Mayhaw Man

I believe that we, the ones on the East side of the Sabine, still have some laws on the books that make that kind of activity a criminal offense Edited to say that, "You know Fifi, you could be onto something with those Okra Tamales. We here at the O.L.A.A. have put some of our finest minds (for whatever that is worth ) to work on the problem and will announce our findings at the next meeting".

You do, but you might have had a few too many Berliner Weisse's to remember exactly what happened after they added all that syrup to your Wheat Beer. Typically the syrup is composed of Woodruff or Rasberry flavoring. The woodruff is quite delicious, but the raspberry taste is a bit sweet for my taste. Hope this jogs your memory

Bee Bayou? It's not even on the map (although they do have an exit, a water tower, and a rail crossing for the MOPAC). Is there anywhere to eat there?

You know, just because people here in our fine state enjoy beans in their chili is no reason to show up calling anyone here a degenerate. Welcome to egullet and I hope that you find this an interesting part of your web life. Incidentally, one of the forum hosts for your incredibly diverse and interesting state doesn't like okra (imagine that). What do you people eat?

Tasso, as it is sold and used here in Louisiana, is a highly seasoned ham product. It is really not very interchangable for andouille, as andouille (the real stuff anyway) is pretty much only big chunks of seasoned pork (not nearly as dry as tasso) stuffed into a casing. That is why several people have suggested stripping it of it's casing and using it in other stuff. I like it in just about everything and use it as I would use any other sausage. The little Mayhaws like to slice it long ways, strip off the casing, brown it, and eat it on a baguette or mini po boy roll (as they are known here in the Land o' Po Boys). Andouille is also a great thing to grill and serve as an appetizer with an assortment of zippy mustards and fine native product. If you can't find it locally where you live (chances are you can't) you can always mail order. Perhaps one of the Perlow's can tell you about it as I believe they picked up a supply on their recent visit. Basically the stuff is very thin cane syrup with nice jolt of red pepper (flaked and probably liquified as well) in it and it is pretty much great on everything (hell, it's pretty good to drink if you are as in love with heat and as stupid as I am). I hope that you enjoy the sausage.

Excellent thoughts. I think that the debate over genetically altered foodstuffs proves you right. No matter where one stands on this issue, it is clear that it is on the front burner with many consumers and producers of foodstuffs and this debate is not limited just to the western world. The W.H.O. apparently is spending lots of resources looking into the pros and cons, although in my view it seems like it is difficult to tell what the effects are in the short term. This is a debate that (given continuing scientific advances) will continue for the rest of our lifetimes, at least.

In several posts in this fascnating thread (it is stuff like this that makes egullet a very interesting place to visit) I have refferred to people sitting on couches with a remote in one hand and a megagiantgallono'glug in the other. It would seem that my little word picture would have been just as accurate had I described a guy sitting on his car seat with a Egg McMuffin in his hand a a megagiantgallono' glug in the cupholder. Need more evidence. Read this fine piece by Lisa Grace Lednicer of Newhouse News Service

Robyn, I am with you on the peppers. I don't see how a grocery can charge what they do for peppers (and here in South La, at least for part of the year, many of them are locally grown) at the grocery store when other outlets can sell them for so much less. I do not think that a store of any size would use them for a loss leader, as frankly, red, yellow, purple, etc., bell peppers are not something any stores sell a ton of anyway, if you use shelf space as a judging criteria. And I love em too

