Category: Food and Cooking

Posted on

007, a Doctor, and Hummingbird Cake

The story of hummingbird cake begins on an estate in  Jamaica called “Goldeneye,” where in 1960 Ian Fleming wrote a book (For Your Eyes Only) about a British Secret Service agent that began, “The most beautiful bird in Jamaica, and some say the most beautiful bird in the world, is the streamer-tail or doctor humming-bird.”

Fleming purloined the name for his secret agent, code name 007, from American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies (1936). Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond’s guide and he later explained to the ornithologist’s wife that “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon, and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born”.

It’s way too much of a stretch to think the doctor bird became synonymous with Jamaica because of a James Bond story, but it’s entirely logical that Air Jamaica adopted the bird for its logo. In 1969, the Jamaica Tourism Board distributed press kits that included Jamaican recipes modified for American kitchens featuring “the doctor bird cake made from bananas.”

Food historians generally cite Mrs. L.H. Wiggins’ recipe published in the February, 1978 issue of Southern Living magazine (p. 206) as the first widely-distributed recipe for Hummingbird Cake. The recipe features ripe bananas and canned crushed pineapple lightly accented with cinnamon. It is made with oil, and as such is akin to carrot, zucchini, and applesauce cakes that utilize chemical leavening and eggs without the creaming of butter to create an intensely moist, rich cake. It is typically paired with cream cheese frosting.

Here is the original 1978 recipe:

Hummingbird Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups salad oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, divided
2 cups chopped bananas
Cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl; add eggs and salad oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not beat. Stir in vanilla, pineapple, 1 cup chopped pecans, and bananas; spoon batter into 3 well-greased and floured 9-inch cake pans.

Bake at 350 degrees F. For 25 to 30 minutes; remove from pans, and cool immediately. Spread frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake. Sprinkle with 1 cup chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 (16 ounce) packages powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine softened cream cheese and butter. Cream until smooth. Add powdered sugar, and vanilla, beating until fluffy. Yield: enough for a 3-layer cake.

Posted on

Pucker Up

His name was Clifford. According to my mother, he was the son of my father’s first cousin once removed, but as far as I was concerned, he was a spawn of Satan. Clifford taught me how to roll rabbit tobacco, what a wedgie is, and made me eat my first (and only) Irish plum.

It’s quite possible that the reason most people in my part of the world aren’t accustomed to cooking with persimmons is because they were tricked into eating an unripe persimmon as a child. That’s what Clifford called an Irish plum, and it sure looked like a green plum, which should have clued me in on not eating it in the first place. Anyone who bites into an unripe persimmon will never forget the experience; it’s agonizingly, mouth-puckeringly astringent; the tannins in the green fruit turn spit into chalk.

The most common persimmon you’ll find in markets is the Japanese persimmon (Diospyros kaki)—usually referred to as fuyu—which isn’t totally free of tannins, but have far less and lose them sooner. If the persimmons you buy have even the faintest tinge of green, let them to sit at room temperature in natural light for a couple of days.

For a persimmon pudding, peel, seed, and chop five ripe (fuyu) persimmons until smooth and strain. You should get about two cups of pulp; if you don’t, add another persimmon. Blend pulp with two beaten eggs and two cups sugar until smooth. Stir a teaspoon of baking soda into a cup of buttermilk. Add to persimmon mixture along with 1 ½ cups flour sifted with a tablespoon of baking powder. Stir in a quarter stick melted butter, a teaspoon vanilla, and a dash or so of cinnamon. Pour into a buttered dish and bake at 350 until firm and set, about an hour or so.

Posted on

My Tomato Soup

In the best of all possible worlds, I would stroll/waltz/sashay out to my garden, pluck a dozen luscious, slightly over-ripe plum tomatoes from my thriving vines (growing in certified organic compost, etc.), throw them together with twelve other home grown/locally sourced, heirloom herbs and vegetables to make zuppa.

Though I occasionally entertain the possibility, I don’t live in best of all possible worlds, and canned tomatoes are a workhorse in my kitchen. This recipe is quite simple, easily a basis for any number of great soups.

Finely dice a small white onion; you want about a cup of root. Put a scant tablespoon or so of oil—olive oil is fine, of course, but that puts a stamp on your variants—in a 2-quart pan, add the onion, and cook on a low heat until the onions are soft and translucent.

This, children, is called “sweating,” and you do not want the vegetable to brown much, if at all. To this, add two cups of good, flavorful chicken broth, and a good Italian herb blend. Increase heat and let simmer for about fifteen minutes or so. Add 6 ounces of tomato paste and a 14-ounce can of diced/chopped tomatoes. Stew 30 minutes or so before serving.

Posted on

Cherry Coke

Use chopped red maraschinos and crushed ice. Mix ice and cherries well so you can eat it with a spoon after you’ve finished the soda. Dribble cherry syrup over ice before pouring in Coca-Cola (the Real Thing). Serve with a straw or you’ll go to hell sure as Sunday.

Posted on

Linda’s Potato Soup

Here’s a recipe from Linda Bolton who for many years ran the Good Food Store when it was on Jackson Avenue in Oxford.

