annecros

Here's a discussion on a similar method. http://www.shaboomskitchen.com/breadbox/wingboysbread.html All very interesting and makes sense. I think the hot pot for baking is a stroke of genius. I have just the LC piece for this. Anne

Cool! I am going to give this a shot. I am very arthritic, most notably in my hands, and have found over the last several years that keeping my patience while kneading has become more and more difficult for me. Especially in cooler or changing weather when I most crave a loaf of bread in the oven. Thanks. I'm excited! Anne

LOL! I would be freaked too! Want to compare Turkey Platters? The painted bottle was a gift from my stepdaughter a couple of Christmas's ago. Everything else was put together between things my mother gave me and trips I took going through used furniture stores, garage sales and thirft shops with my Mom. I am in way South Florida now, but originally from Southwest Georgia (Albany) and much of my (large) family is scattered all over the Southeast. Want to get rid of those napkins? I picked up that table cloth only about a month ago at a thrift store for 50 cents. Best buy I've made in a long time, but matching napkins would be cool! Mom was given the cookbook in 1971 by a cousin of hers, according to the notation in the frontsipiece. Isn't it a blast to read? Good thing hubby didn't pick one of the woodcock recipes. We just had the leftovers a few minutes ago. The green glass I've mostly collected on my own, with some help from a sister and Mom who kept an eye out for it and would pick something up if it looked like a deal. I have six full place settings, cake plate, two platters, egg plate, two sets of six wine glasses different shapes, two vegetable bowls, and the full three piece cannister set. My other stepdaughter recently used it as the containers for her flowers at her wedding, but my daughter has called dibs on it and is willing to fight to the death. Yes, the curtains repeat the pattern and have a scalloped hem. Hey, good taste is good taste. They are lovely when a breeze is blowing through them, aren't they? Anne

Me three. I brined for a couple of years, but the last two years it has been presalting instead. It seems to be a happy medium, and I am very happy with the results. I am also a butter soaked cheesecloth roaster.

What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday with my husband! I decided to pull out one of my "doorstop" cookbooks. This one in particular is one of those that I go to when I feel like curling up with a good book and reading, but have never actually cooked out of it. It is one of the cookbooks given to me by my mother from her vast collection. As far as I can tell, this is the revised edition of the first cookbook, and the third printing of the first edition of this encyclopedia compiled by the editors of Gourmet magazine in 1968. It weighs a ton. In the spirit of the thing, I had my husband select the recipes. For the main course he selected "Beef Roulades in Red Wine" because it was a dish that his mother prepared a version of for his family on special occaisions, and one that I had never cooked. The vegetable was a tossup between brussel sprouts or asparagus. The asparagus at the market looked much better, so "Asparagus a la Polonaise" it was. My husband's contribution to the plate was "Salzkartoffeln" or quite simply potatoes boiled in salt water. Not in the cookbook, but what his mother always served with the dish, and used up some golden potatoes I had in the cupboard. Turned out to be the perfect starch. Here's dinner: What I learned: 1. This is a great cookbook! All the recipes are written in a narrative format, and the techniques and instructions are clear and concise. 2. The roulades (sirloin steak pounded thin, thin layer of sausage, chopped parsley and onion) were amazing. They were braised for an hour, after browning in bacon fat, in red wine with a tablespoon of tomato paste, finished with some chopped olive at the end. The resulting gravy was an amazing sort of rich sweet and sour. I learned some braising technique beyond my usual, and the flavor profile was an entirely new one to me. 3. Polonaise is so good! I was a bit skeptical at first, and wondered if there was a typo in the recipe and looked it up in other books to be sure, because I just couldn't picture it. It is simply a stick of melted butter, quarter cup of bread crumbs, and chopped parsley and boiled egg at the finish. Wonderful! The bread crumbs really carried the butter well, and the egg and asparagus are a great combo. 4. Keep it simple. Those potatoes were perfect, and great with both sauces! Prepared by hubby, the resident Kraut. In the future: 1. Use husband's Oma recipe. Bacon instead of sausage, a dill spear in the middle of the roulade and no olives, otherwise identical. 2. Polonaise is a good thing. Thanksgiving I think I am going to substitute pecans for the boiled egg and use it on broccoli. This was great fun! All photo credits to my husband.

This was a new one for us last year, Blue Cranberry Sauce! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blue-Cranberr...uce/Detail.aspx I think I will do a congealed version this year, as I have two walls full of antique copper molds that really should get an outing sooner or later. We loved it! It went over very well the the canned cranberry sauce crowd, and I did reduce the spices a bit and added a few raspberries, as many reviewers reccomend. The blueberries really do something for the cranberries!

