Southern Food Culture on the Skids? Part II

From the introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of Joseph E. Dabney’s Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine:

“There may well be as much to learn about a nation from the food and drink its people consume as from the laws it passes and the wars it fights...for food and drink are daily matters that intimately reflect the spirit and tastes of a people.” --quoted from the Washington Post review by Jonathan Yardley of Joseph Dabney’s Mountain Spirits. 

Smokehouse Ham... isn’t a Southern cookbook; as its subtitle explains, it’s a book about The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking.  “Southern cooking” breaks down into distinct subsets.  For instance, shrimp and grits are lowcountry, not mountain (I did see a recipe for “Tennessee Shrimp and Grits” in a Southern cookbook today; needless to day, I didn’t buy that cookbook!).  City food didn’t used to be the same as country cooking.  You could have asked Edward’s mother, Mary Faye, about that.  She famously declared “Once I tasted city eating I was never going back to county food again.”  I respect Mary Faye, but I can’t totally agree with that; I still prefer country vittles myself.

So what can one learn about America from what Americans are eating these days?  That we’re all in a great hurry I suppose.  Hurrying for what reason I’m not so sure.

Anyway, I’ve been after Edward to post a list here of his favorite cookbooks, but he’s definitely NOT hurrying on this one, so even though I’m not the chef in this Brumby household, I’m going to share with you a few of my own favorite cookbooks.

Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking, by Joseph E. Dabney
    Edward gave me this great book a couple of Christmases ago.  It took me the better part of a year, but I did read the entire tome from cover to cover.  Fascinating -- a wonderful mix of history, geography, culture and personalities.  And my mentor, Ethelene D. Jones, is featured on page 440.  I’ve not cooked many dishes exactly from the recipes printed here, but I return to my little cast iron cornbread skillet more often since reading this book.

Southern Cooking from Mary Mac’s Tea Room, by Margaret Lupo
    I have the little old plastic comb-bound version from 1983.  I don’t know where I got it, but it’s signed by the author.  Since I just cook, and not very often, I return to this book time and again for ideas and advice for fixing such vegetable basics as fried okra, baked squash and fried green tomatoes.  I’ve never eaten at Mary Mac’s btw.

Fried Green Tomato @ Home

The New Southern Basics, by Martha Phelps Stamps
    I bought a copy of this book weeded from the Snellville branch of Gwinnett County Public Library (books we’ve purchased from this source could make an entire blog).  I check these recipes too when attempting the basics.  Here you can find guidance for making pimiento cheese, chicken salad, fried corn, fried sweet potatoes and lots of other things I ought to cook.

Starr Recipes from Greystone, by Mary Starr
    This is another little plastic comb-bound recipe book.  This one belonged to my maternal grandmother, Gertrude.  Her check marks of approval and notes for alterations can be seen in the margins.  For many years Mary Starr was “Hostess on the Homemakers Show” for WATE Radio 620 / Television 6 in Knoxville, Tennessee.  This book is a 1970 compilation of her favorites.  There are some recipes in here we might call frightful or laughable these days (South Carolina Chicken with minute rice and two kinds of canned soup.....), but again, there are some “Easy and foolproof” standards.  The page containing the recipe for Quick and Easy Coconut Pie boasts stains and a red checkmark.  Granny, who was a superb cook, also gave her thumb up to Ground Beef Stew, Banana-Walnut Bread, Chocolate Covered Cherries and Coconut Mounds and Apple-Date Cake.  She X’ed through Mary’s Caramel Icing. 

Those cover Southern cooking, but here are a few other cookbooks I particularly like and/or use:

Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book
    Yes, I bought myself a copy of the red-and-white checkered notebook back around 1981.  Talk about pedestrian, there are no foodie fantasies or homey historicals here.  But even today, when the Internet can supply one with myriads of recipes in a heartbeat, I still open this old standby for basic information about cooking times and temperatures.  Wonder how many women have learned to cook from this book?

Another cookbook I read entirely is Two Fat Ladies: Gastronomic Adventures [With Motorbike and Sidecar], by Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright.  I used to LOVE to watch their show on BBC America.  What incredible lives they enjoyed!  And if I ever need to know how to cook grouse or rabbit or Scotch eggs, I’ve got the word from the experts handy.  Whatever I’m cooking, their recipe will probably begin with “line the bowl with bacon,” and how could that be bad?

Andrew Swallow's Field Salad

And although I don’t own a copy, I’m becoming attached to Mixt Salads: A Chef’s Bold Creations by Andrew Swallow with Ann Volkwein.  I’ve made his Field salad, which was really nice (butter lettuce, vinegar/oil/mustard dressing, blue cheese, fresh tarragon, shallots).  And I’m dying to try Gems (gem lettuce, apricots, blue cheese) and Mr. Bean (lamb w/ grilled baby artichokes, flageolet beans -- what ARE flageolet beans?).  This is a 2010 cookbook which would appeal to foodie types; it’s arranged by season to highlight fresh ingredients.  The recipes seem do-able and enjoyable.

