For the starter, combine a package of dry yeast with a cup of sugar and 2 cups of sliced peaches, and 2 cups water in a glass gallon jar. Cover loosely, set aside, and stir with a wooden spoon for ten days.
On the tenth day, add 2 12-oz. cans of chunk pineapple with liquid. Stir daily for 10 more days. On the 20th day, add 1 12-oz. can fruit cocktail with liquid. Let this work for 10 more days, stirring daily. On the 30th day, drain juice off, and set fruit aside. The liquid is your pass-along starter; give a pint to 6 friends along with the following recipe. You’ll have enough drained fruit for 2 Bundt or 9×13 pan cakes.
For a cake, add 1 pint of the starter to 1 cup nuts, chopped, 1 (18 ounce) yellow cake mix, 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding, 4 eggs, and 2/3 cup oil. Mix well. Stir in 2 teaspoons cinnamon, chopped apples, raisins/cherries, and nuts. Bake in a greased and floured tube pan at 350 for about an hour.
Remove from the oven, cool, and heave a great sigh of relief.
“Yancy, this is very simple. If you grind dry roasted peanuts with grease and salt, you get peanut butter; if you puree boiled peanuts with oil, you get redneck hummus. Imagine me, a shit-kicker from Opelousas, having to teach Mississippi’s go-to bubba on white trash food the difference.”
“Billy Dale, I have never as long as I’ve drawn breath ever claimed to be an authority on anything, I’m just trying to find out as much as I can by cautious questioning.”
“You’re a pompous asshole, too,” Dale said. “My wife said you remind her of an alcoholic Sunday school teacher she had in Iuka. Used to make them draw pictures of him holding up a Bible.”
“B.D., let me off the hook, okay?”
“Fine,” Dale said. “Go turn the chicken and get me another beer.”
In 1985, Craig Claiborne visited Bill Neal’s restaurant, Crook’s Corner, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and after sampling many dishes, asked Neal to prepare shrimp and grits for him in his kitchen the next morning.
Claiborne soon published the recipe in the New York Times, and the national craze for shrimp and grits was on. While the recipe has been replicated—usually with disappointing results—in restaurants across the country, this is Neale’s original:
6 cups cooked grits with cheese (I use a white cheddar) Tabasco sauce Freshly grated nutmeg White pepper 1 pound (454 g) fresh shrimp 6 slices bacon Peanut oil 2 cups sliced mushrooms 1 cup finely sliced scallions 1 large garlic clove, peeled 4 teaspoons lemon juice Tabasco sauce 2 tablespoons fresh, chopped parsley Salt and pepper
Season grits to taste, but lightly, with Tabasco, a very little nutmeg, and white pepper. Hold in a warm place or in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Peel the shrimp, rinse, and pat dry. Dice the bacon and sauté lightly in the skillet. The edges of the bacon should brown, but the bacon should not become crisp. Add enough peanut oil to the bacon fat in the skillet to make a layer of fat about a quarter of an inch deep. When quite hot, add the shrimp in an even layer. Turn the shrimp as they start to color, add the mushrooms, and sauté about 4 minutes. Turn occasionally and add the scallions. Add the garlic through a press and stir around. Then season with lemon juice, a dash or two of Tabasco, and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Divide the grits among four plates. Spoon the shrimp over and serve immediately.
After years of shaving and marinating meats for a stir fry with mixed results, I discovered velveting. With this tenderizing technique, you coat thinly-sliced meats with a slurry of cornstarch, white vinegar, soy, and egg white.
Not much is needed; 3 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of corn starch to one egg white, and enough vinegar/soy to make a thin paste for a pound or so of meat. Some people recommend adding baking soda. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, and I it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Treat meats for about a half-hour, rinse, and drain well before cooking.
This method also works with shrimp and lobster but in either case I consider it superfluous.
Use cheddar of any type, Edam, Gouda, Colby, “Swiss,” or Monterey Jack. Cut into cubes of less than in inch, and arrange on an ungreased baking sheet.
Here’s where I tell you not to crowd the cheese bits, but it seems no matter how meticulous I am, I usually end up having to break them apart. Place in the upper rack of a low (250) oven until it’s thin, crisp, bubbly, and greasy. Cool completely before removing with a thin spatula to drain.
You shouldn’t have to salt these, but some people like paprika or cayenne. I don’t. Eat immediately; they’re too fragile to keep.
In my (unpublished) book, weekends are occasions for egg dishes–quiches, omelets, Benedicts and their ilk–which in general are light, versatile, and easily prepared. This old fusion dish fits the bill.
For each serving, beat two large eggs, pour into a pool of hot oil and–working quickly with a fork–add ingredients, and pull the eggs apart as they cook. I like shrimp and bean sprouts, but others like ham, chicken, cabbage, and mushrooms. Scallions seem requisite, and garlic chives are a nice touch.
When eggs are firm, flip, and brown. Serve with a light beef gravy.
We’ve seen black-eyed peas made into everything short of cupcakes with sweet potato icing (don’t you dare!), and if I run up on one more gourmet recipe for fried green tomatoes, I’m going to take a skillet out and start swinging at anybody with a fork.
