Category: History

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Parakeets in the Pines

It was a beautiful little bird; brilliant green, with a yellow head, and a line of red around the face, the wings were edged in orange; in flight, a jewel, in flocks, a mandala, Carolina parakeets provided fleeting, noisy spectacles in the virgin rain forest that blanketed the frontier  South.  Audubon kept one as a pet; Wilson found them in Natchez in 1811, but records are spotty. Chances are they were never that numerous. Their diet of green fruit doomed them, and they were easily exterminated  by settlers establishing orchards; when one bird fell to a gun, others descended around it. Inevitably, gunfire resumed, and they were slaughtered without pity.

Carolina parakeets died out in the early 20th century. The last known wild specimen was killed in Okeechobee County, Florida, in 1904, and the last captive bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo on February 21, 1918. This bird, Incas, died within a year of his mate, Lady Jane. In a case of what has been termed tragic irony, Incas died in the same aviary enclosure where the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died four years earlier.

By 1939, the Carolina parakeet had been declared extinct by most authorities. Some believed a few may have been smuggled out of the country and repopulated elsewhere, but that’s the same wishful thinking that buoys up news of ivory-bills.

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The Know Mississippi Better Train

In 1925, Governor Henry L. Whitfield called a meeting in Jackson with the object of adopting “some plan whereby the opportunities, possibilities and resources of Mississippi might be effectively presented to the outside world.”

Mississippians from twenty-six counties attended, including Lieutenant Governor Dennis Murphree of Calhoun County, who proposed a plan of a “Know Mississippi Better Train,” a special train to carry representatives of Mississippi, exhibits of Mississippi resources, literature, and public speakers to visit across the country. The plan was adopted, and the first KMB train pulled out of Jackson in August, 1925.

The Know Mississippi Better Train was the longest Pullman Special Train in the world. In its 20 years of operation, the KMB Train traveled the North American continent once each year from Savannah to Alaska and from Mexico City to Prince Edward Island, visiting more than 500 towns and cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The train’s operation was suspended during WWII, but resumed immediately after.

Fifteen cars made up the train. The first was an exhibit car carrying huge signs on its sides: “This is the Know Mississippi Better Train.” This car contained a comprehensive exhibit of the resources and products of Mississippi. A small observation platform on the end of this car bore an electric sign which read: “Know Mississippi Better Train”. The lounge car—with a soda fountain and small piano on loan from the Brown Music Company of Jackson—was furnished by the Illinois Central Railroad and made the entire trip.

The train also contained an office dispensing information about the trip as well as stationery, telegraph blanks, pens and paper. Postage needs were handled in a post office, while the Pullman Conductor handled telegraph messages. The train also had its own free daily newspaper/bulletin, “Mississippi A’Roll,” containing Mississippi news briefs supplied daily by the managing editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Except for four years during World War II, the Know Mississippi Better Train ran every summer until 1948. In February, 1949, the enterprise  lost its Great Conductor when Dennis Herron Murphree died at his home in Pittsboro, Mississippi. Alumni of the KMB train circulated newsletters and held reunions for years, and most likely relationships forged along the journeys endured as well.

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My Father’s Books

Daddy had a soft touch for door-to-door salesmen. I can still see him laid back on the couch in his boxers listening to some guy spell out his hard-luck story. I doubt if any of them left without an order and a couple of dollars in their pocket. We had three sets of encyclopedias and all kinds of serials put out by national publication like Time/Life or the Reader’s Digest. Our home was full of books full of words and pictures, and I spent hours poring over them when as a boy.

It wasn’t until a decade after he died when I was 12 that I began to explore the other books, the old faded covers and the tattered paperbacks. There I found the father I didn’t know, a man beyond my comprehension as a child, and certainly beyond mine as an old man. Still the books set a mold of time, of place, and more so of my father, the contours set by such as a raggedly paperback edition of Greek poetry in English translation in which I found underlined the epigram of Simonides that Senator John F. Kennedy cited in his speech at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October, 1960: “Passerby: Tell Sparta we fell faithful to her service.” Jess Jr. had a professional connection with the Kennedys, since in his capacity as District Attorney for Lafayette County in 1962 he had to juggle the political ramifications of a grand jury indictment against James J.P. McShane, who led the federal agents who escorted James Meredith, the first African American student at University of Mississippi. The indictment was eventually revoked. In line with this book, Jess Jr. also had a copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. While he could not be considered a Stoic in his manner of living–he enjoyed his Old Charter 10-year old as well as “ready-rolls” (cigarettes)–he respected Marcus’s sense of duty and respect for others