I will be the first to admit that my upbringing was something bizarrely out of place for the 60's. I like to describe my family to my friends as a sort of dysfunctional "Cleaver Household" But nevertheless, my parents traveled (still do, incessantly), and my Mom liked to cook the stuff she ate when she traveled. I still remember (and she still has the gear) when she mail ordered all of the escargot gear and sourced out the snails for some party she was having. I will be the first to admit liking garlic and butter more than many, but my first taste of escargot at age 10 just about sent me running for the bathroom. But I can pretty much guarantee that I was the only kid in the Delta that night who had escargot on his plate ( I love escargot now, however). Humorously enough, I was in Galitoire's last year with my children doing the Friday lunch deal and I brought my children along for the first time. Someone at the table ordered escargot and my children both tried it, neither of them seemed very impressed (yuk, gross, you're sick, Dad were the general responses). Chips off of the old block, those little Mayhaws. Well, you're missing out. But to clarify, the people with the chickens aren't really relatives, just back to the land hippies in the 60's who ended up making a bunch of money and still like to keep chickens. And it is pretty amazing how much different they are from any other chicken I can find nowadays. Well, I am. And I am certainly not a physician or a public health official but I believe that a culture where households contain 1 tv for every person, a couple of computers, and only God knows how many other electrical devices designed primarily for sedentary entertainment is bound to gain a little weight when coupled with a diet of fatty food and virtually no excercise. Pretty much if you went to a doctor and said, " Hey Doc, I'm just not fat enough. How can I get really big and unhealthy in a pretty short period of time? I will do anything, please help me" The Doc would say, "Son. You're excercising too much, your diet is entirely too low in fat and high carb foods, and I generally believe that you are burning way too many calories to gain the weight you so desire. What you should do is sit down on the couch, take a firm hold on the remote control and start eating plenty of chips, burgers, and doughnuts while washing it down with lots of soda. Pretty soon you will see those pounds start to appear". So we are back to the question-In a day and age where there are so many other things to do besides excercise and eat right, where we have so many other choices (and not all of them bad by any means, but many need to be moderated a bit, TV, Computer, Video, Burgers, Cokes, etc.) how do we convince people that they are better off both healthwise and economically (ultimately the two things are the same thing in my book), that they would live longer and healthier lives if they would shop well (wherever they choose and taste and budget lead them) and get out of the fast food joints that many people seem to frequent daily? That is the question that I don't know the answer to. Maybe someone out there does.

Okay, this is totally off topic, but that was jwagnerdsm, and he suddenly stopped blogging on December 3. I'm starting to worry because he hasn't posted since then. Was there severe weather in Iowa? Squeat Maybe he went broke buying fabulous groceries and could not pay his internet bill It's all about personal choice

My wife had a co worker from Columbia who convinced her that if she would walk around the block in her underwear (purple only)on New Years Eve that she would be guaranteed a great trip during the coming year. My wife, a seemingly unsupersticious and intelligent woman, did exactly as instructed (walking around New Orleans in your underwear is not considered to be that strange a thing to do at any time of year, so she was pretty safe ) and, in fact, ended up going on a swell little New York jaunt right after that. Mrs. Mayhaw has not repeated this performance in the past few years, but I have always encouraged her to try it again

My point is that as more people buy the Costco mozzarella, the less likely stores like the local italian grocery will be able to survive and then we all lose because availability of the really good stuff will be limited. This is assuming that everyone has the chance to go into some little Italian Mom and Pop and it is also assuming that said Mom and Pop have fabulous homemade Mozzerrella. I don't have one handy (although there are a large number of them across the lake in New Orleans) and as far as I know, none of them vend fabulous homemade mozz. As far as cheese products go with the big warehouse chains there are some serious bargains there. I can get huge pieces of various kinds of cheeses for a fraction of the price that they are available at in Winn Dixie or Albertson's. I cannot imagine that this cheese is of less quality (likely less, judging from taste) than what I can pay up to 4 times less for at Sam's. My family goes through huge amounts of Parm Reg and lots of Rat Cheese. I buy big honking chunks of this stuff and repackage it. I save a ton of money. Is it as good as what I could buy at a cheese shop? Maybe not. But is it worth paying all that extra money for something that I am going to enjoy only marginally more? Most of the time not, although there are clearly exceptions to the rule and many times I do buy the best, but it depends on the end use of the cheese. Edited because I have a problem with question mark usage

While I was busy googling on H. Allen Smith and his wonderful book "THe Great Chili Confrontation" (now out of print, but it is available in my truly awful public library so it will most likely be available in your system) I found this website that I thought might interest some of you. Back to the H Allen Smith book-It covers the origins and results of the original cookoff that was held in Terlingua, TX in 1967. It contains lots of highly opinionated (and hysterically funny) anecdotes about chili and the culture surrounding it. As someone who weighs in heavily on the side of beans in my chili, I disagree with some of the conclusions of this book , but I still reccomend that anybody who has an interest in chili cookoffs take the time to read it. H Allen Smith was a newspaper columnist and humorist who had a lifelong love of chili and a long running public debate with a couple of other columnists as to the proper way to prepare and eat chili and as to waht ingrediants it should include (he was not a fan of the noble kidney bean ).

