I was lucky enough to grow up with a grandmother who could really throw down in the kitchen. She could make biscuits from scratch, fry perfectly crispy chicken, and turn even the humblest ingredients into something delicious. But if you weren’t lucky enough to have a grandma like mine, fortunately TikTok is positively packed with the best kind of culinary role model: somebody’s meemaw.
Thanks to the ubiquity of TikTok, there’s a cooking meemaw from every walk of life. There’s Mamaw Gail, who makes garden-fresh green beans and chewy peanut butter bars from her Kentucky kitchen. I live for Nonna Pia, the Brooklyn-based Italian grandma who brings a distinct panache to frying cutlets and stuffing mushrooms. I love watching the grandmas from my home state of Louisiana, who often do things a little bit differently than my own, but with the exact same amount of care.
More than the recipes themselves, I most appreciate the genuine exchanges of tenderness between these women and their children, or grandchildren. They cook for sustenance, sure, but also to nurture, to care for the people they love. The camera also captures that love in return from those children and grandchildren, who are so proud of their grandmother’s cooking — and likely, her fiery personality — that they want to share it with the world. Considering how much hatred and filth is all over TikTok and the rest of the internet, these videos are bursts of pure brightness on my For You page.
I love to watch a grandma tenderly stir together a gravy, or tediously peel crates of tomatoes so that the family can have good marinara all year long. There’s incredible love in these gestures, and the great care that they put into making this food is visible on the screen. Most seem genuinely shocked — and delighted — that so many people care about their old recipes. When I’m watching #MeemawTok, as I have dubbed it, I don’t have to wade through constant sponcon and boring brand collaborations, or sit through a wannabe influencer’s uninformed opinions.
These videos also feel like an honest antidote to the glut of superficial tradwife content. It’s one thing to cosplay as a 1950s housewife, it’s quite another when that was your actual life experience. These women know when something that is a real pain is worth the work, when it’s smart to take a shortcut, and how to make something delicious out of just a few humble ingredients. They don’t seem to care about the aesthetics of their videos — or their kitchens, for that matter — just about making delicious, comforting food.
I am grateful for this unfettered access to this wealth of food knowledge, passed down by women who are now creating traditions in families that are not their own. When I or some other stranger on the internet makes Mamaw Gail’s macaroni and tomatoes or her fluffy cornbread, we’re playing a role in keeping those foodways alive, and that’s a consequence of social media that actually has real value.
Most of us don’t spend all of our time cooking anymore, and that’s largely because we’re no longer obligated to do that work. But there is inherent value in this knowledge that can’t be replaced with a bunch of published recipes on the internet. Being shown how to properly peel a vegetable or exactly when a gravy looks right is incredibly helpful for any cook, even if that demonstration is happening on your phone screen instead of real life. And whether or not you have the time or inclination to do all this from-scratch cooking all the time, it’s really nice to have those skills in your back pocket when the need arises, passed down like a family heirloom.
