Month: August 2024

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Native American Place Names in Calhoun County, Mississippi

These place names were collected from the Mississippi Atlas & Gazetteer (DeLorme: 2004), pages 25 and 31; the text is from Keith Baca’s Native American Place Names in Mississippi (University Press of Mississippi: 2007).

Note that the gazetteer was my only source for the place names, and that I only referenced those in Calhoun County, Mississippi. If you want to know the interpretations of other Native American place names in other areas of the state, then you can probably find Baca’s book at your local library. The references in the text refer to works that provided the translations/interpretations for specific words.

Some of you might find all this unnecessarily tedious and more of you will find it predictably pretentious, but my skeptics are legion. The only name I did not find is Oloucalofa Creek, which is crossed by County Roads 284 and 283 in the northwestern corner.

Kittahutty Creek

SW Pontotoc/NE Calhoun counties. Crossed by Miss. Hwy 32 nine mi. NE of Bruce. Halbert (1899, p. 73), using Choctaw vocabulary, derives this name from kitti, “mortar” (a bowl-sha0ped container for pounding or grinding corn into meal), and hutta, “white”. Halbert offers no explanation for the adjective, but Seale (1939, pp. 109-10) speculates that it refers to a mortar made of white stone (white or bleached wood, more likely). It should benoted that this creek is located at least partially within historically Chickasaw territory, and while Chickasaw kitti’, “mortar” is very similar to the Choctaw word, the only recorded Chickasaw term for “white” is tobbi’. Also, the first two syllables of the name resemble not lonely kitti/kitti’, but Chickasaw/Choctaw kinta, “beaver” as well.

Lucknuck Creek

N Calhoun County. Crossed by Miss. Hwy. 32 five mi. NE of Bruce, and by Miss. Hwy 9 one mi. NE of Sarepta. Perhaps a corruption of Chickasaw/Choctaw lackna, “yellow”.

Potlockney Creek

SE Lafayette/ NE Calhoun counties, local pronunciation unrecorded. Potlockney is a relatively recent corruption; this stream was formerly known as Pollocona, the derivation of which is uncertain. W.A. Read, using Choctaw vocabulary, suggested several possible sources of this name to Seale (1939, p. 153), but all are conjectural: poli, “flying squirrel” and yakni “country”; or poli, “flying squirrel” and okhina, “river; water course; stream”. (It should be noted that this stream is in historically Chickasaw territory; cf. Chickasaw lakna, “yellow”; yaakni, “country”; and pali, “flying squirrel”.

Sabougla Community and Creek

SW Calhoun/NW Webster counties. Crossed by Miss. Hwy. 9 two mi. N of Bellefontaine, and by Miss. Hwy. 8 seven miles E of Gore Springs. Cushman (1999, p. 491) claims that this name is a shortened form of (Chickasaw) “Siboglahatcha… [o]riginal, Is-su-ba-ok-la-hu-cha, Horse River People, i.e. [p]eople living on horse river.” (Cf. Choctaw isuba, “horse”, okla, “people” and hocha, “river”.) However, Halbert (1899, p. 75) states that the name is from shohboli’, “smoke” (cf. Choctaw shoblhi, “smoke;smoky; smoking”.

Shuttispear Creek (SHOOT-uh-speer)

N Webster/S Calhoun Counties. Crossed by Miss Hwy. 9 fie mi. S of Calhoun City, and by Miss. Hwy. 8 seven mi. SW of Calhoun City. From Choctaw shuti, “earthen pot” and probably ista pika, “a scoop” i.e. “pot scoop” or “ladle” (Seale, 1939, p. 167). There is an erroneous local tradition regarding this stream resulting from folk etymology; I have been told that long ago, the creek was the scene of warfare between two tribes. According to this tale, the warriors occupied opposite sides of the stream, “shooting spears across the creek at each other”, hence the name.

Skuna Community and River

S Pontotoc (q.v.)/NW Chickasaw (q.v.)/Calhoun/Yalobusha (q.v.)/Grenada counties. Crossed by Miss. Hwy 9 on s. side of Bruce. Skuna is apparently from Choctaw iskuna, “entrails; guts” (cf. Halbert 1899, pp. 73-74).

