Many years ago at a conference for Southern fiction at Ole Miss, I took umbrage at the inclusion of Bobbie Ann Mason’s splendid novel In Country because the author is from Kentucky, which I do not consider a Southern state. Kentucky was in the middle border during the Civil War, not a member of the Confederacy, nor are Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, or Delaware.
When a family from Kentucky moved to my very small rural Mississippi town in the early 60s they were of course welcomed and quietly became members of standing in the community. With them they brought Swiss steak, which my adolescent mind tagged as a Yankee recipe. For some reason the Swiss designation slipped right over my little provincial Southern brain, probably more because for obvious reasons Switzerland held far less significance than THE NORTH. Anything Yankee was automatically suspect, and as such Swiss steak entered the nether category Reserved for Further Observation.
“To swiss” refers to processing for cotton fabrics for a smooth texture. Some food writers have taken a leap of faith and declared that because the cooking process renders a tough cut of meat smooth/tender, in English-speaking countries beef stewed with tomatoes is often called “Swiss,” but the ease and appeal this dish is world-wide.
Bread and fry thin trimmed cuts of top round until browned. Drain and place in a casserole with your favorite tomato sauce, and mild peppers, and onions. Bake covered at a medium temp until tender. Serve with buttered noodles or potatoes.
This recipe comes from Teresa Bullard, who lives near my old hometown in Calhoun County, Mississippi. Both Teresa and her husband Jerry are fine cooks. Teresa also provided the great photo.
5 lbs tomatoes 5 lbs pickling cucumbers 2 lbs onions 2 heads of garlic 1 large bunch fresh dill (optional ) 5 quarts water 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup fine sea salt 3/4 cup distilled white vinegar 10 Tablespoons sunflower oil (1 Tablespoon per jar)
Wash and dry your canning jars. I used 10 jars, 8 wide mouth quart jars and 2 half gallon wide mouth jars.
Wash the cucumbers and tomatoes. If your cucumbers are a little soft, you can crisp them up by letting them soak in really cold water for 15-30 minutes. Slice the cucumbers into approximately 1/2 inch circles. Slice the onions, about 1/4 inch slices and quarter the tomatoes. Peel the garlic. Place a few sprigs of fresh dill on the bottom of each jar, and then add 2-4 garlic cloves. Layer the onions, cucumbers and tomatoes in 2 layers in each jar.
Meanwhile, in a large pot, bring the water, salt and sugar to a boil, mixing until all the sugar and salt dissolve. Off the heat, pour in the vinegar. Ladle the hot marinade mixture over the vegetables in the jar, all the way to the top. Add about a tablespoon of sunflower oil to the top of each jar. I add a little bit less than a tablespoon to the quart jars and a little more than a tablespoon to the half-gallon jars.
Place the jar lids in boiling water and let the lids stay in the boiling water for 10-15 minutes also, off the heat. Place a clean towel or dishcloth on the bottom of a large pot, and fill it with water. Bring the water to a boil, Place the filled jars in the boiling water, on top of the towel, cover them loosely with the lids and cook, at a simmer, for 10-15 minutes. Take the jars out of the water and close the lids tightly. Repeat with all the jars.
The salad is ready to eat in 1-2 days. Store opened jars in the refrigerator, the rest are shelf stable at room temperature.
On summer afternoons when the air was smoky with dust and the sun bore down like a burden, my Grandaddy Jess would walk from his store up to his house, sit on his front porch, take off his hat, and holler at Granny Ethel to bring him a glass of milk and bread.
So she would crumble that cornbread she always kept on the back of the stove into a jar, pour in enough cold buttermilk to cover not all the way but almost, stick a long teaspoon in it, bring it out to Jess, then go back to the kitchen where she had her radio.
Jess would sit on the porch overlooking his store, his field of corn across the road, his son’s house with its tumbling children on the corner, and he’d think about this year, think about last year, think about next year, and–content–go back to the store, leaving behind a tall glass streaked with thick milk and breadcrumbs.
