Author: Jesse Yancy

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Crab Tchoupitoulas

This recipe is a riff on a dish served at Pere Antoine in the Vieux Carré. There, mushroom caps are stuffed with a creamed spinach-mushroom-crab mixture, then breaded and deep-fried. Here the stuffing is served en casserole, a superb addition to any event buffet.

Sauté a half pound of thinly-sliced fresh mushrooms in a stick of butter. Stir in two cups chopped spinach and a half pound lump crab meat (picked through!). Make a quart of cream sauce–use half-and-half–and add to spinach/crab mix along with a cup of freshly grated hard/sharp cheese. Work in a finely julienned sweet red pepper, a few tablespoons of grated onion, and a minced clove of garlic (or two).

Season to your taste; I like a good slash of white pepper and a teaspoon or so of dried thyme. Mix very well, pour into an oiled casserole, and top with a freshly-grated hard cheese. Bake at 350 until browned and bubbling. Serve with dry toast and fresh lemons.

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Parakeets in the Pines

In flight, a jewel, in flocks, a mandala, Carolina parakeets provided fleeting, noisy spectacles in the rain forest that was the virgin South.

It was a beautiful little bird; brilliant green, with a yellow head, and a line of red around the face. The wings were edged in orange. Audubon kept one as a pet; Wilson found them in Natchez in 1811, but records are spotty. Chances are they were never that numerous. Their diet of green fruit doomed them, and they were easily exterminated; when one bird fell to a gun, others descended around it. Inevitably, gunfire resumed, and they were slaughtered.

Carolina parakeets died out in the early 20th century. The last known wild specimen was killed in Okeechobee County, Florida, in 1904, and the last captive bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo on February 21, 1918. This bird, Incas, died within a year of his mate, Lady Jane. In a case of what has been termed tragic irony, Incas died in the same aviary enclosure where the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died four years earlier.

By 1939, the Carolina parakeet had been declared extinct by most authorities. Some believed a few may have been smuggled out of the country and repopulated elsewhere, but that’s the same wishful thinking that buoys up news of ivory-bills.

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Cornmeal Butter Cakes

Mix well a cup of white corn meal with a cup of hot water, a teaspoon of salt, and a quarter cup melted butter. Herbs, spices, or seeds are appealing options, but I like to keep these simple. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes, then add a little more meal (another tablespoon or two) for a thick batter. Drop by spoonfuls onto a well-oiled sheet pan, and bake at 350 until edges are crisp and centers firm, right at 15 minutes. These are best right out of the oven, but reheat beautifully. The recipe makes about 10 3-in. cakes.

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Hot Hominy

This old buffet dish is perfect for a tailgate brunch . Most recipes call for white hominy, but yellow or a blend is pretty.

To four cups drained and rinsed hominy, add a small jar of pimentos, a chopped mild banana pepper or green chilies, and two cups mild cheddar cheese sauce. Make your own; you can do it. Some people add sausage, bacon, or ham, but that’s totally superfluous; likewise with jalapenos. Season with salt and white pepper. Bake at 300 for about 20 mins.

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Jett’s Table

My Aunt Jett learned to cook from her mother, whose people settled a wilderness.

Food was their only pleasure not subject to religion. They sustained themselves and their families on corn and pork with whatever else they could grow or kill. They planted and picked, cooked and baked, dried and canned what they could, making the most of what they had season to season, year to year, generation to generation.

Jett always had something fixed for whatever company might drop in: stewed greens, limas, black-eyed peas, or snap beans, new or creamed potatoes, fried chicken, pork chops, or breaded steak. If it were summer, she’d have fresh sliced tomatoes, fried okra, or corn on the cob.She served her meals with sliced onion, cornbread or biscuits, and sawmill gravy with sweetened tea to drink; she seasoned with streak-o’-lean, salt, black pepper (maybe a little cayenne) and sage.

Jet’s cooking was simple, but not coarse; it had a balance and symmetry all its own, dictated by long-ago voices set in concert with the seasons. Jett thanked God before we ate, and that, too is elemental of our sustenance.

Aunt Jett (left) with her sisters Maude and Virgie.
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Crystal Wings

Disjoint wings, and unless you’re a compulsive chicken stock person (I used to be one; trust me: get therapy) compost tips. Pat dry and deep-fry until lightly browned.