Goodness... Where on earth are y'all from? Of course you have to eat black-eyed peas on New Years, or you'll have bad luck.

Two things- 1) Using my little part of the world as an example might not be fair, as there seemed to be an inordinate number of book stores to serve a small population, but when Barnes and Noble came to town all but one of them shut down within a year. People who knew the owners of these stores, their friends and long time customers all chose to go to a large chain bookstore because of their vastly superior selection. While talking to a knowledgable bookseller is always pleasant and often a great way to find out about books, that little service apparently did not outweigh much lower prices and greater variety. 2) All of this "small independent video store stuff" is moot now. Netflix and believe it or not Wal Mart Movies are going to put them all out of business. Easy, fooll proof, good selection, no late fees. I am the first to get in line to support small retailers, especially if they are vending goods and services that are superior to large chain stores, but in some cases (books and movies for example) what I want is selection and price and these large retailers provide this. Judging from their success I would say that I am not alone in this as we are not talking about food here (which we should be) but items that are truly purchased with extra income. And since books are available in public libraries, that expense becomes even more a matter of choice. I do choose to shop at my local seafood and vegetable markets, small meat vendors (we have at least two superior butcher operations here) and I gnerally buy most of my groceries at a small family owned (but great) grocery store. But those choices are being made by someone who considers food to be one of the most pleasurable parts of his life and who can afford to pay alittle more for quality stuff. The average person goes to Wal Mart (I am talking groceries here, as they are by for the largest grocery in South Louisiana) because the selection is good, the produce is ok, and the prices are rock bottom. It is a sound economic decision and I would much rather see them make this choice than head to BK 7 times a week. The real question remains- How do you get people to shop in stores, any stores, before they choose to go get fat laden fast food?

I love gadgets, but as for essentials- Locking tongs Calphalon pro cookware (including a flat bottom wok that I seem to use a ton) 75 year old 18" roasting pan with tight lid and removable rack in bottom Reverware double boiler (it must be 30 years old) Assortment of cast iron stuff, all old, all used often Assorted wooden spoons (last round of them I bought in MX for cheap) 8" Sabatier Chef's knife Serrated knife of unknown origin with offset handle Heavy Chinese Cleaver for whacking the crap out of just about anything 12" Butchers Scimitar (scary and useful) Japanese fish knife (brand unknown) that could easily be used for surgery Lots of stainless and plastic bowls of various sizes A couple of GIANT crockware bowls that are great for bread making operations And, last but not least, a 1950's era O'Keefe and Merritt stove that has 4 large burners, a griddle and a double oven. It has been completely rebuilt, looks like new, and cooks like a champ. It looks great in my kitchen and while I could certainly replace it with some fancy European job, I can't ever make sense out of it. I love that stove.