Older recipes for this king of summer soups include bread melded early on with oil, salt and garlic into sort of a cold roux for body. This recipe doesn’t include bread at that juncture, but I like crumbling dry cornbread over the bowl at table.
Mince two or three cloves of garlic very, very finely and mash in the bottom of a glass or enamel bowl with a teaspoon of salt and about a half a cup of olive oil. Add in fine dice one yellow onion, three very ripe summer tomatoes, two peeled cucumbers, two ribs celery (with leaves), and a sweet banana pepper.
I don’t recommend hot peppers; this is a cooling dish, and should be refreshing, not pungent nor heavy; starchy vegetables such as corn or peas seem out of place as well.
Add a teaspoon of powdered cumin, a quarter cup each of chopped fresh basil and parsley, and a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Mix with two cups V8. Refrigerate overnight. An hour before serving, add more V8 to consistency, adjust the salt and pepper, and top with a slosh of olive oil.
Brown lightly floured stew meat with chopped onions and a clove or so of minced garlic. Dust with a bit more flour, stir well, add coarsely diced potatoes, carrots, celery, and water to cover over by a half. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook–stirring occasionally–on low heat until meat and vegetables are tender. Reduce to consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with rice and/ or cornbread.
At some point in your life you’re going to impress the wrong person the right way and find yourself invited to a potluck supper, obliging you not only to be presentable and reasonably polite for up to two hours, but to bring food that is sure to please most everybody and won’t put the cheese tray in a bad light.
This dish fits the bill, doesn’t take a lot of time or money to make, works just as well for second weddings or canasta nights, and is always a big hit at cemetery homecomings. You’ll bring home an empty Pyrex whatever the occasion; it’s colorful, rich, buttery and, it must be said, “freezes beautifully”. This recipe provides a dozen or so 6 oz. servings.
Cook 1 pound extra-wide egg noodles, drain, drizzle lightly with vegetable oil, toss, and place in a large bowl. Add 2 cups diced and blanched celery and carrots, 2 cups frozen green peas (you can add these right to the mix), 3 cups shredded chicken (canned white is really good for this) and 2 cups diced ham. Toss with 1 stick melted butter and 2 cups freshly-grated Parmesan cheese. Bake in a casserole at 300 for about 20 minutes.
An aromatic dish for small gatherings. These can be prepared on a sheet pan, but small skillets make a better presentation. Preheat oven to 400. Rinse hen, pat dry, and remove wing tips and backbone. Use scissors. Turn breast side up, open like a book, and whack it a time or two with your fist to crack the breastbone and flatten. Oil hen, season with salt and plenty of good black pepper. Line a well-oiled skillet with minced garlic and rosemary springs, place the bird on top, tuck the wings under the breast, and bake until nicely browned.
Cat Cora says that her family probably used canned potatoes for this recipe in their Jackson, Mississippi, restaurants, the Elite and the Mayflower. She recommends Yukon golds, but you can use any waxy potato. The olives are optional, but add a nice salty accent.
Blend well equal parts of chicken broth, olive oil, and lemon juice. Add oregano, finely-chopped fresh rosemary, minced garlic, and salt to taste. Cut waxy potatoes into wedges, or in half for smaller ones, and parboil with bay until just tender. Drain, coat with seasoning mixture, and bake in a very hot oven until crispy. Toss with pepper, lemon juice, and olives before serving.
Over the hill from my boyhood home, in the middle of a long cornfield bordered by a dirt road filled with gripping mud in the winter and enveloping dust in the summer, grew an apple tree so big that now fifty years later it remains the largest I’ve ever seen.
I couldn’t begin to guess what sort of apple it was, but the fruit when ripe was small and crisp, faintly streaked, blushing red, and speckled from insects, winds, and sun. When green, the apples were so taut you could barely dent them with the tip of your thumb. Those were the apples my mother used to bake apple pies. I never knew her to use any other; she said “store” apples would “make a mush”. Now that better apples have come on the market, Honey Crisps in season or Granny Smiths will do.