Back when I was writing a food column for The Oxford Times, I published a really basic potato soup recipe, and at happy hour the next day as I was headed for the Rose,  Linda stuck her head out of the store and yelled across the street at me: “Come here and let me tell you what all you left out of your `tater soup recipe, Yancy!” So I damn sure did, and here’s the modified recipe:

For each serving (@ a cup and a half), take a large starchy potato, wash, peel and dice, making sure to take out all discolorations. Boil in enough water to cover, adding a vegetable bouillon cube. When almost tender through, reduce heat, sauté for each of two servings one small white onion and two cloves of garlic, both finely minced, in about two tablespoons sweet butter.

To this, add liquid from the potatoes and low boil until onions have broken down. Pour this mixture back on the potatoes, simmer and stir until the soup has a creamy, chunky consistency. Season with crushed dill seed, just a little bit of dried rosemary, and black pepper before salting to taste.

You can add a little heavy cream and another tablespoon of butter to make a more substantial soup, in which case you might also want to add a little grated hard cheese. Good hot or cold.

Posted on

Iced Coffee

While taking History of the British Empire under Dean Abadie at Ole Miss, I read Freedom at Midnight, a breezy, somewhat gossipy account of Indian independence.

The book includes a scene in Buckingham Palace in early 1947. Those present included Labor PM Clemet Attlee, Lord Louis Mountbatten, then Viceroy of India, and his cousin, King George VI, then Emperor of India. They were discussing the impending end of the British rule in India.

The King commented that he would have to drop the “I” from his signature—he would now be George R (“Rex”) rather than George RI (“Rex et Imperator”)—and that the iced coffee being served was rather weak. What struck me most wasn’t King George’s superficiality—he was not a noted intellectual—but the iced coffee. Of course I grew up drinking iced tea, but this was the first time I’d ever heard of iced coffee, and it was absolutely mind-boggling.

My provinciality aside, iced coffee isn’t that much of a jump from iced tea, since it’s just brewed coffee chilled and served over ice. You can use your favorite coffee from the supermarket, just make it twice as strong. Cool the brew before pouring over ice.

Posted on

Herb Roast Rutabagas

One large rutabaga, peeled and cubed into more or less bite-sized pieces, will serve four people easily. Coat in vegetable oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and granulated garlic, and bake them at 350 in a well-oiled pan, turning occasionally to brown evenly. When tender, dust with dried herbs—sage, rosemary, marjoram, basil, rosemary, or a combination—spoon in a skillet, and toss with butter.

Posted on

Satsuma Season

The Louisiana crop ripens from October until late November, and they’re the sweetest citrus you’re going to get all winter. Use satsumas like oranges, and if you’re feeling really froggy, here’s an ambitious recipe from “Louisiana Cookin.”

Satsuma Upside-Down Cake

3¾ cups sugar, divided
4 cups water
24 (¼-inch-thick) sliced satsumas
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon satsuma zest
½ cup fresh satsuma juice

Preheat oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a 9-inch spring-form pan with parchment paper, and prep with baking spray with flour. Sprinkle ¼ cup sugar in bottom of pan.

In a large skillet, stir together 1½ cups sugar and 4 cups water. Add satsuma slices, bring to a boil, then turn off heat. After 15 minutes, remove fruit with a slotted spoon, and place on a wire rack to drain. Reserve the syrup. After 30 minutes or so, place slices in prepared pan, overlapping slightly.

In a large bowl, beat butter and remaining 2 cups sugar with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt; in a small bowl, whisk together milk, zest, and juice. Gradually blend flour and butter mixtures alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour, beating just until combined after each addition.

Gently spoon batter over satsuma slices, cover with foil, and bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes. Loosen edges with a knife, invert cake onto a serving plate, and remove parchment paper. Drizzle with ¼ cup syrup before serving.

Posted on

Bobbie Gentry’s Cherry Cookie Bars

This recipe appeared in Bayou Cuisine (1970) and was credited to Edith Streetner of Greenwood, Gentry’s stepmother, who writes that it’s “Bobbie’s favorite recipe that she has loved since she was a little girl, and I always made them for her when she came home.”

These are two-in one cookie bars. They have a rich, buttery cream-colored layer below and scarlet cherries, coconut, and nuts in the layer on top.

Sift together 1 cup plain flour and 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar. Cut in 1/2 c. butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press mixture firmly into the bottom of an ungreased 11×7 or 9×9 inch pan. Bake in a moderate (350) oven for 10 minutes. Sift together 1/4 c. plain flour 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3/4 c. sugar. Add 2 eggs lightly beaten, then fold in 1/2 c. maraschino cherries, finely cut, 1/2 c. grated coconut, and 1/2 c. chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, or almonds). Spread over a blind crust and bake in a moderate (350) oven 30-40 minutes. Cool and cut into bars or squares.

Posted on

A Savory Dutch Baby

Whip into a froth two large eggs and a half cup each flour and whole milk. Season with salt and pepper and a scattering of shaved onion. Pour into a hot buttered skillet and pop into a very hot oven until puffed and browned. Topped with more onion and peppered ham. Serve with grated hard cheese and sour cream with chives.