A Southern Gallimaufry
Grate and squeeze yellow, white, or green squash. For one cup grated squash and a quarter cup each of diced onions and poblanos, mix with two cups self-rising white corn meal.
Add a large egg, well-beaten, about ¾ cup whole milk, and ½ cup vegetable oil. Stir until just mixed and drop by spoonfuls into hot oil.
Puppies rise and turn as they cook. When brown, put pups on paper towels in a skillet and set them in a warm oven to crisp. Serve with a citrus-y comeback or a thin salsa.
This recipe comes from my pal David Odom. Puree two peeled chopped cucumbers, one cup simple syrup, 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice, a pinch of salt and 5 basil leaves in ta blender, then press through a fine screen. Pour the mixture into a container, and float a cleaned egg in the mixture . If a quarter sized portion of the shell is showing you are good, if not add more syrup. Chill mixture then run in ice cream maker.
Fry to a crisp, drain and crumble 1 pound bacon. Mix with a cup and a half (or so) of Blue Plate mayonnaise, and 2 bunches minced green onions. Season with a teaspoon (or more) Tony Cachere’s and black pepper to taste. Spread on 2 inch rounds of bread, top with drained and lightly-salted Roma tomato slices. Dill is a nice touch. This recipe makes about 35.
Some know Karel Čapek as a seven-time Nobel nominee, but most remember him as the man who gave us the word “robot”. Among Čapek’s more endearing works is The Gardener’s Year (1929), a learnéd, light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek depiction of the enduring, eccentric gardener, including a “Gardener’s Prayer” that’s more of a demand for Eden than a supplication. This illustration from the accompanying pages was drawn by his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek.
O Lord, grant that in some way it may rain every day, say from about midnight until three o’clock in the morning, but, you see, it must be gentle and warm so that it can soak in; grant that at the same time it would not rain on campion, alyssum, helianthus, lavender, and others which You in Your infinite wisdom know are drought-loving plants-I will write their names on a bit of paper if you like-and grant that the sun may shine the whole day long, but not everywhere (not, for instance, on the gentian, plantain lily, and rhododendron) and not too much; that there may be plenty of dew and little wind, enough worms, no lice or snails, or mildew, and that once a week thin liquid manure and guano may fall from heaven.
Amen
You’ll often find classic recipes caught in a backwater eddy rotting into poor, grotesque things far removed from former splendor, like a fading star of stage and screen who’s reduced to dinner theater, falling subject to farce for the same reason: their name is a draw. So you’ll find prima vera with frozen vegetables, for instance, or steak Diane with condensed cream of mushroom soup.
I worked in a restaurant where the house recipe for scampi consisted of garlic powder, a commercial oil product (Whirl), and the remnants of whatever open bottle of white wine the bartender had. That’s it. This concoction was poured over a dozen medium-sized shrimp arranged in a small circular metal dish and placed in a salamander.
The results were dry and chewy; had our customers been (in the least bit) savvy, no doubt they would have complained with vigor and frequency, but the very fact that they didn’t led to the recipe becoming entrenched on our menu and–what’s even more tragic–likely defining this travesty as scampi for hundreds of people who’d never eaten at a restaurant with tablecloths.
To make a good scampi, sauté the best shrimp available in a really good butter with a slash of olive oil, plenty of fresh, finely-minced garlic, a fruity white wine, salt and white pepper. Before serving, add a jolt of lemon juice and a sprinkling of parsley. Some thicken the sauce with starch or lightly bread the shrimp, add scallions, or even chopped drained tomatoes, but I don’t. Scampi can be served as an appetizer with bread or over pasta as an entree.
The more one delves into this work, which by any measure must be considered a significant document in the history of Calhoun County, Mississippi, the easier it becomes to understand why V.S. Naipaul, in his A Tour of the South, named his chapter on Mississippi “The Frontier,” and to appreciate more fully the gritty, violent world of Yoknapatawpha.
These writings of Col. Stephens were collected by Leon “Pappy” Burgess, who was born August 28, 1926, in Bruce, Mississippi. He attended the University of Mississippi, but like so many young men enlisted in the United States Army on August 26, 1944. He was honorably discharged from military service in 1947 at the rate of sergeant. He moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast where he became a home builder and a collector of everything old and wonderful. In his lifetime, he was an avid historian, a genealogist, an author, and “a very wise and gentle man.” He died April 1, 2015, at his residence in Gardendale, Alabama.
Marquis DeLafayette Stephens was born Nov. 9, 1829 in Williamson Co., Tennessee. He came to Mississippi in 1838, and married Mary Jane Duff in Feb. 1856. He was a colonel in the Confederate army, was severely wounded at Franklin and did not recover until the close of the war.
He was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in Nov. 1863, to State Senate in 1865, and to the House again in 1879. In 1892, Stephens was appointed Deputy Clerk for Yalobusha County, and in 1894 was elected Chancery Clerk. Afterwards, he served as Court Recorder for four years, and was appointed (by the Governor, no less) as a notary public.
Stephens died on April 15, 1912.
Dennis Murphree called him a “grand old man of Calhoun and Yalobusha Counties.”
His sympathies were always with those whom Abraham Lincoln called “The Great Common People.” In his palmy days he was an eloquent speaker and in antebellum times practiced the profession of medicine in this country, riding often through the trackless wilds about the headwaters of Scoona River and mingling with the original pioneers and quaint characters of long ago.
Back in the ’50s and ’60s, the country was overrun with “Continental-style” restaurants offering Naugahyde banquettes, white table cloths, and tony, bastardzied Euro/American menus. One of these retro-glam dishes was steak Diane, a wonderful dish for two.
Use 2 6 oz. slices of tender beef, season with a smidgen of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, dust with flour, and sauté in butter with two finely-diced shallots and a small clove of garlic to taste. Set the meat aside.
Working quickly, add a half stick butter to the pan, a hefty tablespoon of prepared mustard, and 2 cups sliced mushrooms. When cooked down, add heavy cream, reduce, and stir in enough stock to make a smooth sauce. Spoon over beef, and serve with a love.