I am sorry for those of you that seem to equate food at home with tasteless glop. It was not the case in my hme when I was a kid or very many of the kids I knew. I am pretty sure that we all ate fairly weel, some better than others, but no tv dinners (I never ate one until I was 20 and in college). I was born in 1961. I grew up in comfortable curcumstances with a mother in the house who cooked, pretty much three meals a day, for the 25 years that she had children in the house. The food she prepared was the polar opposite of tasteless. These meals consisted of interesting food that was not always what many of you think of as "Southern Food". Lot's of seafood, fish (freshwater mostly, caught locally, or redfish and speckeled trout). She i s now in her seventies and can still rattle the pots and pans with the best of them. The average supermarket today is light years away from 25 years ago and in another universe from 50 years ago. In 1975 when you looked in the produce section at the grocery store you might have seen something on the shelf other than iceberg and possibly romaine, but I doubt it. There would have only been a few selections of bread (white, more white, and some kind of french loaf in an aluminum bag with garlic goop all over it). We are much better off today. But I do differ with you, Robyn, on one thing here-yard chickens are an amazing taste treat. Real chickens fed real grain and allowed to grow and develop naturally just beat the hell out of industrial chickens. I do miss them and it is not nostalgia, I still get one occasionally when I go visit relatives and they are night and day better than their caged neighbors. Absolutely correct. If you are not shopping for bargains you are wasting money. While everything at Wal Mart and others like them may not be top notch, their diapers, canned goods, etc are just like everybody elses and a whole lot less expensive (generally) than the average Winn Dixie. This,in fact, is the crux of this whole discussion. How to get the average person out of the fast food lane and into the checkout lane at the supermarket. The next step is to teach these people that there is more out there than canned peas and carrots, but that is reaching. The real issue is that we have a country that is turning into a country of fat people because they either don't know enough, or care enough, to cook healthy meals at home. Clearly education is probably part of the answer, although I don't know what kind-perhaps if public service ads would work to teach people how much money they could save by not eating garbage (both on food costs and health care) that might help. This argument seems to continually be digressing into Wal Mart and big discount chains when in fact the big corporations that need to change the way that they do business are fast food chains and McAppleback's.

No, sadly I was preparing a healthy homecooked meal for my family . I think most of the people who saw it were eating tv dinners and bags of burger takeout with supersize fries and megawhammo sodas . I am now preparing to watch The Hebrew Hammer on Comedy Central with the well fed Little Mayhaws. It looks like it could be great or really suck, could go either way

But by implying moral importance to artisinal and organic foods and saying that companies such as Wal-Mart and ADM are evil (which often saturates this site, especially on more political threads such as this one), I think one can conclude that many members here do believe that everyone should be cooking every meal from home using organic ingredients. I'll try to deal with the Decline and Fall of the Culinary Empire later when I have more time. I absolutely do not believe that everyone can or should be eating organic swellness from Whole Foods. What I do believe, especially for people with limited incomes and to some degree limited time because the must work more to meet basic needs, is that MOST people are better off shopping well (at Wal Mart or anywhere else, as long as they are buying decent food, which is impossible at my local Wal Mart as far as meat is concerned) and preparing it in a healthy way. It is better for their families health wise and it is a damn sight better economically as far as stretching an already tight budget. And as far as time in preperation goes, things can be made ahead of time and frozen or meals can just be simple and good. I am absolutely not talking haute here, but I am talking about something better than McAppleback's (hell, with just a little effort and practice most people can learn to make anything, even desserts- Just think, Mom could practice and impress her family with a delicious Antarctic Red Delicious Apple Pie mmmmmmmmmmmm )

Welcome Lucille, As you can see from this thread there are manykinds of people here (including, incredibly, one's who don't like okra ) and I hope that you will continue to post.

Perhaps we should have grocery cart driving school. I will be happy to teach it for a small fee. I would be doing my part to make the world a better place and making a handsome profit. Upon course completion the students will be able to step up and have their id's made. On the next trip to the store they will be able to strip their card through a machine and a cart will then be released to them through the opening of a highly advanced locking mechanism. These id's will be issued in the same building where my new id (working along the same lines as the grocery cart license) for potential purchasers of spandex is located (it will be much easier to get a cart card than a spandex card )