Of course my really favorite recipes are the ones I’ve copied out on cute little file cards in the nice wooden recipe box my aunt Johnnie gave me years ago.  And my more recent notebook full of photocopies, Internet printouts and newspaper and magazine clippings. 

No, I’m not the Brumby chef, nor am I the Brumby cookbook aficionado, but these are my favorites for reading and cooking.  (My real favorites of course are the ones which inspire my chef Edward to experiment, usually with tasty results!)

Southern Food Culture on the Skids?

Slow food, locavorism, farm-to-table and/or -fork, food patriotism, self-sustaining agriculture, food origin consciousness, Community Supported Agriculture, seasonal menus, regional foodsheds, heirloom seeds.  I just started reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan (I’m only a few pages in and already I’m saying, “But........”) and I attended a very nice whole hog barbeque and pig pickin’ yesterday, so I got to thinking about my personal food culture.  Do I have one?

Pollan would say I don’t, since I grew up in mid-20th century America.  Except that my mid-20th century American experience was in a small (and I mean really small) town in a rural county in the South. 

Back then, was I more connected to my food?

We ate a lot of store-bought big name brands of processed food: Heinz tomato ketchup; Jell-O; Tang; Kool-Aid; Hormel bacon; Aunt Jemima pancake mix; Log Cabin maple-flavored syrup; Hershey’s chocolate-flavored syrup; Kelloggs’ and Post cereals (Sugar Frosted Flakes, Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops -- notice a pattern here?); Minute Rice; Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker cake mixes; Lipton tea bags; Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat!); Lay’s potato chips; Campbell’s soup; Gerber’s baby food; Bluebonnet margarine; Wesson corn oil; Crisco shortening; Libbey’s fruit cocktail; French’s mustard; Van Camp’s pork and beans; Karo syrup; Bird’s Eye concentrated orange juice; Oscar Meyer wieners; ReaLemon; Borden’s Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk; Kraft Miracle Whip, mayonnaise and Cracker Barrel cheese; La Choy (makes Chinese food SWING American!) chow mein noodles; Nestle’s chocolate chips; Carnation evaporated milk; Star-Kist tuna; Bisquick; Wishbone dressing; Jolly Time pop corn; Quaker oats; Nabisco everything (Premium Saltines, Ritz crackers, Cream of Wheat, Barnum’s Animal Crackers, Oreos, Fig Newtons, Lorna Dunes); Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti sauce and Beefaroni; Morton’s salt; McCormick’s ground spices; Underwood Deviled Ham; Armour Vienna Sausage; Spam......

Many of these foods, margarine, corn oil and shortening for example, were supposed to be vastly better, health-wise, than the butter, grease and lard they were replacing.  And we did have our “local” brands for some staples.  Coffee was JFG or Maxwell House, but now I realize both were pretty bad.  Flour was White Lily, Martha White, Southern or Red Band, but of course it was then, as now, processed into absolute whiteness.  Even our corn meal mostly came from these companies.  Sugar was Dixie Crystals or Domino.  Bread, wonderfully, was Kern’s ("Kern's is good bread'); sliced or buns, all-white-all-the-time.  And anything milk related (milk, buttermilk, ice cream, cottage cheese) was Mayfield’s.

But I didn’t mean for this to turn into just another nostalgic list; more to my point, there are probably some reasons why I can recall all these food brands so easily.

Grandma putting cornbread dressing into the oven

1. My mom cooked.  She made breakfast every morning and supper almost every night.  And on weekends and in the summer (my mom was a high school English teacher) she made lunch.  Or we walked across the street to eat at my grandmother’s house.  No, I can’t claim I had any real notion about where flour came from, but I watched it being made into lots of biscuits and pie crusts.  I knew even less about restaurants.  There were no chain eateries within my realm of experience.  Maybe a “steak house” out on the highway or a drive-in grill with burgers, fries and milkshakes, but that’s about it and those were frequented only rarely.

2. Frozen food was just getting started.  Our refrigerators weren’t frost-free and only had very small freezer compartments.  Preserved foods we bought or put by were mostly canned or dried.

3. My dad’s family (those grandparents who lived across the street with my unmarried aunt) had been share-croppers since the Depression, but my grandmother no longer made a garden.  My grandfather was diabetic (I guess I should have listed some brand of saccharin tablets above) and in a wheelchair and Grandma was 71 years old when I was born.  No one else in the family was interested in making a garden for her.  All those wonderful, convenient foods listed above meant no one had to.

4. My own family (Dad, Mom and my older brother, Bill) got a television when I was born.  I’ve never lived a day without the presence of TV and its accompanying waves of advertisements.  Brands were BIG business.  Advertising worked.