He had a copy of C.H. Cramer’s Royal Bob: The Life of Robert Ingersoll. Ingersoll, an American lawyer, Civil War veteran, political leader and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought (roughly from 1875 to 1914), was noted for his broad range of cultural activities and his defense of agnosticism. Another book relating to Jess Jr.’s political leanings on a more local level is Kirwan’s Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics, 1876-1925, a solid nod to his political roots in north Mississippi. Another book that stood out because of its somewhat arcane nature was Gerald Hawkins’ Stonehenge Decoded. Jess Jr. had a deep and abiding interest in American history, in which Stonehenge has no place. Moreover, the book involves a complex examination of astronomy and engineering, neither of which fit into his interests.

An even more puzzling yet at the same time astoundingly revealing work I found among my father’s books was Richard Brautigan’s first novel. A Confederate General from Big Sur, published in 1964. Jess Jr. was a student of the Civil War not only as a Southerner but as a politician since its ramifications were being felt with intensity in his lifetime. In Brautigan’s novel, which takes place in 1957, a man named Mellon believes he is a descendant of a Confederate general from Big Sur, California. There is no proof of his existence, although Mellon meets a drifter who has also heard of this general. Mellon seeks the truth of his own modern-day struggle in the United States in light of the Confederacy’s past struggle with the Union. Most likely, my father picked this book up on the basis of its title alone, but I like to believe he read it in its entirety.

He had Faulkner’s A Fable and The Town, two very divergent works; Jess Jr. knew Faulkner’s attorney Phil Stone and might have met the writer, but I feel he read Faulkner’s works more out of a desire to understand how this man from Lafayette County came to win a Nobel Prize than for any other reason. His copy of Welty’s Golden Apples, I found puzzling, but then he kept his ear to the ground and might well have heard of Welty’s rising star.

He was man who liked to read, and the written word became a part of him. By the standards of his place and time Jess Jr. was a learnéd man. As such, he was quite different from his peers, who included the political lights of his day in Mississippi and an across-the-board array of businessmen and dignitaries. Yet for all the stories I’ve heard and with this slender thread of books, Jess Jr. will always be a maze to the man I am. But not to the boy who loved him.

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The World’s Oldest Potato Salad

Dr. Amalia Andres-Pizarro, associate professor of Indigenous Peoples Studies at the University of Lima–and, we must add, a namesake of the conquistador who almost single-handedly wiped out the Incan Empire–discovered the world’s oldest recipe for potato salad in a manuscript uncovered from ruins at Lactapata.

“It is an important discovery in terms of Incan culture because it sheds light on the daily lives of the Incan people,” Andres-Pizarro said. “We know that the Incas cultivated potatoes hundreds of different varieties of potatoes, cooked them in stews, baked them in coals, and prepared them for storage. The Incas also invented chuno, the first freeze dried potatoes, a precursor to instant mashed potatoes.”

The manuscript, written in Spanish, was probably set down by a priest who accompanied the conquistadores and was held captive by the puppet emperor Manco. The text describes various dishes prepared by the Incas as well as details of their dress, games they played, housing, and sexual mores. Andres-Pizarro said what are most certainly the bones of a European were found in the tomb with the manuscript, which she somehow finds significant.

What’s most impressive about the recipe is that the Incans actually had invented an early form of mayonnaise. “The text describes an emulsion made from the eggs of the great curassow (Crax rubra) and maize (corn) oil, which is practically identical to what we know as mayonnaise. The writer describes its preparation as a highly-guarded secret with religious overtones,” Andres-Pizarro said. “The recipe also incorporated chilis of various kinds in different amounts and boiled curassow eggs as well.”

Andres-Pizarro said that she is adapting other Incan recipes from the manuscript for the modern-day kitchen as the basis of a forthcoming Incan cookbook called The Kitchens of Manchu Picchu.

