learned to make spoonbread by observing Richard Strossner, who was at that time the Poinsett Hotel’s baker. Perfecting the technique meant adapting the original recipe by adding her own secret ingredient. She never told a soul what that special something was, that is until she passed the recipe to her grandson, according to a Greenville News report. Irene returned to tour the renovated Poinsett Hotel when it reopened in 2000. She was then about to turn ninety years old, so her days of baking and serving spoonbread had long passed. But the hotel honored the long tradition by naming their refurbished restaurant Spoonbread in her honor. No longer on the menu, spoonbread is still available by request.