Topashaw Creek (TOP-uh-shaw)

NE Webster/SW Chickasaw (q.v.)/S Calhoun counties. Crossed by Miss. Hwy. 8/9 two mi. S of Calhoun City,and by Miss. Hwy. 341 six mi. W of Woodland. Possibly a variant of Topisaw (cf.), although Seale (1939, p. 198) speculates that “it is highly probably that there is a connection between Sopashaw and Taposa, the latter being the name of a tribe which formerly lived on the Yazoo River.” The meaning of the tribal name Taposa is unknown (Swanson 1969, p. 192).

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Mafiosos, Murders, and Gay Extortion in Biloxi

On September 14, 1987, Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret, were slain in their Biloxi home at the hands of the so-called Dixie Mafia, a loosely knit group of traveling criminals performing residential burglary, robbery and theft based in what was called “the Strip”, a string of seedy bars, strip joints and gambling parlors that flourished along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast from the 1960s to the 1980s.

“It was out of control,” said retired Special Agent Keith Bell, referring to the level of corruption in Biloxi and Harrison County—so much so that in 1983 federal authorities would designate the entire Harrison County Sheriff’s Office as a criminal enterprise. Special Agent Royce Hignight initiated the investigation of the sheriff and was soon joined by Bell. “They were doing anything and everything illegal down here,” said Bell, who grew up on the Gulf Coast. “For money, the sheriff and officers loyal to him would release prisoners from the county jail, safeguard drug shipments, and hide fugitives. Anything you can think of, they were involved in.”

Bell is quick to point out that there were plenty of honest officers on the force, and some would later help the FBI put an end to the culture of corruption in Biloxi. But for a long time, Sheriff Leroy Hobbs and his Dixie Mafia associates held sway. The Dixie Mafia had no ties to La Cosa Nostra. They were a loose confederation of thugs and crooks who conducted their criminal activity in the Southeastern United States. When word got out that Biloxi—with its history of strip clubs and illicit gambling—was a safe haven, the criminals settled in.

At the same time, members of the organization incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were running a “lonely hearts” scam extorting and blackmailing gay men with the help of associates on the street. Dixie Mafia inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were behind a scam, led by Ringleader Kirksey McCord Nix—a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without parole—who believed that if he raised enough money he could buy his way out of jail. Inmates paid guards to use prison telephones. Then they placed bogus ads in homosexual publications claiming they were gay and looking for a new partner to move in with. The men who replied to the return post office box address got additional correspondence and racy pictures. But there was a catch—the scammers told their victims a variety of lies about why they needed money before they could leave where they were.

“A lot of money came flowing in,” said retired Special Agent Keith Bell. “There were hundreds of victims.” Men from all walks of life—professors, mail carriers, politicians—fell victim to the scam. “One guy in Kansas mortgaged his house and sent $30,000 to the scammers over a period of months,” Bell recalled. To add insult to injury, some of the inmates writing letters eventually confessed the scam to their victims—and then extorted even more money by threatening to “out” the men if their demands were not met. The scam brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars—money they entrusted to their lawyer, Pete Halat, but he spent the money.

When it came time to hand it over to the crooks, Halat said the cash had been taken by his former law partner, Vincent Sherry. So the Dixie mob ordered a hit on Sherry, a sitting state circuit judge who had no direct ties to the criminals. On September 14, 1987, Sherry and his wife Margaret, who was a member of the Biloxi city council, were murdered in their home. Pete Halat was of course not exactly dumbstruck when the Sherrys were murdered. Halat, called upon to give the funeral eulogy, delivered a bizarre, long-winded speech that ruminated on Biloxi’s need for “honest, open and accountable government.” The crowd packed into church on that somber September, 1987 day gawked at his unmitigated gall of turning a sad occasion into a political event. Halat even passed out copies of his speech to the media. A few weeks later, he announced he was a reform candidate for mayor of Biloxi. And he won.

Gulf Coast residents were shocked by the murders. Local authorities worked the case unsuccessfully for two years. The FBI opened an investigation in 1989, and Bell was assisted in the investigation by Capt. Randy Cook of the revamped sheriff’s office—Leroy Hobbs was convicted of racketeering in 1984 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The federal investigation into the Sherry murders lasted eight years. In the final trial in 1997, Pete Halat was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Kirksey McCord Nix—the Dixie Mafia kingpin at Angola who ordered the hits—as well as the hit man who killed the Sherrys each received life sentences.