Combine 4 cups apples, cored, peeled, and cut into chunks with a cup of sugar, juice of half a lemon, a half teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg. Spoon into an unbaked crust, top with a little butter, and a slitted crust. Bake at 350 on a middle rack until brown and bubbly.
This text is from a pamphlet that Eudora Welty wrote for and was distributed by the Mississippi Advertising Commission in 1936. Bearing that in mind, the simplicity of the recipes and the appeal to “Old South” sensibilities are better understood. This essay was selected by the Federal Writers’ Project only a short time before the publication of A Curtain of Green in 1941, a work that established Welty as a leading light in American letters, a position she still holds.
Stark Young, in his book Feliciana, tells how a proud and lovely Southern lady, famous for her dinner table and for her closely guarded recipes, temporarily forgot how a certain dish was prepared. She asked her Creole cook, whom she herself had taught, for the recipe. The cook wouldn’t give it back. Still highly revered, recipes in the South are no longer quite so literally guarded. Generosity has touched the art of cooking, and now and then, it is said, a Southern lady will give another Southern lady her favorite recipe and even include all the ingredients, down to that magical little touch that makes all the difference. In the following recipes, gleaned from ante-bellum homes in various parts of Mississippi, nothing is held back. That is guaranteed. Yankees are welcome to make these dishes. Follow the directions and success is assured.
Port Gibson, Mississippi, which General Grant on one occasion declared was “too beautiful to burn,” is the source of a group of noble old recipes. “Too beautiful to burn” by far are the jellied apples which Mrs. Herschel D. Brownlee makes and the recipe for which she parts with as follows:
JELLIED APPLES
Pare and core one dozen apples of a variety which will jell successfully. Winesap and Jonathan are both good. To each dozen apples moisten well two and one-half cups of sugar. Allow this to boil for about five minutes. Then immerse apples in this syrup, allowing plenty of room about each apple. Add the juice of one-half lemon, cover closely, and allow to cook slowly until apples appear somewhat clear. Close watching and frequent turning is necessary to prevent them from falling apart. Remove from stove and fill centers with a mixture of chopped raisins, pecans, and crystallized ginger, the latter adding very much to the flavor of the finished dish. Sprinkle each apple with granulated sugar and baste several times with the thickening syrup, then place in a 350-degree oven to glaze without cover on vessel. Baste several times during this last process.
Mrs. Brownlee stuffs eggs with spinach and serves with a special sauce, the effect of which is amazingly good. Here is the secret revealed:
STUFFED EGGS
12 eggs 1 lb. can of spinach or equal amount of fresh spinach 1 small onion, cut fine salt and pepper to taste juice of 1 lemon or ½ cup vinegar ½ cup melted butter or oil 1 large can mushroom soup.
Boil eggs hard, peel, and cut lengthwise. Mash yolks fine. Add butter, seasoning, and spinach. Stuff each half egg, press together, and pour over them mushroom soup thickened with cornstarch, and chopped pimento for color.
Last of all, Mrs. Brownlee gives us this old recipe for lye hominy, which will awaken many a fond memory in the hearts of expatriate Southerners living far, far away.
LYE HOMINY
1 gallon shelled corn 12 quart oak ashes salt to taste Boil corn about three hours, or until the husk comes off, with oak ashes which must be tied in a bag—a small sugar sack will answer. Then wash in three waters. Cook a second time about four hours, or until tender. -An all day job: adds Mrs. Brownlee.