Toss with sloshes of Crystal Hot Sauce and dashes of granulated garlic. Bake well separated on a rack in a moderate (350) oven until crisp. These refrigerate well, but not freeze.

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Hot Dip from Cafe Olé

Cafe Olé on University Avenue in Oxford was a popular eatery in the 1990s. I worked there briefly after I returned to Oxford after several years in Florida, and before I went into rehab.

Man, was I a mess.

The dip, served as a complimentary side with a basket of warm tortilla chips, is typical of most good Mexican restaurants. We made gallons and gallons of it.

Converting a restaurant recipe to one easily made at home presents problems both with the scaling-down process and the ingredients. Bear in  mind also that this recipe is my adaptation of the one I copied down some twenty years ago.

So make a batch according to these directions and then modify it as you see fit. I have scaled down the more distinctive ingredients (lime juice, vinegar, jalapeno “juice”, onion, garlic, and cilantro) in this version, because once these are added, you can’t very well remove them. If you want more, you can add it later.

The dip should be on the thin side, very sharp, redolent of garlic, cilantro, and lime.

1 12-oz. can tomato puree
1 cup water
1 12-oz. can whole tomatoes (with juice)
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup canned jalapeno juice (or any hot pepper vinegar)
1 cup jalapenos (half that if you’re using fresh)
1 large white onion, chopped
1/4 cup granulated garlic (I recommend dried/minced as a substitute)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Process until smooth

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Hosford’s Apple Pecan Cookies

You don’t see many Southern recipes for apple cookies. Apples simply don’t do well in the South, and those that do are usually made into sauces, pies, or cakes.

A quick scan of Southern Sideboards, Bayou Cuisine, River Road Recipes, Vintage Vicksburg, Gourmet of the Delta, The Jackson Cookbook, and The Mississippi Cookbook turned up nary a one, but I did find an apple cookie recipe in Hosford Fontaine’s Allison’s Wells: The Last Mississippi Spa.

You can’t get any more Southern than that.

3 cups of unpeeled diced apples (I use Galas)
2 sticks butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
A half teaspoon each ground cloves, nutmeg, and salt
2 cups rolled oats
¼ cup white raisins
¼ cup chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugars well, add eggs and flour mixed and sifted with spices and baking powder, then stir in apples, oats and nuts. Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes, stirring once. Form dough into ping pong balls, and bake on a lightly oiled cookie sheet with parchment paper at 350 or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack. This recipe makes about two dozen wonderful, chewy, cookies.

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Flower of the Dead

Red spider lilies bloom in the diminishing days of summer, springing up from drying lawns and fields as if from nothing.

A native of China, the lily (Lycoris radiata), is poisonous to most animals. Every part of the plant can induce vomiting, paralysis, even death. They’re planted in rice fields to deter rodents. When they spread to Japan, where the dead were buried without coffins, the lilies were planted to prevent vermin from disturbing grave sites. In time, the brilliant red flower became known as the corpse flower, the ghost flower, and—most poignantly—the lost child flower.

Buddhism also came to Japan from China, and the Lotus Sutra became a fundamental text for many Japanese schools. In the sutra, heavenly flowers descend from the realms of the gods, falling on the Buddha and his audience. Many devotees associate this flower – called Manjushage – with red spider lilies.

The lily blooms around the autumn equinox, Higanbana, the day the dead return to the world, and higanbana is a popular Japanese name for the flower. The flowers are said to bloom on O-higan “the other shore,” of the Sanzu-no-Kawa, a Styx-like river separating the lands of the living from the banks of carmine blossoms beckoning  spirits back to life.

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Jackson: The Way We Were . . .

In 1981, Forrest L. Cooper and Donald F. Garrett published a selection of old postcards of Jackson from about 1902 until the mid-1950s, with more than 90% prior to 1920. The text was written by Carl McIntire, a self-professed “reporter, not a historian,” who nonetheless spent an enormous amount of time on the project, doing extensive research and interviewing more than 300 people. McIntire admitted to a margin of error, but states that “for the most part, all the dates and places are correct.” The book had a very limited printing and has hitherto never been republished. The link below will take you to a digital version of this exquisitely nuanced, intricately informative, and infinitely beautiful labor of love.

Jackson: The Way We Were . . .