1 pound red potatoes
3 hard-cooked eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 poblano chili finely chopped
¼ cup kernel corn
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
½ cup mayonnaise
cayenne pepper and salt to taste

Peel potatoes, boil and cube, chop boiled eggs, add other ingredients, mix very well and chill overnight before serving.

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Mistilis’s Hamburger Steak

Angelo Mistilis opened his restaurant on College Hill Road in Oxford, Mississippi, in May, 1962, and fed thousands upon thousands before closing in 1988. The menu featured dozens of items, but by any stable reckoning, first and foremost was his hamburger steak.

“The hamburger steak was on the original menu, the hamburger steak with cheese and onions came in a little later, in the mid to late 60s,” Angelo said. “You could have it regular, you could have it with onions, you could have it with cheese, or you could have it all the way,” Angelo said. “We used about nine tons of fresh ground beef a year. I had a butcher that got my hamburger meat with all the trimmings, and I got some from James’ Food Center.”

“We always served it with hand-cut home fries,” he added. “We’d use around 1200 lbs. of potatoes a week and two fifty-pound sacks of onions. The cheese was always sliced American, and we served it on a paper plate in a wicker basket.”

Photo by Rusty Faulkner
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Willie’s Liver

Willie Morris is one of Mississippi’s most beloved authors, perhaps particularly due to his homespun memoir, My Dog Skip (1995).

Morris is less fondly remembered for his autobiographical North Toward Home (1967; written when Morris was all of 33), which was damned with faint praise by the Sunday (New York) Times as though “lacking in focus” was “well-written.” Then there’s The Courting of Marcus Depree (1983), which Christopher Lehmann-Haupt says that, “Instead of catching a story by the tail, Willie Morris staggers around, lunging after whatever happens to catch his eye.” (“Lurching” would have been more apt.)

Morris’s early promise as editor of Harper’s led to early failure. After his summary dismissal by John Cowles, Jr. in 1971, Willie hit the skids. He bummed around Long Island for a while, soaking up booze with the likes of Craig Claiborne, whom he recklessly advised to write an embarrassing memoir. He then came home to Mississippi, to Oxford, the literary nipple of Mississippi, where he quickly became the central figure of a dissolute group of rakes and hangers-on who trolled the bars in varying degrees of pixilation and retired to his home at closing time for late-night revels with Willie as the Prince des Sots.

At that time, I was working at The Warehouse, a restaurant in Oxford that saw its heyday in the early 80s, where James Ruffin was the head cook. Garrulous and scrappy, James scared the hell out of me when I came to work there as his right-hand-man. James was blind in one eye, as I am, so I figured between us we would get along like those old women from myth who shared a single eye. And we did, working together in a cramped, noisy, hot kitchen. We came to know and trust each other well. The last time I saw him was the day after the Warehouse burned in the wee hours of February 15, 1986. When he died many years later, our old boss Frank Odom let me know, and I was saddened. James was a good man who lived a hard life.

The Warehouse enjoyed a somewhat upscale reputation and business was good. Now, after-hour diners are always an irritant to restaurant staff, but they hold big appeal for management who enjoy enabling significant people to entertain themselves and their significant friends after the riff-raff have gone and a strategic table can be commanded.

Willie Morris always came in at closing time with a number of his adherents to occupy the big round table in the southwest corner of the floor, far enough away from the noisy bar where Willie could hold court without distraction. The management always alerted us that they were coming, which gave me and James ample time to halt our closing procedures and grumble until the table had been seated and lubricated with ample rounds. Almost invariably, Willie ordered the calf’s liver, which came to us pre-sliced and individually quick-frozen. A serving consisted of two 4-oz. slices of liver, dusted with seasoned flour and cooked on a well-oiled griddle and served with potatoes and a small salad. At $9.95, it was our cheapest entrée.

Cooked properly, a seared slice of liver is a wonderful thing. But it takes a little consideration, and by 11 p.m., James and I were on our last legs of the day. His wife had been waiting for him in the parking lot for an hour (he couldn’t drive at night), and I had less than 30 minutes to have a beer with my friends at the Rose before it shut down. So when it came time to prepare Willie’s liver, James put a griddle iron on it and let it cook while we mopped the floor. The end result was leather. Neither the besotted nor the hungover Morris ever complained.