One of the things Southerners do on plantations is give big barbecues. For miles around, “Alinda Gables,” a plantation in the Delta near Greenwood, is right well spoken of for its barbecued chicken and spare ribs. Mr. and Mrs. Allen Hobbs, of “Alinda Gables,” here tells you what to do with every three-pound chicken you mean to barbecue:
BARBECUE SAUCE
1 pint Wesson oil 2 pounds butter 5 bottles barbecue sauce (12 ounce bottles) 1/2 pint vinegar 1 cup lemon juice 2 bottles tomato catsup (14 ounce bottles) 1 bottle Worcestershire sauce (10 ounce bottles) 1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce 2 buttons garlic, chopped fine salt and pepper to taste This will barbecue eight chickens weighing from 242 to 3 pounds. In barbecuing, says Mrs. Hobbs, keep a slow fire and have live coals to add during the process of cooking, which takes about two hours. The secret lies in the slow cooking and the constant mopping of the meat with the sauce. Keep the chickens wet at all times and turn often. If hotter sauce is desired, add red pepper and more Tabasco sauce.
Mrs. James Milton Acker, whose home, “The Magnolias,” in north Mississippi is equally famous for barbecue parties under the magnificent magnolia trees on the lawn, gives a recipe which is simpler and equally delightful: • Heat together: 4 ounces vinegar, 14 ounces catsup, 3 ounces Worcestershire sauce, the juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons salt, red and black pepper to taste, and 4 ounces butter. Baste the meat constantly while cooking.
Pass Christian, Mississippi, an ancient resort where the most brilliant society of the eighteenth century used to gather during the season, is awakened each morning by the familiar cry, “Oyster ma-an from Pass Christi-a-an!” It would take everything the oyster man had to prepare this seafood gumbo as the chef at Inn-by-the-Sea, Pass Christian, orders it:
SEAFOOD GUMBO
2 quarts okra, sliced large green peppers 1 large stalk celery 6 medium sized onions 1 bunch parsley ½ quart diced ham 2 cans #2 tomatoes 2 cans tomato paste 3 pounds cleaned shrimp 2 dozen hard crabs, cleaned and broken into bits 100 oysters and juice ½ cup bacon drippings 1 cup flour small bundle of bay leaf and thyme salt and pepper to taste 1 teaspoon Lea & Perrins Sauce 1 gallon chicken or ham stock Put ham in pot and smother until done. Then add sliced okra, and also celery, peppers, onions, and parsley all ground together. Cover and cook until well done. Then add tomatoes and tomato paste. Next put in the shrimp, crabs, crab meat and oysters. Make brown roux of bacon dripping and flour and add to the above. Add the soup stock, and throw into pot bay leaves and thyme, salt and pepper, and Lea & Perrins Sauce. This makes three gallons of gumbo. Add one tablespoon of steamed rice to each serving.
The chef at Inn-by-the-Sea fries his chickens deliciously too. He uses pound or pound-and-a-half size fowls. Dressed and drawn, they are cut into halves and dipped into batter made of one egg slightly beaten to which one cup of sweet milk has been added, as well as salt and pepper. The halves of chicken are dipped and thoroughly wetted in the batter and then dredged well in dry, plain flour. The chef fries the chicken in deep hot fat until they are well done and a golden brown. He says be careful not to fry too fast.
Two other seafood recipes from the Mississippi Coast come out of Biloxi, that cosmopolitan city that began back in 1669, and where even today the European custom of blessing the fleet at the opening of the shrimp season is ceremoniously observed. “Fish court bouillon” is a magical name on the Coast, it is spoken in soft voice by the diner, the waiter, and the chef alike; its recipe should be accorded the highest respect; it should be made up to the letter, and without delay:
FISH COURT BOUILLON
5 or 6 onions 1 bunch parsley 2 or 4 pieces celery 4 pieces garlic 6 small cans tomatoes 1 or 2 bay leaves hot peppers to taste Cut up fine, fry brown, and let simmer for about an hour, slowly. Prepare the fish, and put into the gravy. Do not stir. Cook until fish is done. This will serve 8 to 10 people; for 10 or more double the ingredients. To prepare fish, fry without cornmeal, and put in a plate or pan. Pour a portion of the gravy over it, and let it set for a while. Just before serving, pour the rest of the hot gravy over the fish.