Very nice, those grits look perfect! I haven't tried the catfish stew, and honestly am not too fond of catfish, but now I think I may give it a go. I like "In Persuit of Flavor" better than her other books, but they are all good. At least post a link over on the Cooking with Edna Lews thread. You are doing a fine job of bringing those recipes to life, as usual! Anne I may have to jump in here, as I gaze at my bookcase, there are several candidates...

Everything looks great Mike! My husband had a deeply ingrained dislike of okra when I met him, but has since seen the light and eats a higher percentage of any okra dish prepared than any other individuals in the house. Interestingly enough, the first time he actually enjoyed okra was boiled with baby limas, a preparation that most okra haters point to when discussing the evils of okra. I think he had only had it overcooked in the past. It doesn't have to be cooked into slimy mush, so don't think that way in preparing it. Stick with fresh okra, and with small pods. Larger pods are almost always tough and stringy. A simple quck coat in self rising white cornmeal seasoned with salt and pepper, then panfried in bacon grease (not the inch thick coating and deep fry) should make a believer out of anybody. Besides, it is incredibly nutritious and its use as a thickening agent is wonderful. Gives real body to the pot likker in the pot of peas or butter beans. OH, and pickled okra is a whole 'nother experience, if you like the taste and texture from that first bite. Edna Lewis would not mind anything you post, I would think. I know I would sit down to that plate of tamales!

There are actually quite a few "Pumpkin Pecan Pie" recipes out there. Perhaps you can just omit the pecans? Here are a couple that are nice: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/104141 http://www.karosyrup.com/pecanPie.asp?recipe_id=516 Anne

Cliff is my favorite as well. I just like him.

Speaking of surprises along the way, if you have not had the opportunity yet NYCMike, you must try Yoder’s Deitsch Haus in Montezuma, Georgia. Not too far a drive from you. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g3512...ma_Georgia.html http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=1769 or better yet, The White House Farm Bed and Breakfast, then lunch at Yoder's http://www.bbonline.com/ga/whitehouse/ Mom and I used to ride the road looking for antique and junk shops, and dropped in there regularly. Amazing place. Anne

At our uneducated first glance I think we are looking at BBQ, Soul Food (if that is correct terminology for Southern/chicken, greens, corn bread etc), Cajun, Creole and any other little surprises we can find along the way. All of the above being "Southern" in origin although very different from each other in most other respects. Best example I can give of a little surprise is the Miss. Delta Tamale Trail. For us that association has always been with Mexican food but based on history it is also remarkably "Southern". Fun for us, I'm having tamales for dinner tonight! ← Actually, the correct term for "Soul Food" in the south is just plain food, or "Home Cooking" if you want to differentiate it from grilled chicken breasts and steamed broccoli. I would hesitate to leave out South Carolina personally, but I have had the advantage of eating a great deal of Home Cooking from that part of the country. Some of those on this thread that have chimed up about the midwest or the heartland have surprised me a bit, but it makes sense when you look at the settlers, where they came from, and the natural resources they have to work with. That all being said, it's all good, and fun to think about and explore. Anne

I found a couple of books from my childhood that I never thought I would find, and couldn't find elsewhere, at this site: http://search.rubylane.com/search?ss=cookbook Anne These four are especially neat http://search.rubylane.com/antiques/,ss=cookbook.html

Wow, I got 52% Dixie on that one! Went from bad to worse. Edit to add: I took the "avanced" test and scored 74%, so a little better, it still only described my neck as a "little rosy" instead of red. Some of those questions I found follow some yankee stereotypes of how southerners speak, and do not reflect the realities of regional dialects. For example, most southerners would not hesitate to tell you that they can tell the difference in a Southern Accent from state to state. I can detect a difference between my home state of Georgia (Southwest Georgia to be exact), Alabama, Gulf area Florida, Central and Southern Florida, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Lousiana, Texas, and Virginia stick out like a sore thumb to me. KIN-TUKKY is very idoisyncratic. Not just accents, but word usage as well. In my home town of Albany, Georgia, the word "Aunt" is pronouned three ways pretty evenly divided by multi-generational residents (Albany is somewhat of a black hole, those that are born there rarely leave, and those that pass through generally just pass through) 1. Ant 2. Ain't 3. Unt

I wound up 78% