A Southern Gallimaufry
Use 2 6 oz. slices of beef filet, season with a smidgen of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, dust with flour, and sauté in butter until lightly browned with two finely-diced shallots and a small clove of garlic. Set aside.
Working quickly, add a half stick butter to the pan, a hefty teaspoon of prepared mustard, and 2 cups sliced mushrooms. When cooked down, add cream, reduce, and stir in enough stock to make a smooth sauce. Spoon over beef. Serve with love.
The Warehouse in Oxford offered frog legs and the kitchen made damn sure we had them prepped, because if someone came in for frog legs, by God, they wanted frog legs, they’d drove all the way from Pontotoc, and raised Cain if we didn’t have any.
The legs came to us individually wrapped and block frozen from—of all places—Pakistan (actually, East Pakistan, aka Bangladesh). This might seem puzzling because we do have a frog season in Mississippi, but the Warehouse operated in the 1980s, a considerable about of time before all this half-harted emphasis on local sourcing.
Though the frogs were from Asia, they were undoubtedly American bullfrogs, the frog of choice for their large, meaty hind legs. If you’re going to fry them–you’re on your own any other way–soak overnight in buttermilk.
My Choctaw ancestors–and other peoples across the Americas–made bread from maize long my other forbears were run out of the British Isles for debt and insurrection.
Choctaws made what is called shuck bread (bunaha) by mixing water and cornmeal into a stiff paste, forming the paste into balls, wrapping them in cooked corn shucks and boiling them for about an hour. They stored well and were reheated by boiling before serving. European expatriates made a similar bread by mixing meal, water, salt and lard into a batter and cooking it on a flat metal surface like a pancake. These are called hoecakes or dogbread. Much later came what we know as cornbread.
(Or at least what I know it as.)
When it comes to cornbread, I labored long under the impression that I was a confirmed orthodox. Yellow corn meal? A quarter cup of sugar? Nuh-uh, no way. That’s not cornbread, that’s corncake. A recipe using yellow meal, sugar and even (horror of horrors) butter just has Yankee written all over it. A Michigan-born hostess once served me such bread, and I’m sorry to say I pointed out what a culinary abomination it was. She set me in my place by being quite gracious about my gaffe, which made her a lady, and after dinner her husband offered to punch me in the nose, which made him a gentleman. (We still exchange Christmas cards.)
I once ran up on a California recipe for cornbread using vanilla flavoring that confirmed a whole slew of suspicions I’d long harbored about the frivolity if not to say instability of the West Coast mentality. I’ve also come across recipes with dill, cheddar cheese, yogurt, skim milk, blue corn meal, creamed corn, and even (I swear to God) tofu. What passes under the name of Mexican cornbread is subject to all manner of atrocities, the most bizarre of which I’ve found includes beef jerky and cactus flowers.
As a confirmed orthodox, I thought I was sitting on the front pew with my recipe, which has only white meal, just a little flour, eggs, buttermilk, salt and baking powders. But I found out that there are those who would cry, “Backslider!” at the thought of using bleached meal or even eggs. I just had never considered making cornbread without eggs, then I found that among the recipes you see printed on most meal packages you see this is called “egg bread,” and my faith began to falter. These no-egg purists, I began to believe, were true cornbread devotees who enjoyed a more chaste form of elemental Southern sustenance. I felt horribly decadent, which was not such a new sensation for me, but a cornbread recipe certainly was a novel indicator of my moral turpitude (more official records exist).
I got over it. After all, I had learned how to make cornbread at my mother’s knee, and she was a queen among cooks: “Honi soit qui mal y pense”, you wretched peasants.
Cut enough young squash into roughly 1” cubes to make four cups (about 4-6, depending on size) , boil until just tender, drain, and set aside. Make two cups of white sauce with whole milk and butter, add about a cup of sour cream, a half cup fresh-grated/shaved Parmesan, and a lightly beaten egg.
Stir in two cups cooked young limas and a quarter cup of minced white onion. Mix with squash, add salt and white pepper to taste, and stir gently. Top with more Parmesan, and bake at 350 until lightly browned and bubbling.
Yes, dear hearts, gluttony is a mortal sin, and is–along with the other six, I hasten to assure you–rampant in Mississippi, where Class III obesity is endemic. Incredulous as it may seem, you’ll find “low-cal” versions of this recipe, as if adulterating transgressions might mitigate the inevitable consequences.
Honestly. Some people.
Blend well a cup of sour cream with 8 oz. softened cream cheese, add 2 cups grated sharp cheddar, a half cup each chopped ham and green onion, and small drained can of green chilies. Spoon into a toasted bread bowl, wrap in aluminum foil, and bake at 350 until crusty, forty minutes or so.
People had been making a criss-cross impression on balls of cookie dough with a fork long before 1925, when George Washington Carver issued an agricultural bulletin with 105 recipes using peanuts, including three for cookies. Some people might tell you the imprint helps cookies bake evenly, but more likely a fork is nine times out of ten more at hand than a cookie press.
How the criss-cross became a traditional hash tag for peanut butter cookies is material for a Beard Award. Here’s a one-bowl recipe for this favorite.
Combine 1 cup packed light brown sugar with a half cup each of softened butter and peanut butter. Mix until smooth; add a beaten egg and a teaspoon of vanilla. Mix very well. Sift in a half teaspoon each baking soda and baking powder into a cup and a half of AP flour, add to peanut butter mix, and stir thoroughly until it forms a smooth dough.
Shape into balls a little smaller than a ping-pong, roll in sugar (optional), and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten the balls with a fork that has been dipped in sugar so it won’t stick. Make a criss-cross pattern, and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
Combine 1 cup half-and-half or (better) evaporated milk in a bowl with 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. Mix well, pour over 2 gallons (8 cups) of clean fresh snow. Mix very well and serve immediately This recipe makes enough for four or five people. You can re-freeze it, but it becomes very dense. You could probably use less snow and make a milk shake or something. Food coloring might be fun.
Most Southern holiday dishes are home-grown recipes of family favorites, but unlike Grandma’s sweet potato pie or Aunt Sally’s ambrosia, the ubiquitous green bean casserole was developed in 1955 in the Camden, NJ test kitchens of the Campbell Soup Company by home-town girl Dorcas Reilly.
A 1947 graduate in home economics from Drexel University, Reilly began working at Campbell’s in 1949 as one of two full-time staff members in the company’s home economics department. Reilly became something of a prototype for today’s culinary celebrities in the sense that she was among the first to use multiple media outlets for marketing. Not only did her job with Campbell’s involve creating recipes from the company’s products, but she also sent press releases to print media, prepared food for photo shoots and cooked live on television. The difference lies in that Dorcas was not promoting herself; she was promoting Campbell’s Soups, which was a good way to make a living.
“It was really a lot of fun,” Reilly later recalled. “Each Thursday, I would travel to New York to meet with the ad agency. They would tell me what I was to prepare for the live commercial breaks during The Henry Aldrich Show in Studio 3B on NBC. I did everything from shopping for what I needed to preparing the food on the set. Campbell’s sponsored the show from 1951 until it ended in May 1953.”
Since the show was live, Reilly prepared the dishes in a makeshift studio kitchen on two heating elements near a utility sink. When time came for the commercial to air, she would bring the hot dish to a table in front of the camera.
“Most times there wasn’t time for me to get out of the shot, so I would hide under the table until the commercial was over,” Reilly said. Reilly led the team that created the green bean casserole in 1955. She says the casserole was invented as a recipe involving two things most Americans always had on hand in the 1950s: canned green beans and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup.
Like all recipes typical of the period, the casserole requires minimal number of ingredients, takes little time and can be customized to fit a wide range of tastes. An estimated 15 million households will serve Dorcas’ green bean casserole this holiday season. The Campbell’s Soup Company estimates that $20 million worth of cream of mushroom soup are sold each year for use in this recipe alone.
In 2002, Reilly, then living in Haddonfield, NJ, appeared at the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame to donate the original copy of the recipe to the museum. In 2008, Alpha Sigma Alpha, Reilly’s sorority at Drexel, honored her with the Recognition of Eminence Award, and in 2013 Drexel established an annual $1,000 scholarship in her honor and bestowed her with its inaugural Cultural Contribution Award.
Dorcas died on Oct. 15, 2018 in Haddonfield at the age of 92.
First time I asked Nan for her roll recipe, she put me off, saying she did not know where the recipe was when I knew damn well she had it on an index card in that little Colonel Rebel recipe box she kept on top of her refrigerator.
She kept that up until I got tired of it, called her up one night when I was drunk and talked her into getting her butt off the couch. As she read it to me, I could just see her wagging a finger. It took her twenty minutes, swear to God.
“Dissolve one package yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. When yeast begins to work, add 1/2 cup sugar, another 1 1/2 cup water, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil and 2 teaspoons salt. Blend until sugar is dissolved, add 3 large eggs and beat well. To this mixture, add 2 cups plain flour and blend until smooth. Gradually add enough flour (up to 4 or more cups) and mix well to make soft dough. Cover dough and refrigerate for at least eight hours. When ready to bake, form dough into balls, place in a jelly roll pan or pie plate and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, bake for 15-20 minutes until brown. The dough will keep for up to four days covered in the refrigerator.”
A lighter, simpler version of what most of us know as scalloped potatoes, this recipe is also known as a potato cake.
Most versions involve peeled potatoes, but I don’t find this necessary, justifying my lassitude by presentation. The only trick to preparation is turning the cake to brown both sides. I’m certain some people have the strength and manual dexterity to flip the cake, but I’ve yet to master this technique. Instead, I find a lid that fits, flip it, and and slide the potatoes (brightly, and with beauty) back into the pan to brown evenly.
Slice small red potatoes very thinly (having a mandolin comes in handy) and–working quickly before the potatoes discolor–arrange in layers, sprinkling with salt and pepper in a well-oiled or buttered sauté pan. I do not like to add herbs in this recipe, nor garlic. Place in a hot oven—400 or so—until bubbling and lightly browned. Flip (however best you can) to brown evenly.
Serve hot with a hard grated cheese or cold with sour cream.