Mississippi legitimized legalized gambling in the 1990s. Today, the funky roadhouses and strip joints on the beach road have been replaced by shiny casinos, wrung out or rebuilt after the soaking by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. City fathers allow that the Dixie Mafia may still be operating on the Gulf Coast, but as a mere shadow of its former might and ruthlessness.

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Pan-Galactic Rebel

Lieutenant Commander (later Admiral) Leonard H. McCoy, M.D, chief medical officer aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), was born in Atlanta, Georgia, Earth, in 2227 to Mr. and Mrs. David McCoy.

He enrolled at the University of Mississippi in 2245. That year, an interplanetary gymnastics competition was hosted by the University of Mississippi and held at the Menlo T. Hodgkiss Memorial Gymnasium on the Oxford campus, where he met the Tr’i’ll Emony Dax, who was visiting Earth to judge the competition. According to Dax, McCoy “had the hands of a surgeon.”

McCoy enrolled at the University of Mississippi Medical School in 2249. While in medical school, McCoy and his friends often substituted real drinking glasses with tricklers at parties. (What fun.) He graduated in 2253.

McCoy met his future wife Pamela Branch at Ole Miss when she suffered brain-freeze from an ice cream cone. Branch wore white at the wedding ceremony and adopted the last name McCoy. She divorced him in 2255 because their professions kept them apart.

In the divorce, she acquired their house on Mars, six cars and a valuable Vulcan painting.She also received custody of their daughter, Joanna. McCoy told Kirk that the divorce left him nothing but bones (thus his nickname). Shortly afterwards, McCoy enrolled in Starfleet Academy.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Ginger Pecan Shortbread

Cream 1 stick butter with a cup of confectioner’s sugar and a teaspoon each almond and vanilla extract. Blend in 2 cups plain flour sifted with a teaspoon of baking powder with a  half cup chopped pecans and a tablespoon dried ground ginger. (I have tried this recipe with freshly-grated ginger, and it simply does not work at all well at all with so much butter.) This mixture makes a soft, elastic dough that you must work with flour-dusted hands. Form dough into a ball, and pat or roll into an 8” round, score into six wedges, and crimp the edges with a fork. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 375 until the edges are just brown. Cut and serve. This recipe makes great cookies, too.

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A Magnolia in Zaire

Kingsolver’s prose can be ponderous or playful by turns. The Poisonwood Bible casts a cadenced eye on a life lured or provoked into that balance  between being and living where distinctions are uncertain, an exposition of grim, unrelenting endurance,

A native of Kentucky, Kingsolver might find comparisons to Mississippi’s Nobelist flattering yet annoying. Faulkner, more than any other American writer in the past century, has been used by countless critics and academics as a rough rule of thumb for superiority among writers whose sentences involve any degree of rhetorical convolutions, the comparison has become far too trite to be taken seriously in most contexts.

Still, who can help but detect Faulkner’s shadow moving behind Kingsolver’s heartrending portrait of Orleanna’s early life in Pearl, Mississippi?

My downfall was not predicted. I didn’t grow up looking for ravishment or rescue, either one. My childhood was a happy one in its own bedraggled way. My mother died when I was quite young, and certainly a motherless girl will come up wanting in some respects, but in my opinion she has a freedom unknown to other daughters. For every womanly fact of life she doesn’t get told, a star of possibility still winks for her on the horizon.

Jackson, Mississippi, in the Great Depression wasn’t so different from the Congo thirty years later, except that in Jackson we knew of some that had plenty and I guess that did make us restless from time to time. In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had—a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they’d sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn’t occur to them to feel sorry for themselves. Except when children died—then they wept and howled. Anyone can recognize the raging injustice there. But otherwise I believe they were satisfied with their lot.

And so it was for me, as a child in the Depression, with that same practical innocence. So long as I was surrounded only with what I knew, that’s what life had to offer and I took it. As a noticeably pretty child, and later on, a striking girl, I had my own small way in the world. My father, Bud Wharton, was an eye doctor. We lived on the outskirts of Jackson proper, in a scrubby settlement called Pearl. Dad saw patients in the back room of the house, which had metal cabinets for his nested lenses that tinkled like glass wind chimes when you opened and shut the drawers. Up front, we ran a store. We had to, because in hard times everyone’s eyes get better or at least good enough. In the store we sold fresh produce my cousins brought in from their truck farm, and also dry goods and a little ammunition. We squeaked by. We all lived upstairs. At one time there were eleven altogether, cousins from Noxubee County, uncles who came and went with the picking season, and my old Aunt Tess. She was a mother to me if I needed one. What Aunt Tess loved to say was: “Sugar, it’s no parade but you’ll get down the street one way or another, so you’d just as well throw your shoulders back and pick up your pace.” And that was more or less what we all believed in.

