Category: History

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Sarepta

Sarepta was originally called Zarephath, meaning “a workshop for the refining and smelting of metals.” It was a small Phoenician town, near present-day Surafend (or Sarafend), about a mile from the Mediterranean coast, almost midway on the road between Tyre and Sidon. It is mentioned for the first time in the voyage of an Egyptian in the fourteenth century B.C. Sennacherib captured it in 701 B.C. (Schrader, “Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament”, 1883, pp. 200 and 288).

Despite its relative insignificance, Sarepta has the distinction of being named in both the Old Testament and the New. We learn from I Kings, 7:8-24, that it was subject to Sidon in the time of Achab and that the Prophet Elias, after having multiplied the meal and oil of a poor woman, raised her son from the dead. The charity of this widow was recalled by Christ (Luke 4:26). It was probably near this place that Christ cured the daughter of the Chanaanite or Syro-Phoenician woman whose faith He praised (Mark 7:24-30).

Sarepta is mentioned also by Josephus (“Ant. jud.”, VIII, xiii, 2); Pliny (Hist. natur., V, 17); the “Itinerarium Burdigalense; the “Onomasticon” of Eusebius and St. Jerome; by Theodosius and Pseudo-Antoninus who, in the sixth century calls it a small town, but very Christian (Geyer, “Intinera hierosolymitana”, Vienna, 1898, 18, 147, 150). It contained at that time a church dedicated to St. Elias. The “Notitia episcopatuum” of Antioch in the sixth century speaks of Sarepta as a suffragan see of Tyre (Echos d’Orient, X, 145); none of its bishops are known.

Some titular Latin bishops are mentioned after 1346 (Eubel, “Hierarchia catholica medii aevi”, I, 457; II, 253; III, 310; “Revue benedictine”, XXI, 281, 345-53, 353-65; XXIV, 72). In 1185, the “Green Monk” Phocas (De locis sanctis, 7) found the town almost in its ancient condition; a century later, according to Burchard, it was in ruins and contained only seven or eight houses (Descriptio Terrae sanctae, II, 9).

Sarepta was erected into a bishopric by the Crusaders, who raised a chapel over the reputed spot where Elijah restored the widow’s child. In the twelfth century it seems to have been a fortified city with a port and some stately buildings. Today, Sarepta is known as Khirbet Sarfend, between Tyre and Sidon, on the seashore; the ruins show that the town extended 1800 metres north and south, but that it was not very wide.

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Pride and Potatoes

One day as a boy, a friend and I dared to enter his father’s tool shed, where among implements such as hammers, saws, screwdrivers, and girly magazines, we found a cabinet stocked with canned potato soup. When I asked why his daddy kept potato soup next to his chop saw, he said, “Momma won’t let him have it in the house.”

I was puzzled at the time, but now I understand. You see, a man’s house may be his castle, but his tool shed is his home, a sanctuary for the masculine spirit and as inviolate to intrusion as a nunnery. A man may keep things there which have no place in the house, even something as seemingly innocuous as potato soup.

Potato soup is neither good nor bad in itself; like Prince Hal, it is poor only in the company it keeps, and as is the case for so many of our foods, its company is often poverty itself. Memories of hard times survived among the men and women of my parents’ generation; after the hard years had ended and victory in the Good War made them members of the most affluent society on earth, they found themselves living in a world that stretched far beyond the dirt roads many grew up on, and they were obliged to learn the difficult lessons a newly-acquired middle-class life required of them.

For many, that meant ridding themselves of aspects of their lives that in this new world were not quite picture-perfect. Potato soup, to my friend’s mother, was not part of her perfect picture; it was Depression food, something people ate when they were poor and down on their luck. Now that they lived in town in a new brick house, had two cars in the garage, and she was secretary of the Twentieth-Century Club, potato soup —so simple, so basic, so very good—had been banished.

Others hearkened back, as my friend’s father did, to those days when a family’s existence was dependent upon making do. They also remembered—even as they trod the carpeted floors of the air-conditioned homes where their difficult children were growing into strangers in their midst—the foods they knew and loved, even if it were biscuits folded over a piece of fried streak-`o-lean they took to school, red-rind cheese and saltines from the store down the road, or chicken and dumplings made to stretch an old hen between ten people.

The foods you love best are often those of your childhood, and my friend’s father found the warmth of potato soup irresistible. I can still conjure up an image of this man sitting out in his shed and opening a can of soup, heating it on a little electric eye, eating it and thinking about his own Momma standing at her wood stove in a pair of old slippers, her hair limp with sweat and tied up with a penny piece of ribbon, cooking the only thing she had to cook—potatoes—into a soup for her family. I can also imagine this man reminiscing upon this while his wife teetered around the kitchen in high heels, her hair lacquered into a $5 hair-do she had redone twice a week cooking store-bought stuff on an electric range.