This grumpery against Morris can easily be dismissed as carping of the pettiest sort, but one day I was in the Gin, a landmark Oxford restaurant and watering-hole. At the bar, in his usual corner on the south end, sat Doxie Kent Williford, one of the smartest, kindest people I’ve ever known and one of the very few openly gay men in Oxford at the time. You rarely heard Doxie say an unkind word about anyone (including Willie Morris), and he was regarded with affection not only by the staff in the Gin, but by many Oxford residents and students.

I remember it was a late afternoon. Willie came through the swinging doors with his entourage and characteristic bonhomie. They settled in at a large table in the center of the floor. Not a half-hour passed then Willie, in a very loud voice, said, “Look at that faggot at the end of the bar!” and snickered.

The room fell silent. Doxie put his head in his hands, asked for his check and left. Willie laughed more at that and resumed telling whatever impressive lie he had launched upon earlier. Those of us at the bar were all in shock,. I tried to catch Doxie in the parking lot to say something, but he waved me off and left in a hurry. He was back the next day, but refused to talk about it. There was nothing to be done about it, because Willie had–for better or worse–become a poster boy for Oxford’s development as a cultural Potemkin village. Morris has been enshrined, but his brutal public incivility to a man I loved remains for me a defining moment of his egoistic, dissolute character.

Season liver with salt and pepper, sear in light oil, turning once until just done and set aside; working quickly, add more oil, increase heat, add clove of crushed garlic and a half an onion, sliced into slivers or rings. Layer liver atop vegetables and cover for about five minutes, or until the meat is firm. Invert to serve.

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Recipes for Life

In his introduction, Oscar Rogers writes, “The title of this book could well have been My Mother Cooked My Way Through Life with These Creole Recipes. Her skill in cooking fine foods, prepared with loving care, assured her of a living, and me of my survival. She places part of herself into each dish she prepares—in fact a part of herself is in everything she does. This is her priceless legacy to me.”

Dr. Oscar Rogers was one of the most distinguished educators in Mississippi. He received his A.B. from Tougaloo in 1948, the B.S. in theology in 1954 and an M.A. in theology in 1954, both from Harvard. He returned to Natchez to accept the position as dean of students and registrar at Natchez Junior College in 1954, and was appointed president of Arkansas Baptist College in 1956, serving until 1959. In 1958, he received a doctoral fellowship to enroll at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and there he completed his doctor of education degree in social science in administration in 1960.

Rogers’ wife, Lee, insisted that her children (three sons) live near and learn to know her father, Jefferson O. Lewis, a longtime employee of Tougaloo College, so the family moved to Jackson where she became a teacher in the Jackson Public Schools, and Oscar accepted the position as dean of students at Jackson State College from 1960-68. During 1968-69, the family moved to Seattle, where Lee taught and Oscar engaged in research. They returned to Jackson in later 1969, where Dr. Rogers became dean of the graduate school at JSU, a position he held for fifteen years. He was also a pastor of Asbury Methodist Church in Bolton, Mississippi. In 1984, he became the seventh president of Clafin University, a position he held to his retirement in 1994. Dr. Rogers died in July, 2011.

This book was published in December, 1971, when Rogers’ mother, Mrs. Walter Tillman, affectionately known as Pinky, was still alive. She attended the reception and signing, held by the University and College Press of Mississippi in the H.T. Sampson Library on the JSU campus.

Some may be surprised that Oscar calls the recipes “Creole”, since they originate not in New Orleans, but rather upriver in Natchez; yet in its strictest definition, Creole is defined as “a person descended from the early French and Spanish settlers in the U.S. Gulf States”. Natchez was founded by French colonists in 1716.

In the culinary sphere, however, Creole implies the cooking of the well-to-do, more urban inhabitants of the region; one authority, Howard Mitcham, defines it as “city” cooking as opposed to “country (Cajun)”. And many of the 200+ recipes are sophisticated indeed: cauliflower Hollandaise, Doberge cake (a distinctly New Orleans dish, by the way), shrimp remoulade, and floating island pudding, but there is also an abundance of good home-style recipes such as Southern-style pork chops, a meat loaf, baked beans, and spoon bread. Note please the recipe for Harvard beets on page 49.