Another valuable Coast recipe which comes from Biloxi is that for Okra Gumbo.
OKRA GUMBO
2 or 3 onions ½ bunch parsley 5 or 6 pieces celery 1 small piece garlic 4 cans of okra, or a dozen fresh pieces 1 can tomatoes 1 pound veal stew, or 1 slice raw ham Cut all ingredients in small pieces and fry brown. Let simmer for a while. If shrimp are desired, pick and par-boil them and add to the ingredients the shrimp and the water in which they were boiled. If oysters or crab meat is desired, add to gumbo about twenty minutes before done. Add as much water as desired.
Aberdeen, Mississippi, is a good Southern town to find recipes. Old plantations along the Tombigbee River centered their social life in Aberdeen as far back as the 1840’s, and some of the recipes that were used in those days are still being made up in this part of the country.
Mrs. C. L. Lubb, of Aberdeen, uses this recipe for beaten biscuit:
BEATEN BISCUIT
4 cups flour, measured before sifting 3/4 cup lard 1 teaspoon salt 4 teaspoons sugar enough ice water and milk to make a stiff dough (about Y2 cup). Break 150 times until the dough pops. Roll out and cut, and prick with a fork. Bake in a 400-degree oven. When biscuits are a light brown, turn off the heat and leave them in the oven with the door open until they sink well, to make them done in the middle.
Mrs. Bicknell T. Eubanks, also of Aberdeen, prepares Spanish rice this way.
SPANISH RICE
4 tablespoons oil 1 cup rice 1 onion, sliced 1 green pepper, chopped 1 quart canned tomatoes 2 teaspoons salt, a little less than ½ teaspoon pepper Heat 2 tablespoons oil in large frying pan and add rice. Cook until brown, stirring constantly. Cook remaining 2 tablespoons oil with onion and green pepper until the onion is yellow and tender. Combine with rice. Add tomatoes and let it simmer until the rice is tender, stirring constantly. Add a little hot tomato juice if the rice seems dry. Add seasonings. Serves 6.
Vicksburg, in the old steamboat days Mississippi’s wicked, wide-open town, lived high with all the trimmings. Perched on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, it is famous still for its excellent catfish. The disarmingly simple recipe for preparing it is here given: Take a catfish weighing 12 pound. Season well with salt and pepper, and roll in cornmeal. Use a pot of deep fat with temperature of 360 degrees. Place the fish in the pot and fry until done. Serve very hot.
To go along with the fish, the Hotel Vicksburg serves a wickedly hot potato salad, prepared as follows:
1 quart sliced potatoes (cooked) 6 pieces chopped crisp bacon 3 chopped hard boiled eggs 1 minced large green pepper 2 minced pimentos 4 tablespoons mayonnaise 2 tablespoons prepared mustard salt and pepper to taste Mix and serve with quartered tomatoes, sliced dill pickles, mixed sweet pickles, and quartered onions.
A collection of recipes from the Old South is no more complete than the Old South itself without that magic ingredient, the mint julep. In the fine old city of Columbus, in the northeastern part of the state, hospitality for many years is said to have reached its height in “Whitehall,” the home of Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Billups. “The drink is refreshing,” says Mrs. Billups, needlessly enough, “and carries with it all the charm of the Old South when life was less strenuous than it is today; when brave men and beautiful women loved and laughed and danced the hours away, but in their serious moments, which were many, aspired to develop minds and souls that made them among the finest people this old world has known.” The “Whitehall” recipe is as follows:
MINT JULEP
Have silver goblet thoroughly chilled. Take half lump sugar and dissolve in tablespoon water. Take single leaf mint and bruise it between fingers, dropping it into dissolved sugar. Strain after stirring. Fill the goblet with crushed ice, to capacity. Pour in all the bourbon whiskey the goblet will hold. Put a sprig of mint in the top of the goblet, for bouquet. Let goblet stand until FROSTED. Serve rapidly.
