Mayhaw Man

Divinity is tough, especially here. I only attempt it in the Winter when the humidity is really low (for here that would be sub 40%). I am not good at it, but my Mom can do it and so can one of my brothers. I am the family champ on Pralines though. I can knock out a triple batch in 45 minutes from start to cleanup. One thing you don't see much anymore, that used to be really common at Church events and stuff, is Hummingbird Cake. I love that stuff and make it everyonce in a while, but I don't even know that many people who know what it is. I forgot about Durkees. I used to love dipping sliced ham into that stuff. Kind of thick and sticky, but with a nice spicy bite.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I will try again. This is eGullet. We are a site dedicated to the discussion of food and dining in all imaginable facets. There are occasions when food needs to be discussed in political terminology. That's fine. Just as long as it is not partisan or personal. As far as being "not fond of non food issues", not only are we not fond of them, we pretty much don't tolerate them in large amounts. The user agreement is very clear about that and if you have any questions I suggest you give it another read. A post here and there is unavoidable and probably not even a bad thing, but a thread that goes completely astray will be repaired quickly. Above, when I mentioned deleting posts, I was referring to the personal nature that this thread was taking and that, while the discussion is interesting and in many ways vital to what this forum is all about, I would not hesitate to whack posts, at will, if it continued in that direction. I am pretty sure that everyone here understands and I will not bring it up again. Now, as far as the SFA and it's goals-I could not be any more proud to be a part of that organization. Anyone who questions what it is all about should take some time to look at the website and see just how all encompassing and all inclusive it really is. And as far as race and food goes-they are inextricably linked here in the South and the discussion that took place last October in Oxford could not have been any more interesting. I just wish that there had been more time for open discussion. The speakers were top notch and the subjects covered fascinating. And just for the record, socioeconomic issues permeate everything everywhere. It's silly to argue otherwise. The subect matter here once again, is dissappearing Southern Food. Let's stick to that. That subject alone really should be plenty to talk about all by itself.

I'm stuck at work today and, although I am sure that I can find something else to do, just read through your whole blog and really enjoyed it. Great job and so many small details! Thanks for taking the time . Brooks

I am thinking that, since many of you have never had the experience (and I am sure that you feel something is missing in your dining resume due to this culinary oversight), perhaps some Possum and Taters might be a fine addition to this event. It just so happens that I know just where there is a ready supply of possums. All I have to do is open my back door about 10 at night and aim towards the catfood. MMMM, grain fed possum! No, they don't taste like chicken. Think of them as little, tiny hogs.

As for the cabinet painting, I live with a painter. A very good one. A really anal retentive, annoying, we're gonna do it my way or your life is gonna be a miserable pit of living hell, kinda gal. We painted over a bunch of maple cabinets with oil based Kilz and then followed that with oil based semi gloss. Yes it stinks. Yes it's hard to clean up. Yes it's bullet proof and you can pretty much take any kind of cleanser that you want to them for cleanup. I highly reccomend oil based paint, as opposed to water based products. You will find yourself enjoying a decent paint job much longer. Every bit of woodwork in our house has been done this way and, even as I stand in my pit of a kitchen disaster, the moulding on the ceiling still looks great.

I know that I am one of the lucky ones. My mom can cook. Really cook. I would pay extremely good money to eat what she puts on the table. But, even if she couldn't, I would still be glad to sit at her table and I hope that I get to do that for many, many years to come. And no, she still won't let any of us cook-even though a couple of us boy can handle it as well as she can, at this point. But that's ok by me. I'll have my boys at my house someday and they won't be able to cook because I won't let them. I 'll have my time. I'm just glad I have then one with my mom now, you know? But I know exactly how you feel, and believe me, I used to fight it (til I was about your age, 15 years later I am happy enough to accept it and get on with my life)

Might I be the first to reccomend some pimento cheese and some okra. You can learn all about it here on eGullet! Your source for the better things in life.

