Entry in progress—B.P.
 
The Free Dictionary
down-home  (American)
down-home things are simple and typical of life in the countryside (always before noun) It’s a diner with down-home American cooking where you can take all the family. He’s a folksy, down-home sort of guy.
Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006.
 
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: down–home
Pronunciation: \ˈdau̇n-ˌhōm\
Function: adjective
Date: 1938
: of, relating to, or having qualities (as informality and simplicity) associated with rural or small-town people especially of the Southern United States “down–homesimple, unpretentious
 
(Dictionary of American Regional English)
down home n
One’s native region; the language of one’s native region.
1931 American Speech 7.120 cID, is Utah.
1977 Smitherton 258 [Black], , any place south of the Mason-Dixon line; conceptually, suggests place of psychological peace and nitty-gritty blackness; down home began to be particularly longed for after the vast urban migration of blacks to the “promised lands” of Northern Black Bottoms.
1987 File, In the summer of 1971 I heard two Black university students use the phrase “to talk down home” to mean to speak Black English. One was from North Carolina and the other was from Ohio.
 
down-home adj
From or characteristic of one’s native region; by ext, simple, unpretentious.
1958 Holmes Horn 85 NYC, Maybe later pick up gigs with a downhome band. [DARE Ed: Speaker is native of the South.]
1967 home boy and home girl for people who come from the same hometown as the speaker] seems to have none of the connotations of down home, such as rusticity and naivete, or simple tastes and simple goodness.
1970 Major Dict. Afro-Amer. Slang 48, Down home: (1950’s)[of] an honest, unpretentious life style or personality; in jazz, an earthy way of playing.
1976 NY Times (NY) 4 June sec A 3/2, He is cheerful and chatty, full of stories of his photographic experiences around the world,..all told in the soft down-homw accent of his native Nebraska.
1979 Capital Times (Madison, WI) 7 Sept 41, [Caption:] Down home hospitality colors couple’s world.
1982 New Yorker 31 May 70/3 neFL, “We don’t mind if you refer to Crescent City..as ‘the sticks’ or ‘red-neck country,’” the brochure..for the Catfish Festival says. “We’re a down-home community.”
1984 9 Apr 122/3, “Mayor,” his political memoir,..continues…to enhance the bank account of the hundred-and-ten-thousand-dollar-a-year Mayor, who, nonetheless, thanks to his down-home style (New York version), is still viewed by many..as representing the city’s jus’ folks.
1987 DARE File WI, An advertisement heard on the radio during a Milwaukee Brewers basbeall game included the following lines: What’ll you have?/ Down-home flavor/ What’ll you have?/ True-blue flavor/ .. Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
 
down-home adv
In, to, or at one’s home or native region; in the manner of one’s native region.
1924 (1946) Greer-Petrie Angeline Gits an Eyeful 1 csKY, Down home, when a passle of able-bodied men and wimmen have a getherin’, they all jine in and skear up somethin’ to do that’s been a-needin’ gittin’ done.
1969 DARE (Qu. MM22, If you are talking to a friend who lives in another place and you want to inquire about his neighborhood, you might ask, “How are things ____?”) InfMA56, Down home.
1969

Tape II.88, My brother and sister lived down home until their deaths.
1972 Claerbaut Black Jargon 63, Down home..the South: We’re goin’ down home next week.
   
(Oxford English Dictionary)
down home: at one’s home, in one’s native land or region; also as n., one’s homeland; hence (usu. attrib. or adj.) used to designate something, esp. jazz music or blues, that is down-to-earth and unpretentious. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
[1828 J. H. NEWMAN Jrnl. in Autobiogr. Writings (1956) v. 212 After a week’s stay at Highwood, I went down home to Brighton.]
1931 Amer. Speech VII. 120 Down home [sc. in eastern Idaho] is Utah.
1938 N.Y. Amsterdam News 12 Mar. 17 Almost primal emotions, hangover from the old ‘down home house rent strut’ days.
1958 J. C. HOLMES Horn (1959) 85 Maybe later pick up gigs with a downhome band.
1966 Melody Maker 7 May 14/5 A measure of worldly success has not ruined their nakedly emotional down-home style.
 
Google Books
A Little Sunshine
By Walter E. Todd
Washington, DC: The Murray Brothers
1917
Pg. 28:
“Down Home” Cooking
If there is one thing I crave for and that is to be able
To go down home once more and put my feet under the table,
And get some of that food down there that they know how to cook,
Pg. 29:
But up this way they’ve always got to be searching a book,
For recipes and all that stuff to see what it will take
To fix the food they want to eat so there’ll be no mistake.
And down there they have so much food they just throw it away,
But if you want anything up here for it you’ve got to pay;
For everybody up this way is holding out their mit,
And if you cannot come across they won’t give you a bit.
And why I left that place down there to come here I can’t see,
If ever I get back down there, never again for me.
 
For I do miss them black-eyed peas all cooked in nice hog jole,
With crackling bread all hot and steaming, goodness bless my soul,
I imagine I can see that pot of fat black and sallet,
Saying to me come here my boy and let me tickle your palate;
Ham and cabbage and cornbread just about two inches thick,
Pg. 30:
And after you fill up on that you’d be taut as a tick;
Also string beans and lima, too, with corn and slice tomatoes,
Lettuce and asparagus and both kinds of potatoes;
And when they invite the minister to dine,
Every chicken on the place has to walk a chalk line,
Because they know just what it meant and kept out of harm’s way,
So the kitchen door as not the place that they desired to stay.
Take me back to my old home where the sun is shining bright,
So I can get some chitlings to grease my appetite.
Another place down there where you can get good eatings,
And that is when they’re holding their annual camp meetings.
They’ll have some old time chicken stew with dumplings steaming hot
All cooked right there on the campgrounds in a big old iron pot.
Then chicken fried and also baked and homemade chicken pie,
Would almost make you think you were in the sweet bye and bye.
Pg. 31:
And when it came to desert (sic) they would have all kinds of pies,
Cakes, ginger bread, ice cream, you could hardly believe your eyes.
Then water melon, cantaloupe, apples, pears and sweet plums,
And everybody feels so glad when campmeeting comes.
So, if I can enjoy those times before this voice is stilled,
I’ll be satisfied to know that my desire has been filled.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Down home cookin’ : tested recipes of Tallahassee men, women and youth
by Killearn United Methodist Women, Tallahassee.
Type:  Book; English
Publisher: Tallahassee, Fla. : Women of the Church, 1976.
           
Google Books
Nova Scotia Down Home Cooking
By Janice Murray Gill
Published by McGraw-Hill Ryerson
1978
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Down home cookin’ : with the North Carolina State Grange
by Judith Dick; North Carolina State Grange.; et al
Type:  Book; English
Publisher: Lenexa, Kan. : Cookbook Pub., ©1981.
 
Google Books
Miss Mary’s Down-Home Cooking:
Traditional Recipes from Lynchburg, Tennessee
By Mary Bobo, Diana Dalsass
Published by New American Library
1984
 
Google Books
Potluck on the Pedernales:
Down Home Cooking from Deep in the Heart of LBJ Country
By NetLibrary, Incorporated, Johnson City (Tex.), Garden Club, Inc NetLibrary
Published by NetLibrary, Incorporated
1991
 
Google Books
Down Home Cooking: The New, Healthier Way
By Reader’s Digest
Published by Reader’s Digest Association
1995
 
(Trademark)
Word Mark DOWN HOME
Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 030. US 046. G & S: TABLE SYRUP. FIRST USE: 19670300. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19670400
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 72271368
Filing Date May 12, 1967
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Registration Number 0852411
Registration Date July 9, 1968
Owner (REGISTRANT) HINES, ROY DBA HOUSE O’ROY HINES INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES P.O. BOX 1245 ALBANY GEORGIA 31702
(LAST LISTED OWNER) HINESCO INDUSTRIES, INC. CORPORATION ASSIGNEE OF GEORGIA 551 SAN MATEO CIRCLE HEMET CALIFORNIA 92343
Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED
Attorney of Record KIMMEL, CROWELL & WEAVER
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text SECT 15.
Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 19880709
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
 
(Trademark)
Word Mark DOWN HOME
Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 029. US 046. G & S: CANNED VEGETABLES-NAMELY, SQUASH, PEAS, TOMATOES, BLACKEYE PEAS AND FIELD PEAS WITH SNAP BEANS; CANNED CHICKEN PRODUCTS-NAMELY, CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS, CHICKEN BROTH, CHICKEN STEW, CHICKEN ALA KING, NOODLES AND CHICKEN DINNERS, BONED CHICKEN, WHOLE CHICKENS AND DICED CHICKEN. FIRST USE: 19700000. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19700000
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 73127223
Filing Date May 19, 1977
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Registration Number 1087404
Registration Date March 14, 1978
Owner (REGISTRANT) HINESCO INDUSTRIES, INC. DBA DOWN HOME CORP. CORPORATION GEORGIA P.O. BOX 1945 ALBANY GEORGIA 31702
Prior Registrations 0852411
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR).
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD