Category: Food and Cooking

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Stoner Dan’s Summer Sausage

This recipe comes from my friend Danny Vimes, a 1989 graduate of the Mississippi School of Math and Science. Vimes entered Rensselaer Polytechic Institute in Troy, New York on a full academic scholarship, but was asked to leave in his first semester after an on-campus incident involving a crossbow and an inflatable doll. Currently residing in a 35′ Airstream, in Pelahatchie, Dan raises guinea pigs for reptile breeders and grows hemp for religious ceremonies. You can contribute to Dan’s legal fund via this site.

People don’t make their own sausage for many reasons. Top of the list is because they don’t have the equipment or patience. But summer sausage requires no special equipment and little patience.

Prior to hitting the kitchen, sodium nitrate, summer sausage seasoning, and casings need to be acquired. These items are not hard to find over the net, and can usually be found locally. You’ll spend about $8 for enough products to make 100 pounds of summer sausage. Sodium nitrate is controversial in online fora where everything is controversial, but it’s as likely to make you sick as the 4 cigars smoked over a lifetime of weddings/birth announcements are to give you lung cancer. If sodium nitrate is not used—in addition to a botulism concern—the finished product will look like over-cooked hamburger, slightly grey, with tones of brown.

The sausage should be pink, and a sodium nitrate cure imparts this hue. Many online recipes eschew casings and nitrate, that’s fine, just call it dried meatloaf instead of sausage and don’t post pictures. I admit the seasoning is a compromise to someone who likes to source and mix, but if traditional summer sausage is desired, you’ll spin a lot of wheels and money to put together the seasoning. Just buy it.

This method uses a 1:1 ratio of beef (or venison) to pork butt. Check with the processor about this ratio; most will use 2:3 pork to beef if not instructed otherwise. This will work, but may want to increase the beef later if this is the case. If using venison, mix 4 lbs. of the venison/pork with 2 lbs. of 73% ground beef. Dissolve slightly less than a teaspoon of sodium nitrate and a tablespoon of salt (I use kosher salt that has been smoked) in a few tablespoons of water. Mix well with the meat, and pack tightly in a gallon zip top bag. I never would have thought to dissolve the cure in water, but it is the only way to distribute it thoroughly into the meat.

The mixture needs to sit up (cure) in the fridge for at least 3 days. I have been told by everyone I know that cures meat not to second guess the amount of cure—one grain too much and the batch is ruined—and this I believe. I’m also told by seasoned veterans that 5 days is optimal on the wait; but that wears on the patience (maybe this should be discussed during the safety meeting). At the end of the cure, put the meat in a cold bowl, and mix in the summer sausage seasoning. How much will depend on the way the seasoning is bought. I kept it simple as it was so cheap, and bought enough to do 100 lbs. so the math was easy.

The casings are synthetic, so do not soak or salt them as you would with natural casings. Prick the casings with a needle; pricking allows moisture to escape as well as a little of that fat you don’t want causing a ring around the sausage. This method makes 3 sausages, in 3″ diameter casings; not much is lost so I guess they are close to 2 pounds apiece. Just ball the meat up and drop it in the casing. Scour the pantry and find a hot sauce, vinegar, or other similarly shaped bottle, that perfectly slides into the casing, and use it as a plunger to eradicate any gaps in the meat stuffing.

It’s self-explanatory once the process is begun how to not let this happen, but if you had a proper safety meeting prior to beginning this process, it will be understood that it can’t be put into print without eliciting distracting juvenile laughter, so let’s move on to cooking.

I add a little smoked salt to mine, and a lot of others use liquid smoke, but I can’t recommend smoking this sausage in the traditional sense–too many competing flavors. Place the links on a cooling rack, over a baking sheet at 200F for about 4 hours. I turn the sausage (to prevent flat spots, and at the half way point, mop off any liquid that sweats out. Set the timer on the oven, and let it cool before taking out the sausage. Refrigerate for a few days before slicing.

Love,

Dan

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Delta Red

When November comes, hunters up and down the Mississippi flyway flock to the wild with guns and dogs. In the Mississippi Delta, arguably the heart of the flyway, men of a certain feather abandon their usual nests of domesticity for camp, in Irwin Hester’s case his duck camp on Concordia Island in Bolivar County.

“It’s not really an island,” Irwin said. “If anything, it’s a peninsula, since the river makes a tight loop around it.” He looked out the window at the sunset spread out over Arkansas. “You’d think they’d have a special name for a riparian peninsula, but they don’t.”

Irwin retired from what he calls “the oil business” almost a decade ago. He received his degree in geology from Mississippi State in the early 70s and began working with Gulf Oil, stayed with them through the merger, and remained, working his way up the ladder, eventually landing in Pittsburgh at U-PARK.

An only child, Irwin never married (“Just too damned busy,” he explained). When he retired in 2012, he came back home to Mississippi, made a home, renewed old friendships, and moved his folks’ old home to the end of a dirt road on Concordia Island. Twice a year, the beginning of duck season and the end, November and January, he holds camp.

“I make real, Texas-style chili,” Irwin said. “It’s the best, and once you’ve had it, you’ll never call anything else chili. I learned to make it when I lived in Austin. I knew a guy who cooked it at his hunt camp up on the Pedernales River. He said he got his recipe from Lady Bird Johnson herself.”

Irwin’s chili has no beans, no tomatoes, and no onions. He uses a lean cut of beef, usually a top round, cut into large chunks, coats these in a mixture of smoked paprika, crushed leaf oregano, cayenne, and ground cumin, and browns them in a cast iron Dutch oven. For each pound of beef, he soaks, peels and seeds four anchos.

He uses the water from the peppers in the beef, adding more to cover about an inch, and places the heavily-lidded pot in the oven at a low temperature (“Just enough to make it simmer”) in the morning, and by the time the sun gets an angle, the chili must be stirred (“Once is enough”) and returned to the oven for another hour. When men return from the field, the fire is blazing, bottles opened, and a guitar is passed around. He keeps Crystal on the table.

“It’s as good a bowl of red as you’re going to get on this side of the Mississippi,” Irwin says.

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Johnsie Vaught’s Brunswick Stew

When you’re the wife of a football coach, you often have to feed a crowd that includes a lot of big guys, and if you’re the wife of Johnny Vaught, you want a Southern recipe that everybody loves. Such is the case with Brunswick stew, a favorite dish for gatherings in the South since Daniel Boone barged through the Cumberland Gap.

Johnsie’s recipe lacks the game meats many consider requisite for a Brunswick, and the inclusion of pasta and rice would likely by that same crowd constitute nothing short of heresy. But her 10 yard stew is typical of those often sold for a dollar a bowl for fund-raising at small-town events—such as football games—in the rural South of her day to provide new uniforms or equipment either for the school’s sports teams or marching band.

By my reckoning, this hefty, carb-heavy recipe could easily feed either 25 people or the Rebel defensive line at one sitting.

1 large hen
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 lb. lean ground pork
½ lb. butter
1 large bottle catsup
2 cans tomatoes
2 cans peas (green)
2 cans corn (cream style)
1 package spaghetti
1 cup rice
½ bottle tabasco
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook hen until tender, remove from broth, skin and bone, chop the meat. Return chicken to broth, add beef and pork. Cook for about 30 mins. Add butter, catsup, tomatoes, and simmer 1 hr. Then add spaghetti and rice. Cook 1 hr. Add peas and corn, being careful it doesn’t stick. (Note: cans are 15 oz., 16 oz. pkg. spaghetti)

 

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Where to Eat in Jackson

Some time ago I contacted a fellow living in Los Angeles named John Howe for help with an article I was writing. We corresponded for a while, then he said he was going to be driving through Jackson to visit relatives in Tallahassee. We agreed to meet at the grocery store near my home and to decide on a place for lunch.

When I got to the store, John was striding up and down the lunch buffet asking questions about the food. The people in line were smiling at this tall skinny white man with brilliant red hair. I could tell that his excitement over the food they eat every day tickled them, and they happily explained to him what was on the steam table.

“Now, over here is the peas and snaps,” one lady pointed out. “You gotta let them stew a long time for them to be good. And them smothered chops, too, they take a long time.”

“What’s in those bread sticks over there?” John asked. “Them’s Mexican corn sticks,” a fellow in work coveralls said. “They got peppers in ‘em but not hot peppers. They good with pintos.”

“Are those turnip greens?” John asked. Somebody barked and said, “No, them’s collards.”

John was stupefied by the pile of fried chicken. “Do you sell all that?” he asked the lady behind the counter. “Oh, this is our second batch,” she said. “We make one in the morning for the folks who come in for breakfast.”

“Fried chicken for breakfast!” John’s mouth was literally dropping to his chest. “Yessir,” she said. “And we got another batch frying now ‘cause we always have a bunch of people coming in the afternoon to pick some up to take home.”

After his turn to be served, John joined me at a booth under the window overlooking Fortification Street. He had two Styrofoam containers full. One contained Fried chicken—a breast and a leg—with peas and snaps, lima beans, and a cornbread muffin. The other plate had smothered chops with rice and gravy, green beans with sliced potatoes, and Mexican corn sticks. He also paid extra for a side of stewed cabbage and a container of peach cobbler. When he sat down, he opened the containers and sat looking at them and smiling.

“I wanted to get three plates,” he said, “But I thought better of it. I want to get to Atlanta before dark, and I didn’t want to have to stop and eat.” Tell me about their breakfasts. Grits and fried chicken? I never thought of it.”

“Two kinds of grits,” I said, “white and cheese, and they serve two kinds of bacon, curly and flat, link, two sausages, patty, and smoked, scrambled eggs, jo-jo potatoes, and pan after pan after pan of buttermilk biscuits. With gravy, if you want it.”

John was smiling and shaking his head. “You know, Jesse, when I stopped in Abiine I pulled up information on the restaurants here, you know, those, ‘top listed’ and ‘most recommended.’ I even went to the local tourism and social media sites looking for a place that told me I was in Jackson, Mississippi. I really didn’t see any. I found some white tablecloth places serving the same things you find in L.A. or Atlanta or anywhere else.” He looked at the people standing in line. “But this place, this food, is Jackson, Mississippi.”

When John returned to L.A. (he flew back), he wrote and thanked me again for “taking him to lunch.” I pointed out that I had merely met him at a grocery store, and that he had paid for the food. “But you brought me to a place I never knew existed. I learned. That’s what going somewhere is all about. Otherwise you’re just dragging the same stuff around all over the place.”

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Winter Squash

My father was a lawyer in north Mississippi. On a day in late October,  he’d usher my sister, brother, and me into the car and drive out west from Bruce to the Ellard community where an old man and his wife lived on a small farm.

Across the road from their house, the slope of a hill was covered with yellowing vines bearing winter squashes. We’d go out there and gather all we could while Daddy sat on the porch with them, probably had some buttermilk and cornbread and a glass of tea and talked.

Once after we left, I asked him why he didn’t pay the man.

“Son, they wouldn’t take my money,” he said. “I tried to keep their out of prison. But I couldn’t, and they knew why. I never asked them for a penny. He said to come get what I want from his patch. You don’t turn down gifts from a man who doesn’t have much to give.”

The squash were acorns and yellow Hubbards; some were peeled, cubed, and parboiled for a casserole or pie. Others were split, seeded, usually scored, brushed with melted butter, sprinkled with brown sugar, and baked in a hot oven until soft and slightly singed.

Once on the table, we’d scoop out the flesh with a spoon, put it on our plates and mash it with a fork with more butter and black pepper.

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Guy Fawkes Night Pudding

Since the 2006 release of the film V for Vendetta, Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of he best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London on 5 November 1605, has been redeemed, and instead of being burned in effigy as a symbol of disorder and insurrection, Fawkes has become a rallying persona for protest groups of many stripes.

Guy Fawkes Night is still celebrated on Nov 5 in Britain and the Commonwealth ostensibly to celebrate the king’s escape from assassination by lighting bonfires, setting off fireworks, and putting out a table, but nowadays instead of Fawkes, effigies of whoever happens to be the current target of public derision are set ablaze.  Dishes similar to this are made throughout the West Indies as well as Bermuda, where it’s traditionally served on Guy Fawkes Night by evil heathen royalists as well as those noble democratic souls who like good food. The texture is fudge-like, very dense and intensely flavorful. The toasted coconut flakes seen here as a topping can be added to the pudding mix, but do not use raw grated coconut or it will get gummy.

Mix 1 1/2 pounds cooked pureed sweet potato with 2 cups cream of coconut, 1 stick melted butter, juice of 1 lime and 1 cup brown sugar until smooth. Blend in by spoonfuls 1 cup flour; add 1 cup raisins (optional), a tablespoon each of vanilla and lime juice, and a teaspoon each ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. A generous slosh of dark rum is a nice touch. Pour batter into a well-oiled 8-inch cake pan and bake at 350 for about an hour until firm then cool. Best served chilled; this recipe easily provides a dozen servings.

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Election Day Cake

Americans have always celebrated our elections, and it seems logical that our traditional election day cakes are based on the old British yeast-raised holiday fruitcakes. Since the recipe evolved in the dour kitchens of New England, the lavish libations of brandy the Brits employed were foregone, but don’t let that stop you from dribbling a soupçon of good bourbon over this cake before frosting.

In a large bowl, mix two packets of yeast into a cup and a half of warm water. Stir in a tablespoon of sugar and a cup and a half of plain flour, mix until smooth, cover and let work until bubbly, about half an hour. In another bowl cream one and a half sticks soft butter with a cup of sugar. Use a whip to fluff the mix well, then sift in about two and a half cups flour with a teaspoon of cinnamon and a half teaspoon each of ground clove, ginger, and nutmeg. A few drops of almond extract is a nice touch. Add two beaten eggs to the bubbly yeast mixture, then gradually combine with the seasoned flour blend. Mix until smooth, and stir in a half cup of raisins, a half cup chopped dates, and a half cup chopped pecans. Pour into a tube pan that’s been well coated with cake oil (a paste of one part shortening, one part vegetable oil, and one part plain flour). Cover and let rise in a warm place for about two hours, bake at 375 for one hour, and cool before drizzling with a confectioner’s sugar glaze.

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Hot and Sour Cabbage

Fry bacon until crisp, drain, and crumble. Add vegetable oil to pan drippings and stir in chopped cabbage with bacon. Toss/stir vigorously until cabbage is coated and just tender. Add pepper vinegar, black pepper, and salt to taste. Finely sliced sweet onions–cooked or raw–are a welcome option.

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Angels on Horseback

Dale Harper knows food, knows people, and will tell you in a heartbeat what will fly and what won’t. So when–in one of my frequent fits of ignorance–I told him a dish with oysters and bacon would go over like a lead zeppelin, he laughed, patted me on my head as if I were a schoolboy, and poured me another beer.

“Jesse,” he said, shaking a red beard longer than my forearm. “Your problem is you do not think! What you have are two ingredients that are simply made for one another! Consider the oyster, a creature of the seas, and while delicious on its own, is lacking in that one essential ingredient that is dear to the palates of us Homo sapiens.”

“Dale, you’re including me in the genus “sapiens” when you just said I can’t think.”

“Be hush,” he said, swinging his beard around like a cricket bat. “You think, but you don’t think enough. You have to consider things in many lights and from many angles, in this case an examination of contrasts. The oyster lacks fat!” With that he plunged his forefinger onto the bar and then pointed it at me in a thoroughly superfluous gesture of accentuation.

Pat oysters dry and bring the bacon to room temperature before skewering. Season very lightly with black pepper. Broil or grill until bacon begins to crisp.

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The Floridian Pepper Caper

Bars—for those of us who frequent them—provide insights of the most profound sort into the human condition. This I firmly believe is because bars combine by their very nature the easy-going, ruminative atmosphere of an agora with the somewhat less philosophical and contemplative aspects of a boisterous opium den, making them the perfect stages for a meeting of minds between people who have hitherto never set eyes on one another.

So it was that in a bar in St. Augustine, Florida, the waitress, after serving my fourth beer along with a pound of boiled shrimp asked, “Would you like to try our datil pepper sauce with these?” Intrigued as a Southerner, more specifically as a Mississippian and a pepper-head to boot, I replied in the affirmative and was served a fluted ramekin containing a creamy sauce flecked with black pepper. “It’s got a bite!” she warned.

And indeed it did, but not at all what I—a seasoned if not to say jaded veteran of salsa skirmishes—would consider fierce or fiery, but I had to ask, “What the hell is a datil pepper?” Of course, bless her heart, she was a newcomer from Missouri, so she marched off to the kitchen and came back with the chef, who was a proud native of St. John County, and a descendant of those St. Augustineans who came from Minorca as indentured workers in the late 1700s.

“The datil pepper,” he explained after hoisting himself–nimbly, I must add–on a stool beside me and ordering an O’Doul’s, “is a very hot pepper, a type of Capsicum—you say you know peppers, so you’ll recognize Capsicum (I nodded)—chinense–this he emphasized by holding up an index finger–that came to Spain, then to Minorca, from Cuba. My people brought them with us. What we have done here with our sauce is to combine the fiery datil—which is similar in taste and appearance to the habanero—with mayonnaise, which as everyone knows was invented in Minorca in ancient times and is named for the capitol city, Maó-Mahón. Do you like it?”

Of course I told him I liked it, though to be quite honest putting a spicy mayonnaise on shrimp ran somewhat contrary to my tastes, which tend to a pungent, horseradish-and-lemon juice infused tomato condiment. When I asked where I could get seeds, he stated emphatically that he could get some seeds for me at the end of the season, or I could contact the St. John County extension office. I gave him my address with many thanks.

So I finished my shrimp, ordered another beer and was sitting there in what some might term the glow of culinary discovery when this seedy-looking little skinny guy in a Dolphins jersey sidles over and says, “You’re not believing that crap are you?”

“Why not?” I said, my reverie reduced to embers.

“Oh, hell, that pepper’s just something one of them crackers found growing in a pile of horseshit behind the city hall, and they decided to make a big hoo-hoo about it,” he said. “They just tell you tourists that bull turkey so you’ll buy a bottle and take it home and brag about it.”

After all that, I had to ask him where he was from. “Key West,” he said smiling. “Where we grow those yellow limes.” I just grinned and bought him a beer.