A Southern Gallimaufry
Fillet boneless chicken breasts, pound thinly, and spread with softened butter seasoned with white pepper and finely-minced garlic. Top with diced peppers and grated white cheese. Roll and secure with toothpicks. Beat 1 whole egg with 2 cups water, brush chicken rolls, and coat with seasoned bread crumbs. Freeze for about an hour. Roast in a medium (350) oven until lightly browned. Remove picks, slice and serve with a mustard chutney.
This is a wonderful buffet item, particularly for an after-event gathering. You could serve this with a buttery pasta, but I think a rice blend works better.
Drain and trim one pound chicken livers. Sauté in butter with a sprinkling of black pepper until just done through; you want them pink, not overcooked. Set aside. In another pan, sauté a finely-minced clove of garlic and two large diced shallots in a quarter stick or so of butter until shallots are cooked. Add a cup of thickly-sliced mushrooms, sift in two tablespoons of flour, and mix well.
Stir in enough stock to make a generous sauce, add a slosh or so of good red wine, season with thyme and rosemary, then reduce until thick and smooth. Add drained livers, coat well, salt to taste, and finish with another jolt of wine and a bit of butter.
A breathtakingly fundamental recipe resulting in a light, evenly-textured, slightly sour, fragrant loaf.
Lightly mix three cups of self-rising flour with a 12-ounce can of beer. I used Miller Lite (I think). Pour half the beer in a bowl, then alternate flour and beer. Add a teaspoon each salt and sugar. Blend until just mixed, a little lumpy and bubbly.
Pour into a well-greased loaf pan lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 in a preheated oven for about an hour, until it thumps hollow. Brush with melted butter while warm.
In the middle of the last century,, trendy America embraced fondue . The early recipes were startlingly elaborate—as were the fondue sets themselves—and included prescribed serving rituals as well as a warning that drinking cold beverages while eating causes constipation. (It doesn’t.)
Fashionable authors recommended using long two-tined forks to skewer the bread cubes, which is why colorful glazed fondue pots with matching spears were standard gifts at weddings. Many of you likely remember your mother’s fondue set in harvest gold and avocado green., with a little wire rack beneath for canned heat.
Fondues became quite popular because the ingredients were inexpensive and familiar; the equipment, however novel, was within reach, and while most of us consider a fondue about the gayest thing you can serve at a party, it ‘s actually quite good, and makes for a novel holiday dish (particularly New Year’s).
The following basic recipe is from Betty Crocker’s Dinner Parties: A Contemporary Guide to Easy Entertaining, [Golden Books: New York] 1970, 1974 (p. 55). Let me recommend you lightly toast the bread cubes.
Cut a French loaf into 1-inch cubes, and a pound of Swiss cheese into 1/4-inch cubes (about 4 cups). Sprinkle about two tablespoons AP flour over cheese and toss until is coated. Rub cut clove of garlic on bottom and side of quart ceramic fondue pot, heavy saucepan or chafing dish. Add 1 cup dry white wine (Rhine, Reisling, Chablis, Neuchatel); heat over medium until bubbles rise to surface (do not allow to boil). Gradually stir in cheese, adding only 1/2 cup at a time and stirring after each addition until cheese is melted and blended. (Do not allow mixture to become too hot.) Stir in 2 tablespoons kirsch or sherry liqueur and seasoning.
If fondue has been prepared on range, transfer fondue pot to source of heat at table and adjust heat to keep fondue just bubbling. Guests spear cubes of bread with long-handled forks and dip into cheese mixture. Stir fondue occasionally. (If fondue becomes too thick, mix in more warm white wine.) 4 servings.
Calhoun County provides north Mississippi with a bucolic idyll between the burgeoning metro areas of Tupelo and Grenada. The Skuna and Yalobusha Rivers run east to west through Calhoun at equal distance into the Yazoo via the Tallahatchie, so geographically the county is divided into thirds. The land is typical of north central Mississippi: wooded hills creased by swampy bottoms.
Given the proximity to Oxford, the county provides a model (if not original) of Yoknapatawpha, but the county seat, Pittsboro, arguably the smallest county seat in the state, is a sleepy village, much the opposite of Faulkner’s bustling Jefferson. Pittsboro sits atop a ridge of hills that marks the southern edge of the Skuna River valley. To the south, the land slopes in a more leisurely manner to the Yalobusha just south of Vardaman, Derma, and Calhoun City.
Jo Brans is a member of the Reid family, who have lived in Pittsboro for time out of mind. Brans’ writings have explored many subjects, most in a much more scholarly vein, but Feast Here Awhile is a thoughtful examination of the changes in American cuisine from the 50s to the 90s. Feast Here Awhile (the title, by the way, is taken from Shakespeare’s Pericles, I,iv,107) is the story of her own culinary coming of age that takes her from the gentle hills of north Mississippi to Belhaven College in Jackson (which was strictly for young ladies until the year after she graduated, in 1955), to various locations in Texas, Minnesota and, finally, New York City as well as through two marriages, one to an American journalist, the other to a Dutch academic.
Brans moves from her mother’s kitchen through college cafeterias, Texas eateries and European fare on to DeNiro’s TriBeCa Grill. She also moves through (predictably, since the book has a pronounced literary bent) Child, Beard, and Rosso, managing to mention Proust, Welty, and Kerouac on the way. Indeed, Brans is somewhat of a compulsive name-dropper, both of the famous and the near-famous, but I was infinitely proud of her for managing to squeeze in Ernie Mickler and his wonderful White Trash Cooking.