His wife herself probably remembered her Momma in much the same way as her husband did his, but for my friend’s mother it was a bitter memory, and her efforts to obliterate that—to her mind painful—image of poverty extended to those around her. Bound and determined to eradicate whatever she felt was coarse or common about her and others, she sacrificed upon the altar of her misguided pride the very foods that she secretly loved and learned to make at her mother’s side.

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Our Appalachian Table

Travis Milton, a native of Russell County, Virginia, high in the Alleghenys, became a chef on the East Coast. In 2010, at a New York restaurant, Milton was part of a group planning dishes that would “tell about who we are.” He wondered aloud about sourcing leather britches and greasy-backs, a type of beans common in mountain gardens.

The following afternoon, the head chef slapped a copy of Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking onto Milton’s station. “He got in my face,” says Milton, “and started barking, ‘If this is what you wanna do in my kitchen then you can get the fuck out!’”

Having White Trash Cooking slammed in his face was a turning point. To overcome the stereotypes, Milton realized, he’d need to be able to tell the story of Appalachian food, but writing on the region’s cuisine was mostly focused on single mothers dressing up SPAM in a sugary sauce and other relatively recent ways that Appalachian cooks respond to the poverty that is, for most, coal’s legacy in Appalachia.

Then in 2016, Ronni Lundy published Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes. Her work won the James Beard Foundation Book of the Year and Best Book, American Cooking awards. In Victuals, Lundy claims that European settlers adopted native Cherokee foods almost wholesale. Wild game, wild herbs and greens, nuts, and berries augmented produce from small gardens of beans, corn, and squash using the “Three Sisters” method.

Appalachians let animals range freely, keeping prized breeds adapted to the landscape. Settlers raised pigs on acorns, berries, and chestnuts, which produced the famous hams of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. After the Civil War decimated the region, residents of isolated Appalachia embraced their gardening traditions, developing thousands of hybridized varieties of apples and pears, squash, tomatoes, collard greens, and other foodstuffs.

While Victuals established a benchmark, the font and source for Appalachian food writing is The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery: Regional Memorabilia and Recipes. First published in 1984, Appalachian Cookery has little resemblance to any other publication involving Southern foods.

The Foxfire Project was the brain-child of Eliot Wigginton, a man from West Virginia who received an advanced education in the north and began teaching at a rural school in northeastern Georgia during the late 1960s. Called “foxfire” after a will-o’-the-wisp in mountain woods, his students collected folklore and customs in a series of oral histories that were first published in a 1972 anthology. Many more editions have followed as well as other volumes documenting Appalachian culture.

According to the text, some of the research and the photographic essays included in Appalachian Cookery were gathered for previous Foxfire books but were not selected for inclusion into an earlier volume. Appalachian Cookery stands out as the most complete and comprehensive record we have of the food, cooking and home life of southern Appalachia in early to mid-20th century. Most of the recipes are very simple; pound cake has four ingredients in equal measure. The book is also a primer on how to use homegrown or wild-gathered foods.

Appalachian Cookery opens a door to a world far away from arugula and alien to star anise, a world where cooking was simple but not coarse, having a balance and symmetry all its own, dictated by the lessons of long-ago voices set in concert with the rhythm of the seasons. For those of us from the upland South, these are our roots.

CRY-BABY COOKIES

Cream 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening with an equal amount of sugar. Add one cup molasses and two beaten eggs. Sift together 4 ¾ cups plain flour with 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 ½ teaspoons soda. Then combine with 2 cups grated coconut, 2 cups chopped walnuts and 1 ½ cups raisins. Add dry ingredients alternately with 1 cup milk to creamed egg mixture. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake in a moderate (350) oven for 10 minutes. YIELD: approx. 7 dozen cookies.

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Take a Leek

Before my ancestors were shipped off to Virginia for lampooning the local gentry and skipping out on enormous bar tabs, they lived in a beautiful country on the west coast of Britain known as Wales. After prolonged contention, Wales–like Scotland and Ireland–has been assimilated into the United Kingdom, but like her sister subjugants, Wales observes its own saint’s day, the Feast of St. David, on March 1.

It’s a crying shame that the blessed David’s feast has been eclipsed in this country by that humbug Patrick’s on the 17th; after all, compared to David, Patrick was second-rate. David was able to make the earth beneath him shift and rise, a truly impressive feat, whereas Patrick’s most notable claim to fame is the single-handed extinction of Ireland’s indigenous snakes. Not only that, but David was a true Welshman, a native of Cardigan, while Patrick himself was actually from Wales. His abduction by the Irish can be interpreted on many levels, none of which are remotely spiritual.