Before I begin this post let me say just how hard I am trying to keep from deleting some of this stuff as I believe that, once again, some users are trying to bring out the worst in others. That being said, I may still delete a number of these posts if this otherwise fascinating thread continues to drift into the political arena away from food. I have been watching this thread with interest as it brings up some very good points. As everyone who has ever read any of my three thousand posts knows, I am from the South. It's not a contest, and if it was I probably wouldn't win, but I'd be in the hunt. My family is from the two sides of the thing. My father's family background is that of hardscrabble backwoods redneck folk who cut wood and worked in paper mills(I should point out, in case he reads this, that he is a very successful attorney with a wall full of degrees from respectable places ). My mother's family has been here since Georgia was England and ain't never been in the poor house. The one thing that my two grandmother's had in common was food. They had grown up eating pretty much identical things. They had little in common other than the South. One was raised in East Texas pretty well to do, and the other was raised inmill towns in South Arkansas, pretty well poor. But they could both cook, both bake, both were genius level candy cooks, and they both took great pride in their skills. These were passed on to the next generation and have now been passed on to me. I make stuff from scratch and so do my brothers. I put up peas, butter beans, chow chow, relish, pickles, jelly, etc. just like they did. I know lots of people that do. It is anything, this Southern Food thing, but dying. What it is though, is at home. The Southern Food that is being referred to is food that people eat at home. Not only did people not eat out here on a regular basis for the first 2/3 of the twentieth century, but they didn't even go out much. It was, and is among some of us anyway, all about family and gathering. While many of you put together a big meal for a few holidays a year, there are still some of us who get together alot and just eat and laugh and cry and fight and love. It's what we do. It's not dying. Now, one thing I will agree with here, is that the rural Southern traditions have changed. People work away from small farms (good thing, hard to make a living that way, always has been), and now, when they can find a decent job, it's usually in a city or in a factory located outside of one (car plants seem to be very popular here, due to cheap labor and a work force that actually works). There are alot more people eating out because of two workers in families and also because there is a hell of a lot more expendable income than 50 years ago. So people eat out. But one thing that has changed very little is what happens when families gather. Out comes the stuff that is familiar and, for lack of a better term, comforting. Tables groaning with peas, cornbread (sweet and unsweet-they are both just fine and some people like one and some the other-the whole argument there is kind of rediculous), butter beans, chicken, pork, turkey, casseroles (a highly underrated category, in my book) of all kinds, desserts out the wazoo, and lots of good coffee. Some football action out in the yard and then a big nap for the whole bunch. Maybe some late afternoon card or board games and then out come the leftovers and another delicious repast. People, lots and lots of people, still do this stuff, and I am not just talking about the great unwashed masses mentioned above, but regular people. Regular working folks who have a little more money now, but still have the ability to identify what's good and what's important. A romantic vision? Maybe a little. But not much. Try to find an open restaurant on a holiday in any small or medium size town in the South. Good luck. If it's not a chain or a hotel, it probably won't be open. There is no tradition of eating out on holidays here. Holidays are meant for family and home, and even though you can always take your family out to eat, people would rather be at home. No. The foodways here are alive and well, just different and evolving. Frankly, I wish more people would look past the end of their noses to see them. They might be suprised.

Hah! We have grits at just about every holiday meal. And I just had a fabulous new kind of cheese grits that are even mo bettah than the old tried and true version I always love (new kind served at the lunch after my aunt's funeral last week, I have a whole post about the food that showed up at my Mom's house when I get to it-ya wanna talk Southern? You shoulda seen it. Too bad somebody has to die to get it together like that-and even more luckily, The Synagogue two doors down from my mom's house was having their annual corn beef sandwich and bake sale on the same day as the funeral-the corn beef sandwiches, thin and spindly-but the cakes? Oh Boy! What a bake sale! Delta Jewish Women may be a disappearing breed (really), but man, the ones that are left? They can bake like crazy!). Sadly, I will have to find somewhere to put the recipe around here, maybe I'll go find an old thread. A finer demise for a grit never existed. But not on the relish tray. That would be tacky, not to mention messy.

But it's Pickled Okra! It tastes like, well, Pickles-only better. You really should get out more, Melissa. There's a brave new world waiting for you, just outside of your door. Turn the handle and step out into it!

With the exception of a year in Mexico, one year at Mr. B's (due to the miraculous events surrounding Tulane's one and only undefeated season) and one Thanksgiving Day that I spent at The Fairgrounds, I have spent every major holiday meal of my life sitting at a table in The Delta of North Louisiana. The folks around the table have changed over the years, what with death, birth, divorce, war, peace, and myriad other factors-but the one thing that has not changed a lick is the relish tray. It would seem that both of my grandmothers, my mother, my mother in law, and I (although never officially used on a holiday, as we never can convince them that they should come to our house) all have the same kind of cut glass (not crystal, GLASS) tray (this is regardless to what the other china/crystal happens to be, some of these women have enough of that stuff to have a state dinner) And the other thing that they all have in common is what goes in it. Celery stalks lined with homemade pimento cheese shot out of a Rival squirt gun (they all have the same one, aluminum with copper colored top and bottom-the one that used to come with the now extinct and highly valued "cheese straw star") Canned, pitted, large black olives Green olives with pimientos (sometimes with something other than pimientos-but this departure is often met with suspicion) Pickled Okra Sliced dill pickles (sliced length wise) Little, tiny, pickled gherkins Bread and butter pickles Cocktail Onions (lately the kind in balsamic, a popular decision after initial resistance from the rut bound diners) All of this is usually served along side of a tray full of deviled eggs. So, my question is, do you and your family have a tradition of this kind and if you do, what goes on the tray? Is this a "Southern Thing" primarily and if it's not, what do our Yankee brethren have in the middle of their table or at the left end of their buffet?

First of all, once again, Jinmyo cuts to the heart of the matter-they should be "individually annointed". After that, well, you should annoint them with: Ketchup Ketchup with curry (try it, really, it's delicious-think curried tomatoes) Really strong blue cheese dressing Brown Gravy (hey, so I did learn something in Canada this summer! ) Zatarains's Mustard Crystal Hot Sauce (or even better, Crystal Wing Sauce-hard to find even here, but a delicious condiment) And always lots of black pepper and good salt. The anti ketchup crowd makes me nervous. Truly. Ketchup is one of our most relazing and user friendly vegetables.

Melissa is on to something with the bacon, and I take it one step further by using a cheesecloth soaked in Olive Oil for part of the process. That link has a brief description and a link to the book (The Cotton Country Collection-Everybody should have one copy) that the recipe is pulled from. The bird turns out great every time and the skin is beyond description. Try it this way once and you will never go back. And my mother once told me that if you will just take the attitude that "a turkey is just a real big chicken" they suddenly become much less daunting. While I have famously ignored alot of her advice (to predictable results, according to her ), I trust her absolutely in matters relating to food, and you can too. That woman knows all about rattling pots and pans to fine result.

Brennan's Milk Punch These things are great. You'll need silver beakers (if you get married here, you get a ton of them as gifts, we must have a dozen).

Ramos Gin Fizz And then, although it is more along the lines of an adapted New Orleans Specialty, The Pimm's Cup, most famously served at the Napoleon House. Napoleon House's Pimm's Cup Listed below is the recipe for Sazerac's. Although Sam is right, it doesn't lend itself to pitchers very well. The Original Sazerac Recipe

If you have a little time to kill, you might find the story of my first turkey fry entertaining. And lest you judge me character completely from this tale of stupidity and wrongheadedness, I have now gotten pretty good at it-although I prefer a smoked one over fried. The wrong way to fry a turkey-Part 1 The Wrong Way to Fry a Turkey-Part 2 Edited to say that there are some helpful (seriously) safety tips at the end, which I came to the hard way. They might save you some trouble.

Yeah, but do you drink it with that powdered non-dairy doesn't-exist-in-nature so-called "creamer?" Like they do in places like Natchez? Dude, that shit is so nasty it ought to be illegal. K ← You don't see that so much in New Orleans as you do in the hinterlands. My sister in law, a well educated, cultured woman in almost every way, actually buys the stuff and keeps it at home. Big honking Costco sized cans of it! I have never figured it out. People do, in fact, love that stuff down here. I never saw it when I was growing up in anyone's home though. Just in commercial places. Part of it has to do with the weather I think. It's hot almost all year round and you have to keep half and half and milk on ice if you are leaving it on a counter. As far as any more excuses. I don't have any. We should consult John T. Maybe he has some research in this area. Or if he doesn't, he can force some hapless graduate student into spending the rest of his career on it.

Dude! That's my point. While an espresso, well made, is truly a fine thing-wonderful, as a matter of fact. The local drinker here is looking for a decent cup of strong dripped coffee with perhaps hot milk, perhaps not. It is really interesting to sit in a shop here and watch people order. There are an inordinate number of young people who, had they been raised elsewhere, would be all over the "latte with a double twist half caf" thing, but instead just step right up and order a "large dark". They walk over to the condiments counter and hit it with some cream or hot milk, and get on with their life. Very Encouraging in my book. THere is hope for the world. The best thing about this is that it moves the lines along. There is nothing worse than jonesing for a cup and gettting in line behind a couple of "new age coffee buffs" who order some of those frozen things, involving a million ingredients, with stuff coming out of it in every direction. Invariably there will be one poor order taker and one over worked shot puller and blender operator. The whole order will take, like, an hour. Meanwhile, I have begun to shake and since I am already caffeine deprived, I am holding my tongue (literally sometimes-it's not pretty to see) and wishing that they would just go to the Zippeee Mart and get a slushee.

Big news Kids! Austin has left the building.

Look, Big Boy, the point here is that we have an indiginous coffee culture and don't need a bunch of panty waist yuppies from Seattle coming in here and telling us that we need to start ordering in foriegn language mish mash when all we really want is a cup of decent quality, very strong, coffee with hot milk in it. Perhaps in New Jersey you need that kind of help. Edit: CC's is an incredibly high quality chain, and their outlet on Royal St. is my favorite coffee drinking spot in the city (with the CC's at Magazine and Jefferson running a close second). And PJ's started with one little place on Maple Street in a bad location (you couldn't even see it from the street) and turned it into a seriously successful concern. Not only that, PJ's is owned by a really smart woman who did it on her own, primarily with women running everything. This may not be so remarkable today, but in New Orleans in the early Eighties, this was not the sort of thing that happened everyday. But all of their success has been based on selling something that people want in a way that was familiar and palatable. You can spend as much money as you want here, but chances are, if it's below average in the taste dept., it ain't gonna fly. So there.

Unless "New Orleanian" has now been registered as an ethnic group, which I am not aware of, I was speaking ethnoinclusively (nice word-is it real? ). We have the largest population of Hondurans in the world outside of Honduras, a huge Vietnamese population, Italians, Irish, and everything in between. The culture is nothing if not diverse and inclusive. You are just as likely to find a couple of ghetto cats eating pho in some dive soup shop as you are a couple of little old Jewish Ladies mowing through tacos and salsa at Taqueria Corona. Nobody here cares where it came from or who cooked it , it's all about the taste and the experience. I think Jaymes hit the nail on the head with her comment about seaports, though. We do seem to be listing an inordinate number of them. As my friend Fred Flames once said, "New Orleans is a city with a low standard of living and an incredibly high quality of life."

It's all about choice, kids. Not so much about politics. Or at least I don't think so anyway. If there are other choices, and the market is interested in something other than McDonald's or McCoffee, or whatever, Starbucks doesn't fight so hard. They are in business to sell stuff and if the market is not interested, they don't sell as much stuff so they don't open as many stores. Market forces prevail in the most real sense. Here in New Orleans, we have tons of coffee and always have. We are either the #1 or #2 coffee port in the world and one of the largest coffee roasters on the planet. People here drink coffee all day long, hot or iced, cold weather or hot, and we have not seen the attack of the Starbucks that many of you seem to be afflicted by. There was a good article in the Picayune, just this morning, covering this subject. It says alot about Starbucks and alot about New Orleans. If you are interested in this thread you shoud probably take the time to read it. Grande Latte? We don't need no stinking Grande Latte

Cowboy Cookies (see the Cotton Country Collection-Jr League of Monroe, LA-1972) Oatmeal, flour, butter, pecans, chocolate chips. What's not to like. Kinda chewy, kinda crunchy. I might make some today. Thanks for the reminder!

It seems to me that this thread shows two very different schools of thought as to what is interesting. High end vs. affordable variety (basic description, clearly it is a bit more complicated than that). I kind of fall into the "affordable variety with an interesting high end factor" school of thought. Using that as the criteria, in North America, I would probably vote for New Orleans. Native cuisine (Creole, Cajun, Creole Italian, etc.) is available along all ends of the service spectrum, and New Orleans has ethnic dining that takes a backseat to no one in terms of variety or quality. People here don't put up with bad food. Whether it be tacos al carbon, pho, gumbo, or an oyster po boy. I am also taking into account that the average guy working in a shipyard here knows more about cooking, dining, and good food than the average middle class guy anywhere in the world. We just eat. To paraphrase Louis Armstrong (a native and a good eater ), most people here don't care where it came from originally because, "if it tastes good, it is good". As a close second I would pick Los Angeles and New York, although once again, in terms of informed diners across the whole socioeconomic spectrum, New Orleans still wins out. New York sure enough has a much broader (both in terms of numbers and ethnic groups) spectrum of restaurants and cultural dining experiences-BUT I don't believe that the crossing of lines is as common as it is in New Orleans. Worldwide, I haven't been everywhere, but I did spend some time in Southeast Aisa when I was still building breweries, and Hong Kong gets my vote. I was blown away by the variety all up and down the line.

It's an interesting place, but since they spiffed up the tour (I'm sure the insurance men told them not to let people just wander around the plant, which is kind of what used to happen) it's not quite as fun. On the other hand, Avery Island is a beautiful part of the country and kind of an anomolie, since it is on a hill (saltdome) and believe me, there aren't too many hills in that part of the world. It's also cane season here. A really good time to drive around. If you would like to see a cane mill close up, the public mill in the middle of Jeanerette is accesible (like it's so accessible that you can get run over while taking pictures, be careful) and if you go on a Tuesday or Thursday, you can go to Lefeune's Bakery and get some of the best fread that you will ever eat and top that off with warm Ginger Bread!