I don’t think Dad ever forgave me, later on, for becoming a Free Will Baptist. He failed to see why anyone would need more bluster and testimony about God’s Plan than what he found, for example, within the fine-veined world of an eyeball. That, and a good chicken dinner on Sundays. Dad drank and cursed some but not in any way that mattered. He taught me to cook, and otherwise let me run wild with my cousins. On the outskirts of Pearl lay a wilderness. There we discovered pitcher-plant bogs where we’d hike up our dresses, sink on our knees in the rich black muck, and stare carnivory right in the lips, feeding spiders to the pitcher plants. This was what I worshiped and adored as a child: miracles of a passionate nature. Later on, we discovered kissing boys. Then tent revivals.

It was some combination of all those things that ran me up against Nathan Price. I was seventeen, bursting utterly with happiness. Arm in arm we girls marched forward in our thin cotton dresses with all eyes upon us. Tossing our hair, down the aisle we went between the rows of folding chairs borrowed from the funeral home, right straight to the front of the crowded tent for the Lord’s roll call. We threw ourselves at Jesus with our unsaved bosoms heaving. We had already given a chance to all the other red-necked hooligans in Pearl by then, and were looking for someone who better deserved us. Well, why not Jesus? We were only in it for the short run anyhow—we assumed He would be gone by the end of the week, the same as all others.

But when the tent folded up, I found I had Nathan Price in my life instead, a handsome young red-haired preacher who fell upon my unclaimed soul like a dog on a bone. He was more sure of himself than I’d thought it possible for a young man to be, but I resisted him. His seriousness dismayed me. He could be jolly with old ladies in crepe de chine dresses, patting their hunched backs, but with me he could not let go the subject of heaven except to relieve it occasionally with his thoughts on hell.

Our courtship crept up on me, mainly because I didn’t recognize that’s what it was. I thought he was just bound and determined to save me. He’d park himself on our dusty front-porch steps, fold his suit jacket neatly on the glider, roll up his sleeves, and read to me from the Psalms and Deuteronomy while I shelled beans. How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain? The words were mysterious and beautiful, so I let him stay. My prior experience with young men was to hear them swear “Christ almighty in the crap-house!” at any dress with too many buttons. Now here was one from whose mouth came, The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times; and He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

Oh, I wanted those green pastures. I could taste the pale green sweetness of the blade of wheat, stripped and sucked between my teeth. I wanted to lie down with those words and rise up speaking a new language. So I let him stay.

As a young and ambitious revival preacher, his circuit was supposed to divide him equally between Rankin, Simpson, and Copiah counties, but I’ll tell you what: more souls got saved in Pearl that summer than the Lord probably knew what to do with. Nathan hardly missed a Sunday chicken dinner at our house. Aunt Tess finally said, “You’re a-feeding him anyways, child, why not go on and marry him if that’s what he’s after.”

I suppose I’ll never know if that was what he was after. But when I told him Aunt Tess was more or less needing an answer, before committing more chickens to the project, the idea of marriage suited him well enough so that he owned it as his. I hardly had time to think about my own answer—why, it was taken to be a foregone conclusion. And even if anyone had been waiting for my opinion, I wouldn’t have known how to form one. I’d never known any married person up close. What did I know of matrimony? From where I stood, it looked like a world of flattering attention, and what’s more, a chance to cross the county line.

We married in September and spent our honeymoon picking cotton for the war effort. In ‘39 and ‘40 there had been such talk of war, the boys were getting called up just to make a show of being ready for anything, I suppose. But Nathan had always been exempted, as an indispensible worker—not for the Lord, but for King Cotton. He did farm labor between revivals, and in the autumn of ‘41 it was our first enterprise as newlyweds to bend our backs together in the dusty fields. When the rough cotton pokes were filled, our hands clawed raw and our hair and shoulders tufted with white, we believed we’d done our part. Never did we dream that shortly the bombs would fall on a faraway harbor whose name struck a chill across our own small, landlocked Pearl.