In the restaurant business it’s not unusual for chefs of one ilk or another to turn a hayseed staple into a Broadway entrée. Most basic recipes are open to elaboration, and every cook has a twist; a pinch here, a dash there, a pot for this, a pan for that.
If the cook’s intentions are honorable, meaning that his or her primary concern is with how a dish tastes, all the better. But if you’re putting a heap of crab ceviche over a batch of cold butter bean fritters just so you can charge six bucks more, that’s just wrong.
Much like the ubiquitous pork belly, which seems to find its way onto every upscale menu at an exorbitant price these days, chicken wings were once considered very much a poor man’s pick when it came to buying meat.
Wings then more often than not found their way into a stock pot, but sometime in the late 1970s, a wings recipe came out of Buffalo that took the nation by storm and has become a staple.
Nowadays, chicken wings cost more than any other cut of chicken in the supermarket, and more than most beef or pork; $3.10 a pound today in my local meat department.
I’ve known Ed Komara, a native of Buffalo, for a very long time, ever since he was the curator of the Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi, so I asked him to give me his low-down on chicken wings, and here it is, in 7 points (no less):
REAL Buffalo wings are not battered, but rather deep-fried as-is. After frying, the wings are then shaken in a container with butter (or margarine) and hot sauce (in the cheap places, usually Frank’s Hot Sauce).
The main effect of a true Buffalo wing is the immediate sharpness of the spicy heat, then a quick lowering of that spice.
By contrast, the Rochester, NY version is battered and deep-fried, so as to hold more of the hot sauce (in a sticky/honey sort of variant) and make the spicy burn last for a long time in one’s mouth. (This is especially true of the wings made at Country Sweet in Rochester).
In Buffalo, historically speaking, there are two main places for wings: the Anchor Bar, and Duff’s. The Anchor Bar was where wings were first served in 1964, to the owner’s son and friends as late-night munchies. The bar is located near the Allen Street, aka “Allentown” which is the bohemian arts section of the city. By 1990 when I went there, the “bar” became more like a restaurant serving some killer Italian food (including the richest pizza I’ve ever tried).
Duff’s began offering wings in 1969. It is located conveniently on Sheridan Drive (on the cusp of city and suburb) for those who don’t really want to go all the way to Allentown for the Anchor Bar.
There may be a missing link between the Anchor Bar and Duff’s. My dad remembered sometime in the 1960s that a couple of Buffalo Bills football players were partners in a chicken wing stand that brought wings to city pop-culture attention beyond the Anchor Bar. But I haven’t seen that documented anywhere.
I don’t know where the heck the idea of including celery and blue cheese dressing with wings came from or why. It’s as gratuitous as applesauce with potato pancakes.
“Wing stands are pretty common in Buffalo,” Ed says. “Much less often seen are places serving beef on weck, the other distinctive Buffalo bar food. The ‘weck is short for kummelweck (or as the locals pronounce it, “kimelwick”), which is a salty bun. The one place among my haunts that served it was Anacone’s Inn (now closed, alas), which always seemed to have run out of beef on weck every time I arrived there (usually at 1 a.m.).
Here is the original recipe. Joint the wings, (discard the tips) then pat dry (IMPORTANT!) and deep-fry them until crispy. Toss in the sauce while hot. I used Crystal. They’re superb.
8 tablespoons hot sauce (Frank’s or Crystal recommended) 8 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine 1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce salt to taste
Use sturdy bread and a sharp cutter. Lightly brown bread on both sides in a hot oiled pan, add a pat of butter in the center, and crack an egg into it. If you’re feeding several people, you can cook these on a sheet pan in a hot oven. Keep the seasonings simple: salt and black pepper. Toast the hole, top with jam, and serve as a side.
This recipe comes from April McGreger, a fellow native of Calhoun County, Mississippi, and author of Sweet Potatoes, the tenth volume in University of North Carolina’s wonderful “Savor the South” series. April is a splendid cook, but I find her technique a little fussy. I simply assemble the ingredients in a skillet, put a loose lid on it, and bake at 350 until potatoes are tender and syrup reduced.
The genius of southern food is less in its individual dishes than in the overall composition of the meal. Syrupy sweet potatoes balance earthy field peas and sharp turnip greens shot through with hot pepper vinegar. Crispy cornbread swoops in to sop it all up. Here is a particularly nuanced version of ubiquitous candied sweet potatoes that makes use of that coffee can of bacon grease my grandparents and parents kept above the stove.
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
4 medium sweet potatoes (about 2 pounds), peeled and sliced 1/2 inch thick 3 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 tablespoon bacon drippings 1 cup sugar 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt 1/3 cup water 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Layer the sweet potatoes in a large cast-iron skillet. Dot with the butter and bacon drippings, and sprinkle with the sugar and salt. Pour the water and lemon juice over the sweet potatoes and cover the skillet with a tight-fitting lid or foil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the cover and simmer until the sweet potatoes are very tender and the sauce is thick, 30-35 minutes more. Baste the sweet potatoes with the syrup from time to time, being careful not to break them up.