Courtbouillion of Red Fish

1 large red fish, snapper or sheepshead, 5-6 lbs.
1/2 cup salad (vegetable) oil
1 c. flour
2 large onions, chopped
2 1/2 cups canned tomatoes
2 bay leaves
4 green bell peppers, chopped
4 shallots or green onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 slices lemon
1 cup claret or port wine
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 1/2 cups water (scant)
a few sprigs parsley

Slice fish across back into 2 or 3 in cuts. In a large skillet heat the salad oil, add the flour and stir until very brown. Add onions, stirring until cooked a bit. add chopped tomatoes and remaining ingredients except wine and fish, cook for 1/2 hour or more. Add sliced fish (you may lay fish in roasting pan or large pot if skillet isn’t large enough and pour sauce over fish). Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until fish is cooked. Add wine and let come to a boil again. Serve with rice or creamed potatoes. (Serves 6 to 8).

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A Mississippi Hill Down Under

Roving Google Earth is a fascinating experience, particularly for those of us who, for whatever reason, will never be able to visit the far-flung edges of the globe. It’s one of my favorite diversions, and that’s how, when bouncing between the Timor Sea and the Great Australian Bight, to my astonishment I found, on the southern tip of Western Australia’s “Golden Outback,” Mississippi Hill.

Mississippi Hill is in Cape Le Grand National Park in the extreme south of Western Australia, 35 mi. east of Esperance. The southwest section of the park is dominated by rock outcrops of gneiss and granite. These form a distinctive chain of peaks including Mount Le Grand (1,130 ft.), Frenchman Peak (860 ft.), and Mississippi Hill (590 ft.), named by a British explorer, Edward John Eyre.

In February,1841, Eyre began one of the great treks across the Australian continent, passing over 1000 mi. from Port Lincoln, South Australia, to Albany, Western Australia through the arid expanses of the Nullabor Plain. Eyre was the first European to travel along the Great Australian Bight, a desolate, harsh, and empty land on the southern coastline of the continent.

His expedition was one of the most horrible in the annals of Victorian exploration. He set out on New Year, 1841, with three aborigines, Wylie, Joey, and Yarry, and his overseer Baxter. Joey and Yarry shot Baxter dead and decamped with the stores. The renegades shadowed Eyre and Wylie at a distance. The Eyre and Wylie survived on such fare as eagle stew and a penguin they found on the beach and ate skin and all. Nearly 800 mi. into their journey, exhausted, near starvation, and eking by water from sporadic rains, on the 2nd of June, slightly east of today’s Esperance on the south Australian Bight, they climbed a rocky hill and saw a ship at anchor, barely 7 miles away.

It was a French whaler, the Mississippi, which had departed from Hobart, Tasmania on February 12, 1938. The French had been invested in Mississippi for some time, e.g. the Mississippi Bubble. The ship’s captain, a an Englishman named Rossiter, pressed cognac and Dutch cheese upon Eyere’s company before the Mississsippi continued 280 miles east to the British settlement Albany.

For his trek, Eyre was awarded the Royal Geographic Society gold medal and has had a number of geographical features named after him, including Lake Eyre and the Eyre Peninsula. And while I have yet to hear back from the Western Australia Parks and Wildlife Service—of course I reached out; don’t be silly—it’s a certainly that the tor  was named Mississippi out of gratitude.

I think it’s quite pretty.

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The King Edward’s Chicken Fricassee

This recipe comes from The Jackson Cookbook (1970), a wonderful addition to any kitchen library. The dish is a classic old-school fricasee–-rich, with a sublime aroma–-characteristic of the–admittedly bourgeois–haute cuisine fashionable in hotels such as the   King Edward in the middle of the 20th century.

I used boneless thighs skewered and lightly floured (no drenching beforehand) with salt and pepper, early yellow onions, and a mixture of fresh and dried thyme. Bread the chicken lightly and brown in butter; use a medium heat to keep the butter from burning.  Wilt thickly-sliced onions in butter before topping the chicken with more of the herb mix and butter. Bake in a medium (350) oven for about an hour. Baste once, twice is better.