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Ars Voces: Euphus Ruth – Time’s Eye

When I go somewhere to take photographs, I sort of have something in mind, but it has to feel right or speak to me for me to actually make a wet collodion photograph. I may shoot some snapshots on film or take some documentary shots of things I am recording over time, but for the plates it has to be that feeling of connection with time and place, past and present.

This is a scanned copy of an 11×14″ red glass ambrotype I made at Poplar Springs Cemetery in Calhoun County in April of 2012. I had been staying in Bruce at my parent’s and decided to go up to Poplar Springs where my great-grandparents (Starling Monroe and Nancy Ruth) are buried..

After walking around the cemetery for a long while, reading the gravestones and making a few snapshots with a hand-held camera I decided I would not set up the wet collodion. I got in the car to back out of the cemetery entrance for some reason instead of driving through.

That is when I saw this image. It hit me: there it was the old fence I had noticed and not noticed my entire life of visiting there. I could see my relatives’ gravestones in the background but what grabbed me was the fence, the plants, the foliage: that feeling.

I pulled back in and proceeded to set up the portable darkbox, get the chemicals ready, and mount the camera on the tripod. In about 30 minutes I was looking through the camera’s ground glass at this image. In another 15 minutes I was washing the chemicals from the glass and feeling good about the plate.

In 2014 the cemetery caretakers in their infinite wisdom totally removed the fence and cleaned the bank off, destroying some of the visual reminders of 50 plus years of visiting this cemetery. Nothing lasts forever; that is one of the reasons I’m a photographer.

11′ X 14″ red glass ambrotype made at Poplar Springs Cemetery in the Red Community near Bruce, Ms., (Calhoun County) in April of 2012. Not for sale.
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Craig Claiborne’s Only Mississippi Restaurant Review

In 1981 catfish farming was booming, nowhere more so than right around Craig Claiborne’s hometown of Indianola, Mississippi. Claiborne was invited home to take a look at the catfish farms by Turner Arant, who built his first catfish pond in 1962. Arant helped organize Delta Pride Catfish Processors, Delta Western, Farmers Grain Terminal, Community Bank, and served on the board of each of these companies.

“(Claiborne) visited here in my home and I got my wife (Sybil) to prepare catfish for him four different ways,” Arant said. Claiborne returned to his home in East Hampton, where in addition to good ol’ fried catfish and hushpuppies, he and Pierre Franey worked up recipes for catfish meunière, catfish au vin blanc, and catfish Grenobloise.

Before he left Mississippi, Claiborne visited the Cock of the Walk in Ridgeland, Mississippi, which had opened the previous year. Claiborne reviewed the restaurant in a November column, declaring, “During my recent visit to Mississippi, I ate in what might be the best catfish restaurant in the state, and therefore the nation.” The Cock of the Walk holds the distinction of being the only Mississippi restaurant ever reviewed by her native son in The New York Times .

INDIANOLA, Miss.—Like most Southerners, I adore catfish. I remember that half a century and more ago my family would drive to the banks of Four Mile Lake near here and unload a picnic hamper. Gliding about on the water were small pleasure boats, many of whose passengers dangled fishing lines from cane poles, hoping a catfish would nibble. In the crystal-clear water, the lines could be seen all the way to the bottom. Many of the men word white linen suits and black string ties, and some wore white straw hats or boaters with wide brims. Some of the women carried parasols to guard their skin against that burning Mississippi sun.

Over the years catfish has remained a Southern regional specialty. But lately, thanks in large part to the abundant supply produced by catfish farms,” it has become more widely available. (Catfish will be available later this work at Shopwell Food Emporiums at 1331 First Avenue (71st Street), 1458 York Avenue (79th Street) and 1052 First Avenue (57th Street) in New York and 261 Ridge Street in Rye.)

I’m not certain that my mother, who was a marvelous cook, ever prepared catfish at home: she was too aristocratic for that. Red snapper, yes, it was basted for an hour or longer with a Creole tomato sauce made with chopped green peppers, chopped onion and celery (a friend of mine once called the combination of chopped peppers, onion and celery the holy trinity of Creole cocking). But catfish was too common, something to be enjoyed outdoors, as at those Sunday outings.