The Irish praise the potato (a 17th century import from America), but the Welsh glory in the leek, which has been cultivated in Britain for millennia. Welsh soldiers wore leeks to distinguish themselves into battle as early as the days of King Arthur, himself a Welshman. As a parting shot, let me add that daffodils, the national flower of Wales, strike a  brighter, more noble note in a vase than a bunch of tufted clover ever will.

Leeks are basically big-ass green onions, which place them in the important botanical family Alliaceae; all onions, as well as garlic, chives, shallots and their ilk, belong to this group of herbs. Leeks are a cool-season crop, which goes a long way to explain why they’re not a familiar item on the Southern sideboard, but I can usually grab a bunch (about three stalks) of leeks for about that many dollars any time of the year at my local supermarket. My Scots ancestors used chicken and leeks with barley in their jauntily-named cock-a-leekie soup. Leeks make a beautiful addition to any stir-fry (working well with peppers), and thin slices of leek in a quiche look nice and taste great.

Leeks also take exceptionally well to braising and are great in a gratin. Use about a half cup prepared leek per person. Cut away the roots and all but the last inch or so of the green away and wash very well. Slice and layer the rounds in a gratin or baking dish. Cover with a cream sauce, a béchamel or better yet a Mornay.

Keep the seasonings simple, just a bit of salt and pepper, nothing more. Place in a hot oven (375) until bubbling; fifteen minutes should do it. Serve hot with a liberal grating of good hard cheese.

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Bon Ton Bread Pudding

“Le bon ton” references that flaky crust of society assumed to have cutting-edge style and better manners than those of us wallowing among The Great Unwashed. As such, the phrase “bon ton” has been used by a variety of businesses–particularly restaurants, of course–hoping to attract such a clientele.

One such establishment, the Bon Ton Café at 211 West Capitol Street in Jackson, opened in the early 1900s. The Bon Ton was one of the city’s finest dining establishments, and had the first electric sign on Capitol Street to better attract customers from Union Station.

Another more famous Bon Ton was established in New Orleans in the Natchez Building at 401 Magazine Street. Originally opened in the early 1900s as well, the business was revived in the early 1950s by Al and Alzina Pierce, who came to the Crescent City from south Louisiana, bringing with them their recipes from Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes, becoming the first dining establishment in the city to stake a claim for Cajun cuisine in a city already famous for its Creole culinary tradition.

The Bon Ton’s best-known dish is its bread pudding. When I worked in the Florida panhandle, we made a similar pudding with stale croissants, but the texture was dense owing to the abundance of air pockets in the bread; a good, foamy French loaf is much better the recipe.

Here is Alzina Pierce’s original recipe, which comes via Jackson native Winnifred Green Cheney’s Southern Hospitality Cookbook (Oxmoor, 1976).

Soak one loaf of French bread in a quart of whole milk and crush with hands until well mixed. Add 3 eggs, 2 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons vanilla extract, 1 cup seedless raisins (optional), and place in a buttered “thick, oblong baking pan”. Bake until very firm, then cool. Make a whiskey sauce; cream a half cup of butter with a cup of sugar, and cook in a double boiler until thoroughly dissolved. Add a well-beaten egg, whipping rapidly to prevent curdling. Let cool and add whiskey of your choice to taste. Pour over pudding, heat under broiler and serve.

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The Tomato Before the Bar

Botanically, tomatoes are a type of fruit; a berry, to be precise.

In 1887, U.S. tariff laws imposed duties on vegetables, but not on fruits. Some smart lawyer (we occasionally stumble upon evidence of these fabled creatures) representing not only a particular commercial interest but Mother Nature Herself argued that the tomato is indeed a (duty-free) fruit.

Alas for Mother Nature and the noble litigator championing her, on May 10, 1893, in Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (unanimously) that “based use and popular perception,” under customs regulations the tomato is a vegetable. This puts the court at odds with science, but in concord with commerce.

With appropriate deference to global hoards of bellicose taxonomists, the court acknowledged its limitations by not purporting to define tomatoes beyond the rule of American law.

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Sansing’s History of Calhoun County, Mississippi

David G. Sansing was—and remains—a towering figure among Mississippi historians. A native of Greenville, Sansing served in the Army during the Korean War. Upon his return, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mississippi College and his PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi. He was hired at Ole Miss in 1970. He wrote about various aspects of the state’s history in eleven books.

