This Southern Creation Was Johnny Cash's Favorite Breakfast

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

At the Johnny Cash Museum, located about one block from the Ryman Auditorium — the "Mother Church of Country Music" — in downtown Nashville, you'll find "The Cash and Carter Family Cookbook" sitting right next to Johnny Cash's autobiography. Most of the book features recipes from his wife, June Carter Cash, but mixed in are some gems from the Man in Black himself. In the breakfast section, the more time-consuming recipes, like homemade biscuits or tomato gravy, came from June. When Johnny was cooking, things were a bit more straightforward. His favorite breakfast go-to was fried bologna and eggs with canned biscuits.

For a man who spent years of his life touring on the road, it was a breakfast he could find at diners across the country and one that reflected his meager upbringing in the Mississippi Delta of Arkansas. In the Carter Cash household, the smell of breakfast cooking was part of the morning ritual. In the cookbook written by his son, John Carter Cash, he wrote, "Fried bologna was one of my father's favorite breakfasts. I remember smelling the aroma of it frying in the farm kitchen as I walked outside on winter days in Bon Aqua, Tennessee." It was one of his main meals to start the day, along with his version of another Southern staple, sausage gravy and biscuits, which he cooked about twice a week.

When Johnny Cash made fried bologna and eggs, he was efficient. He'd fire up the stove, pop open a can of biscuits, throw the bologna in a pan, and put the biscuits in the oven. He fried the bologna in vegetable oil until it was crispy, nearly black around the edges — fitting. He placed the bologna on a paper towel–lined plate to drain, then cracked in the eggs. No need to beat them ahead of time — just whisk the eggs in the skillet over medium heat with the bologna drippings, and add a heaping of salt and pepper to make a soft scramble.

Just like he built his Frankensteined Cadillac in "One Piece at a Time," he built the breakfast platter with bologna, eggs, two biscuits, and fresh slices of tomato. The biscuits were served with butter and eaten with local honey and he added ketchup to the eggs — because, yes, ketchup does belong on eggs.