BUT, we lived in a rural county where farming was still a way of life for many people we knew.  So I did understand from early days that corn picked from the stalk only 30 minutes ago tastes so much better than anything bought from a store.  Tomatoes ripened on the vine and still warm from the sun need only a little salt to satisfy a mid-day hunger.  We spent summer days and evenings stringing beans, shelling peas, shucking corn, peeling tomatoes, drying fruit and making pickles and jelly.  My aunt always complained that she never got to eat fresh fruit because Grandma would have it made into jelly before anyone got the chance to eat it.

There was always a jar of sorghum syrup (not molasses) on the table.

I’ve picked and eaten poke salad.

I’ve picked blackberries and scratched the chiggers afterwards.  But not many.  There were always less-wealthy kids who needed and enjoyed the extra money peddling buckets of berries in town could bring their families.

Fishing, and even hunting, were still normal activities, but venison or bear were uncommon meats at our tables.  I’ve never been fishing myself and I’ve never cleaned fish or even seen anyone dress game.  I’ve never seen a hog killing or cattle slaughtered.  Grandma did keep chickens for several years however, so I know where eggs come from and I’ve seen her ring a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner.  I’m positive the resulting fried chicken was great, but I bet it was made in an electric skillet instead of an iron frying pan (her wood-burning kitchen stove had been removed by the time I came along).  Would I really have appreciated yesterday’s barbequed pork more if I’d watched the pig die?  I wouldn't object to seeing that, but it really doesn’t feel necessary to me.

I’ve never successfully raised a tomato plant.  I’m ashamed of that.  But at least now, after years of suburban living, I enjoy the freshness of basil, parsley, oregano, sage and thyme from our own little herb plot.  

I’m really not panning food origin consciousness.  I think it is good to know where my coffee beans are coming from and what it takes for someone to provide them for me.  I like the thought of supporting people around me who want to produce and share wonderful, locally grown meat and vegetables.  The more I’m introduced to “heirloom” varieties, the more I know that they taste better (more like the food I knew growing up)!  And even a Southerner can learn that maple syrup tastes better than maple-flavored sugar syrup.

So I do get it, but I still won’t capitulate that, as a mid-20th century American, I do not have a food culture.  But as this particular food memory has gone on long enough, I’ll address that here again on another day and in another entry.

In the meantime, Edward and Hunt will be back from the golf course in a few minutes so we’ll be having Coca-Colas and Hebrew National hotdogs with Patterson’s Hot Dog Chili and chopped Vidalia onions on Colonial Bread hotdog buns for lunch.  Oh, and some chopped, locally grown cabbage!

Gorgeous Rustic Vidalia Onion Tart

(From the Edward)

I prepared the Rustic Vidalia Tart from the Southern Living Farmers Market Cookbook with few alterations (at least for me).  The recipe called for 4 medium sized Vidalia onions, which was at least one too many.  Since I only had Kraft Mexican cheese, I used that instead of Gruyere, though the Gruyere would have been better.  I covered it with a bit of reggiano parmesan, which added an appropriate flavor.  The recipe called for the baking sheet to be covered with parchment paper.  I think this insulated the bottom of the crust too much, so it didn't get as done as it should.  Next time I would omit.  I cooked it with the convection feature on, at 425 on the bottom rack.  Next time I might do it at 450 if I used convection (which reduces the temperature in my oven by 25 degrees).

Started by slicing the onions thin, then melting 3 tablespoons of butter in a 12 inch saute pan.  The oven was pre-heating at this time.  Put chopped rosemary, salt, and pepper into the onion mixture.  Cooked the onions on medium high for 10 or more minutes.  Unrolled pie crust onto a baking sheet.  Brushed the pie crust with beaten egg white.  Covered it with about a half cup of cheese, leaving a two inch perimeter.  When the onions were done (I added a little more butter toward the end),  spooned them onto the cheese.  Then turned the reserved ends of the pie crust up and over the mixture.  Brushed with more egg white.  Topped the onion mixture with some more cheese (I added the regiaano at this point).  Baked about 19 minutes.  Let cool for at least five minutes before serving.

Grazing on the Deck

My car said the temperature in Athens, GA, yesterday was 101 degrees.  That's on June 2!

Thank goodness it was more temperate last week and for the Memorial Day weekend.  We enjoyed a very nice evening on the back deck of our friends' the Finches in Watkinsville.  Princess Lily entertained and the Welles were there too, with a son each from the visitors showing up later to chauffeur the revelers home. 

Just a nice, casual, potluck time with friends, but we ate and drank well of course!  Food samples: smoked salmon; mozzarella/roasted tomatoes/ basil on toast; Thai tossed salad w/ chorizo, cantaloupe & peanuts; "barbeque" shrimp (recipe from the aforementioned SC Shrimpers cookbook); watermelon and more.  Drinks included: Aperole gin fizzes; a magnum of 2002 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs (really nice on a warm spring evening!); several crafted beers; a magnum of Williams Selyem Pinot and a taste of some liqueur Hugh Acheson brewed up some while ago....

For dessert there was Key lime pie and wonderful ancho chili chocolate (flourless) cake.  Roy broke out cigars and the evening wound down to a quiet close.

Let's do it again soon, guys!  Good living.