Eating deep-fried catfish was a ritual. The cooking was done in large metal kettles that were heated with long-burning logs. When the fat in the vats was extremely hot, the pieces of catfish were dredged in a blend of com meal (always white, never yellow). salt and pepper. When they were dropped into the fat, the vessel be. came a bubbling caldron until the fish were ready to be removed with perforated spoons and set to drain A catfish menu was and is today always the same: the com-meal coated catfish with its golden-brown crusty exterior and moist white inner flesh; deep-fried hush puppies, deep-fried potatoes and coleslaw. And tomato ketchup. Deep-fried catfish without ketchup is like a hot dog without mustard.

In the course of a recent visit to my hometown here, deep in the heart of the Mississippi Delta about 100 miles south of Memphis, I discovered that many of the farmers in the region are moving into the field of pisciculture converting their cotton and soybean acres into ponds that produce some of the sweetest-fleshed catfish in America. I would go so far as to say that it is the finest freshwater fish in America, including pike and carp. It is the equal of most saltwater fish, including lemon or gray sole. Fillets of catfish can be used in almost any recipe calling for a white nonoily fish.

In days gone by, the catfish that was eaten in this country was channel catfish that had spawned and thrived in muddy river waters. It was said that the catfish smacked of the waters in which it had swum, and this was true. The catfish that is raised in freshwater ponds is wholly different, remarkable not only for its flavor and texture but also for its non-fishy characteristics. Even after it is frozen and de frosted it remains snow white and as firm as when taken from the water.

During a visit to a fish-raising enterprise known as Delta Catfish, I was taken to numerous ponds for a look at the product known as Delta Pride. The ponds, which measure 20 acres square and are four or five feet deep, are filled with the fresh water for which the Mississippi Delta is famous.

The fish get a commercially prepared feed that is about 35 percent protein and no longer feed on the bottom. They are taken from the ponds directly to a surgically clean processing plant where they are skinned by machine. They are shipped around the country either fresh or frozen-whole, cut into steaks or as fillets. A Delta Catfish spokesman estimated that his company would produce 100 million pounds this year. Though Mississippi is by far the longest producer for the retail market, there are also farms in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas.

When I returned from Mississippi, I brought with me about 30 pounds of frozen catfish filets.  After they were defrosted overnight, Pierre Franey and I experimented over the next few days. converting them into many appetizing creations, from deep-fried catfish with hush puppies to catfish meunière and Grenobloise, and catfish in a white wine sauce. We also duplicated a dish I had dined on in a country home near Sunflower: catfish baked with cheese, the recipe of Sybil Arant.

Catfish Meunière

4 catfish fillets, about 2 pounds
¼ cup milk 4 cup flour
Salt to taste, If desired
Freshly ground pepper to taste y cup peanut, vegetable or com oll
tablespoons butter
Juice of ½ lemon
4 seeded lemon slices
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley.

  1. Dredge the fillets in milk. Lift the fillets one at a time from the milk and immediately dredge on all sides in flour seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.
  2. Heat the oil in a skillet until quite hot. Add the fillets in one layer and cook about three minutes on one side or until golden brown. Turn and cook, basting often and liberally with oil, about six minutes.
  3. Transfer the fillets to a warm serving dish. Pour off the oil from the skillet. Wipe out the pan.
  4. Add the butter to the skillet and when it is foaming and starting to brown, swirl it around and pour it over the fish. Sprinkle with the lemon juice. Garnish the fish with lemon slices and sprinkle with parsley. Yield: 4 servings.

Catfish Grenobloise

Follow the recipe for catfish meunière, but add one quarter cup drained capers to the butter as it is being heated to pour over the fish.

Catfish Filets in White Wine Sauce

6 catfish fillets, about 2 pounds
5 tablespoons butter
½ cup dry white wine
½ pound mushrooms, thinly sliced, about 2 cups
Salt to taste, If desired
Freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons flour cup milk
Juice of a lemon
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Pat the catfish pieces dry. Rub a baking dish (a dish measuring about 2 by 13 by 8 inches is ideal) with one tablespoon of the butter. Arrange the fillets over the buttered dish in one layer.
  3. Add the wine. Scatter the mushrooms over all and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Place in the oven and bake 10 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, melt the remaining butter in a saucepan and add the flour, stirring with a wire whisk. Add the milk, stirring with the whisk. When blended and smooth, remove from the heat.
  5. Pour the liquid from the baked fish into the sauce, stirring. Bring to the boil and cook, stirring often, about five minutes. Stir in the lemon juice. Pour the sauce over the fish and bake 10 minutes longer. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and parsley. Serve hot. Yield: 6 servings.