First let me say that I shop for all non food items like a man. Unless I absolutely need help I will refuse it and I will wander endlessly in circles before I will finally ask for direction (Rachel Perlow will be glad to back me up on this ). That being said I love to grocery shop. I have a great vegetable stand in my little town where I get local produce (and most of it is really local, you will regularly see some guy in a junky ass pick up dropping off greens of various sorts and my beloved small okra). There is a great meat market in the nearest town of any size that has some pretty cool upscale items as well. We have a Wednesday and Saturday farmers market that has an amazing array of stuff (including a craft dairy that has Creamline milk that they sell for about 1/2 the price it goes for in the few stores you can find it. THey make great creole cream cheese as well). We have a bunch of great seafood markets in the area and if they don't have anything I have a couple of sources to just call and see who has what and I go pick it up at the dock or their house. For most other grocery needs there is an excellent small, family owned chain of groceries located mostly in small towns in South La. called Rouse's Family Market. They are almost as cheap as Wal Mart on staples and a hell of a lot less crowded. We also have a place in the FQ in New Orleans so I get a chance to go to Whole Food and Dorignac's pretty often. That takes care of pretty much everything. Paper goods and household stuff usually is bought in bulk about once a month at Sam's (Wal Mart's Wholesale deal, it is like Costco). We eat well at the Mayhaw household and generally have a bunch of guests (very informally, they just know to show up around feeding time, like some kind of deer in the backyard coming to a feeder everyday at the same time ) and I enjoy feeding them too. I do 95% of the kitchen work and I like to bake as well, so everyone is happy with this arrangement. I can knock out a pretty decent meal in about an hour (I'm thinking about trying to start a new program. It will be called Cast Iron Chef. Whaddya think?) Mrs. Mayhaw is no slouch in the kitchen, but she really only enjoys cooking when it is a big production and she makes a huge mess that she has no intention of ever cleaning up , so we all prefer I take care of it. Besides, I get home at 3 and my schedule is more conducive to getting a meal on the table before midnight.

Did you bake the crust at all before adding tomatoes and basil? Seems like you would need to do this in a wet pie (and I love this pie, make it alot in the summer with garden stuff)?

I don't know if you saw it in it's original inception, but let me put it like this. Had you been watching a parade on St Charles avenue in 1997 and you were standing in front of this building, you may have become confused and turned and yelled "Throw me Something Mr." to revelers on the balcony of the building because you had become confused about which was the float and which was the building

Excellent thoughts MSG. I do think that a distinction needs to be drawn between food that is good for you and food that people think is good. The term "good food" is used for both of these (though by different groups) and the truth is one of the groups listed above (food that people think is good) can contain either some, none, or all of the first group (food that is good for you). There is nothing wrong with Denny's as an institution (and I will mount a well planned defense of Waffle House at the first sign of attack ) per se, the problem comes when the person eating in Denny's chooses to eat the over and aver again. The food, while perfectly fine (not for many of us in terms of taste, but we are talking l.c.d. here) is calorie and fat laden and over a period of time is bound to cause all of the things that fat and calories cause (obesity, heart trouble, etc.). My point is that the average person needs to rethink the way he eats, both for health reasons and for ones that are more economic in nature. One "plate o' eggs 'n bacon" is not going to hurt anybody in the long run and can certainly be satisfying if decently prepared, but 10 meals worth of this kind of fare, 52 weeks a year, is going to cause someones health to deteriorate pretty quickly. And people really do this. I am not talkinabout going to Denny's 10 times a week, but many families and individuals do pretty close to what I described above. My children go to a school where the average income of the families there is well in excess of $100,000. I am in the older group of parents. I am 42 and have a 13 year old and an 11 year old. I will say that we are outside of the norm, food wise, even for our peers (mainly because I like to cook and shop and have the time and the energy and the money and the facilities to do both) and I base this fact on this scenario: I go to soccer games 3 or 4 days per week. I sit in the stands with the same parents and listen to their conversations with their smaller children and other moms and parents. I can say, without stuttering, that on the average night 8 out of 10 of these families are heading for either straight up fast food or something close, like Mc Appleback's. They don't cook. Some of them actually know how (being raised in the south in a middle class home used to mean you automatically learned how to cook and it still does to some degree) but choose not to because it is wither too much trouble or there is a percieved lack of time. These moms (generally) don't work and have plenty of time to cook and even if they only did it one day a week and froze the proceeds for later use, they would be better off both healthwise and economically. And don't fool yourself thinking they are eating like this on "event night". They do it all the time. My children have friends who have told me that they eat pizza 3 or 4 times a week. The result of this is going to be a second or third generation of kids that think big kitchens are like big expensive cars. It's great to have Heinkel's and copper pots and pans hanging all round and a great appliances, but only to show them off. People don't really want to get that kitchen dirty anymore than you want to mess up that car. It's just window dressing. Let 'em eat pizza