Sansing wrote this history of Calhoun County in 1959 as his master’s thesis at MC. Why Sansing, a Delta native (and of Greenville at that) chose Calhoun County, which is in the hill country of the state, for his thesis study presents something of a mystery to those of us familiar with Delta/hill contention, but he provides a clue when he writes that “Calhoun County has changed very little in the last fifty years.” Perhaps for Sansing, Calhoun County presented an opportunity to document a place frozen in time before the winds of change he saw coming swept through. Then again, it’s worth pointing out that Sansing’s wife, Elizabeth (neé Hawkins) was a native of Vardaman, Mississippi.

We natives of Calhoun County should take a great degree of pride in having our past documented by this giant of Mississippi history.

Photo by Robert Jordan
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Mrs. Downing’s Children’s Garden

Edith Downing’s kindergarten was at 901 Poplar Boulevard, on the corner with North Jefferson Street.

Mrs. Downing’s husband, James Downing, was an executive with the Mississippi State Banking Department. A native of Lima, Ohio, Mrs. Downing attended the public schools there, Lutheran College, and graduated from Ohio Northern University. Later she took special musical instruction in Aberystwith, Wales, and in London. She was in charge of the music department of the Mississippi Institute, French Camp when she met and married James Young Downing. The couple moved to Jackson in 1912.

The Downings moved to 901 Poplar in the very early Fifties, and opened the kindergarten in 1951 or ’52. She and two other teachers, Catherine Lefoldt and Martha Taylor, held classes in a long, low building on the south side of the lot with a playground in between. The school building was a little shotgun with an “L” at the end with a one-way mirror where parents could watch their children at play.

 

As in all schools, everyone loved recess and the big green wooden jungle gym in the middle of the playground was a focal point for games. The May Day celebration featured a May Pole dance. The girls wore pressed, and probably starched, dresses every day. Students were often given worksheets, and stars were given for correct results. There were many “hands on” games where the children would begin an activity then move on to others in a planned order to stimulate their learning. A child’s birthday was celebrated with a party and he or she was told to throw pennies in a bucket to tell how old they were. Sometimes Mrs. Downing would split the double popsicles she served for sharing. Students also took turns churning cream in a wooden butter churn.

The kindergarten was warm and welcoming place, the teachers kind and attentive, and many of its far-flung graduates have remained close friends throughout the past 60 plus years.

 

Class of 1956-57: Bob Biggs, Graham Blue, Bill Brockman, Eddy Butler, Rick Carter, David Chapple, Laura Neal Dear, David Denny, Miriam Dickson, Kay Eisenstatt, Bruce Evans, Frank Ezelle, Karen Ezelle, Patty Farlee, Betsy Finger, Betsy Gordin, Lee Gotthelf, Gary Grant, Susan Haynes, Sarah Hendrix, Janice Hines, Bill Hollingsworth, Pam Howie, Jane Hutto, Sandra Jackson, Bob Lawrence, Harry Kirshman, Dudley Marble, Linde Mitchell, Joe Morris, Alan Orkin, Marianne Painter, George Reynolds, Roseanne Solomon, Ethel Louise Seay, Sally Sherman, Rusty Shields, Ely Siegal, Sue Stevens, John Studdard, Lynn Thomason, Tommy Underwood, Kathryn Weir, Willie Wiener, Robert Whitfield, Lina Yates, Yandell Wideman

(Contributors to this article include Bill and Nan Harvey, Cecile Walsh Wardlaw, Tish Hughes, Sally Brown, Patsy Shappley, Susan McRae Shanor, Michelle Hudson, Karen Ezelle Redhead, Susan Shands Jones, July Lane Douglass and Cindy Callender Fox, Annie Laurie McRee, Dr. Richard Pharr, Bill and Martha Mitchell Brockman.)

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Ya Mama’s Mynezz

In July, 2018, Epicurious, “the ultimate food resource for the home cook,” tasted 16 brands of mayonnaise to determine the very best one. The testers selected top-selling brands widely available across the country, and included a few regional cult favorites (e.g. Duke’s and Blue Plate) easily available online. They also included Miracle Whip, which isn’t technically mayonnaise, but is a popular as a mayo substitute in the Midwest and elsewhere. In a blind tasting, their panel of editors found Blue Plate Mayonnaise “The Best Mayonnaise You Can Buy at the Grocery Store.”