Deep-Fried Catfish

3 catfish fillets, about 1 pound
Fresh corn oil to cover cup white cornmeal
Salt to taste, if desired
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Lemon halves
Tomato ketchup
Hush Puppies (see recipe).

  1. Heat the oil for deep frying. 2. Cut each fillet in half crosswise.
  2. Combine the cornmeal, salt and pepper.
  3. Dredge the fillets in the cornmeal. Pat to make the cornmeal adhere. Drop the fillets in the oil and cook five to 10 minutes or until crisp and brown. Serve with lemon halves, ketchup and hush puppies. Yield: 2 to 4 servings.

Mustard-Fried Catfish

Follow the recipe for deep-fried catfish, but brush the pieces on all sides with mustard before dredging in cornmeal.

Hush Puppies

1½ cups white cornmeal 4 teaspoons flour 2 teaspoons baking powder
Salt to taste, if desired 1 tablespoon sugar ½ cup grated onion
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup rapidly boiling water
Fresh corn oil to cover.

  1. Combine the cornmeal, flour. baking powder, salt, sugar, grated onion and egg and blend well. Add the water rapidly while stirring. The water must be boiling when added.
  2. Heat the oil to 370 degrees. Drop the mixture by rounded spoonfuls into the oil. Cook until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Yield: About 36.

Sybil Arant’s Catfish Baked with Cheese

6 to 8 cattish fillets, about 2 pounds
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup flour
Salt to taste, if desired
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 teaspoon paprika
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon milk
½ cup melted butter, sliced almonds.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Wipe the catfish dry.
  3. Blend together the cheese, flour, salt, pepper and paprika.
  4. Combine the egg and milk in a flat dish.
  5. Dip the fillets in the egg mixture and then coat with the cheese mixture. Arrange the fillets in one layer in a biking dish and pour the butter over al. Sprinkle with the almonds. Place in the oven and bake 20 minutes. Yield: 6 to 8 servings

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Dog Days

At the height of our summer, the winter constellations begin to be seen in the eastern dusk, which at this latitude (Jackson, Mississippi is 32.2988° N) is between July 21 and August 3,. Among the brightest of these starry arrays is Orion, and close on the heels of the great hunter is his big dog, Canis Major, with the brightest star in the night sky, brilliant Sirius, the Dog Star. With the rise of Sirius our dog days begin, and for the next forty days or so, it’s just hot as hell all the damn time.

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Russell’s Cocktails

Russell had his dander up. “Yancy, you are an effete snob!”

“Because I’m making shrimp cocktails?”

“No, you also wear ankle socks and tuck your t-shirts into your boxer shorts,” he pointed out. “But shrimp cocktails augment such established evidence of your snootiness.”

“There’s nothing epicene about a shrimp cocktail.”

“You even know to say ‘sissy’ six ways from Sunday.’”

“Russ, it’s your birthday party. What do you want for an appetizer?”

“Oyster shooters,” he said.

“I’m gonna tell your momma you’re sleeping with your ex.”

To one cup chili sauce, add one tablespoon each of lemon juice and horseradish, and a teaspoon Worcestershire. For heat, I recommend Crystal hot sauce and freshly-ground black pepper. I don’t recommend garlic. Freshly-chopped parsley gives heft and texture.

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Spanakopita

This labor-intensive recipe works well on those occasions when you can commandeer others to help.

For the filling use about a pound of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed. With fresh spinach, use two pounds blanched, drained, and chopped.

Sauté in olive oil a large, finely-chopped onion and a cup of chopped scallions. Cool and add a half-cup chopped parsley. Season with dill, nutmeg, and lemon juice. Mix in a cup of crumbled feta and a half cup of a hard grated cheese such as Parmesan. Combine with spinach, salt to taste, and fold in four well-beaten eggs. Refrigerate.

Place filo sheets between slightly damp paper towels before use. Spread a single sheet across a lightly-oiled sheet pan–I use the bottom–brush with oil, fold in half, oil and fold again into a strip.

Have you ever folded a flag? The procedure here is the same. Fold a corner over about 1/4 cup of filling, flip, and keep flipping to the end of the sheet. Refrigerate pastries before cooking.

Brush with oil before baking in a medium oven.