In short, Feast Here Awhile is a personal encapsulation of the American culinary experience in the second half of the twentieth century, and a compelling read from any standpoint. It helps, of course, to be up on the literature, culinary and otherwise, but Brans is an excellent writer and rarely boring. I would recommend this book for any Southerner interested in food and cooking, more specifically Mississippians of that bent and particularly the good people of Calhoun County itself.
In preparation for this article on her, I attempted to get in touch with Brans for an interview, but countless attempts to discover her publisher or literary agent failed. Finally my friend Michelle Hudson, who heads up the reference department at the Welty Library asked, “Have you tried the phone book?”
Well, no. Sure enough, in minutes Michelle gave me a number to call. When I did, early on a Saturday evening, a polite young man answered the phone and said he’d pass my message on to Jo. Within an hour Ms. Brans called. After making sure I was from Calhoun County (that didn’t take long at all) we chatted. She said she’d think about my request and let me know. Some three days later, she replied:
Dear Jesse,
After serious reflection, I have decided that the project you propose is not for me. I enjoyed writing Feast Here Awhile. I am pleased to find that it has found favor with readers, including, especially, you. Many folks, over the years since its publication, have looked me up (“on purpose,” as we Southerners say) to offer thanks and to relate their own pleasures at the table. I would have had material for several sequels.
But no, I thought, and think, not. Essentially I have said in Feast what I have to say about the changes in American eating over the last five or six decades. It’s all there, from the joys of good home cooking and the family dinner table to the more complicated pleasures of Julia Child and those whom she terrified, taught, and liberated–usually all three–and beyond.
Feast Here Awhile is also a personal odyssey, if that’s not too highfaluting a term for just growing up. I ate my way from childhood in a small Southern town through various stops along the road to life in New York City, and recorded the trip, hit or miss, in “The Food Book,” which became Feast. Though food was the focus, I was always aware as I typed away that I was recording the arc of my own life. No news for either of us there: that’s what writers do.
Jesse, I’m flattered that you want to work with me, but don’t be content to retread. I really like your piece about Sambo Mockbee and I suspect, from our brief communication, that you want to be a writer, not an editor. If I’m right, cut loose. My way in was food. Maybe yours is food, too, but your food, not mine. Find your own way in. Tell your story. And send me a copy when the book comes out.
Good luck and God bless,
Jo Brans
Thanks, Jo. I will.
This wonderful old recipe is from Howard Mitcham’s classic, Creole Gumbo, and All That Jazz. Cover the bottom of a 10-in. gratin with finely-crumbed saltines mixed with pepper, paprika, chopped shallots, and parsley. Add a layer of oysters that have been rolled in the crumb mixture, then top with another layer of crumbs and grated Parmesan. Drizzle with only enough melted butter to moisten, then slowly pour heavy cream into the edge of the dish until oysters are just covered. Place in a very hot (400 or so) oven until bubbling and browned. These are even good cold.
For two crepes, sauté 1 cup crawfish meat in butter with 1 tablespoon each finely-chopped shallots and scallions; season with salt, a dash of granulated garlic, and a bare sprinkle of cayenne. Add about a quarter cup of béchamel, a splash of dry white wine, and reduce until mixture is bound. Fill crepes and top with béchamel. Filling can be frozen.
My father often cooked a big breakfast on Sunday mornings, and he always made salmon patties. He said his mother made them with jack mackerel, adding that we should be grateful he went to law school so we could afford salmon. I’ll not lie to you; these taste best when fried in bacon grease. If that makes you clutch your chest, use Crisco. Olive oil just isn’t right, and butter won’t take the heat. Most people I know make salmon patties with flour, but cornmeal gives a crispier crust and a better inside texture (flour tends to make it gummy).
One 16 oz. can of salmon makes 4-6 cakes. Drain fish, reserving a quarter cup of the liquid. If you’re a sissy, remove skin and bones. Mix well with one beaten egg, a little chopped onion, the can liquid, and enough corn meal to make a thick batter. Be careful with salt; I like plenty of black pepper. Brown in at least a quarter inch hot oil on both sides and crisp in a very warm oven.
Most recipes for this old buffet dish involve pepperoncini, though there’s no reason not to use pickled cherry peppers, banana peppers or another pickled vegetable such as okra or green tomatoes, but not cucumbers. I mean, think about it.
Marinate a lean cut of beef in the pickling solution or vinegar and water (2:1) overnight or longer if you like, place meat in a covered baking dish with the pickled vegetables, plenty of garlic, freshly-ground black pepper and enough water to cover half the meat; you shouldn’t have to add any salt to this at all. Cook in a slow oven (300) until the beef is quite tender, chop or shred, add reduced liquid and serve warm or cold with hard rolls, a mild horseradish sauce and/or a good mustard of your choice. It should go without saying that this is one of those dishes that’s better the next day, but I’ll mention it.
Many Southerners remember this dish from their childhoods; it’s true comfort food. Peel and cut red potatoes into more or less bite-size pieces, and boil until just done. You want a bit of firmness. Reduce heat, add a smooth flour and water mixture (1:2), bacon drippings, butter, or both, and stew until thickened. Season with salt and black pepper.