The panel described its flavor as “bright, lemony even, and though it looked a bit gloppy upon opening, a quick stir revealed that it had the perfect creamy texture.” Blue Plate was one of the few brands in the taste test made exclusively with egg yolks as opposed to whole eggs, which testers claimed gave it “a more satisfying, homemade flavor.” Editor Emily Johnson detected the “sharp bite” Blue Plate has at the back of the tongue, which is ideal for a sauce, and when eaten with cherry tomatoes, the acidity softens, enhancing the fruit, and making the whole bite taste more tomatoey. “This is 100% the mayo you want on your next BLT,” she added. And on your favorite Po-Boy; Blue Plate Mayonnaise guarantees an authentic New Orleans flavor.

Gretna, LA, late ’30s/early ’40s.

Before the early 1900’s, mayonnaise was considered a gourmet condiment that could only be acquired from what today we would call “artisan” sources. Blue Plate was one of the first commercially prepared mayonnaise producers and distributors in the United States, beginning in 1929 when Wesson-Snowdrift Company, an offshoot of The Southern Oil Company, began to produce mayonnaise in a warehouse in Gretna, Louisiana. The company chose “Blue Plate” for its product from the popular term “blue plate special,” meaning a full meal at a modest price. The commercial production of mayonnaise in a city renowned for its food was considered a revolutionary culinary modernization.

Original Blue Plate Factory c. 1978

In 1941, construction began on a sleek, white concrete factory with rounded glass-brick corners across the river in Mid-City, at what is now 1315 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway. Designed by New Orleans architect, August Perez Junior, the Blue Plate building was completed and opened for business in November 1943. The Streamline Moderne structure, with its terra-cotta tile and dazzling art deco sign, soon became known to many New Orleanians as the place where “ya mama’s mynezz” was made. Over time, the Blue Plate brand also included margarine, jelly, salad dressing, and barbecue sauce.

Locally delivered daily in small trucks to each store, Blue Plate Mayonnaise was marketed throughout the Southeast. In 1960, Hunt Foods of California bought Wesson Oil and Blue Plate Foods, Inc., but in 1974, William B. Reily III, whose grandfather founded the popular Luzianne brand, acquired Blue Plate Foods from Hunt-Wesson, and the mayonnaise ownership returned to its Louisiana homeland and became part of the Wm. B. Reily and Company family. Over the next 30 years, Reily acquired several brands from both regional and national companies. They include Swans Down Cake Flour, Try Me Sauces & Seasonings (namely Tiger Sauce), French Market Coffees, New England Tea & Coffee.

While the Reily Foods Company is still headquartered in New Orleans, the company made the decision to shut down operations there in 2000, moving production to the company factory in Knoxville. The factory closure, coupled with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, seemed to ensure the factory’s destruction, but developers turned the iconic building into loft apartments in 2011. If you find Blue Plate there, it will be in someone’s refrigerator.

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Our Southern Curry

This typically fussy vintage recipe for Country Captain comes from Winifred Green Cheney’s wonderful Southern Hospitality Cookbook (1976).

Winifred informs us that she copied it from Mildred Williams, food columnist for a Virginia newspaper, but the original recipe came from Mrs. W. L. Bullard of Warms Springs, Georgia, who often served her famous dish to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“And once, when there wasn’t time for General George Patton to stay for dinner, he is said to have wired Mrs. Bullard to have the Country Captain waiting for him in a tin bucket at the train.”

2 frying-size chickens
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 clove garlic, chopped
1⁄2 cup olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 bell pepper, sliced
4 3/4 cups canned tomatoes
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon powdered thyme
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1⁄2 cup water
1 cup seedless raisins
2 1⁄2 cup toasted almonds
Melted butter
2 cups hot cooked rice
Fresh parsley (optional)

Cut chicken into frying-size pieces; split the breast, separate leg and thigh, and use the wings. Save bony pieces for stew. Flour chicken by shaking in a paper bag containing flour, salt, black pepper, and paprika. Make garlic oil by adding chopped garlic to olive oil and letting it stand until flavor is absorbed from garlic. Use 1⁄2 cup of hot garlic oil to brown chicken on both sides in a large skillet over high heat, turning pieces often so that it is golden but not dark.

Remove chicken to roaster and cover. Add onion and bell pepper to drippings in skillet; cook over medium heat until they are limp but not brown, stirring constantly. Add tomatoes, parsley, curry, thyme, and cayenne pepper; cook slowly about 5 minutes until blended. Pour over chicken, rinsing out skillet with water.

Cover and bake chicken in a preheated 325° oven for 45 minutes or until chicken is tender. Add raisins the last 15 minutes of cooking. Split blanched almonds in halves; brown lightly in a little melted butter. Arrange chicken in center of a large heated platter, pour sauce over it and pile cooked rice around edges. Sprinkle toasted almonds on top and garnish with fresh parsley, if desired. Yield: 8 to 10 servings.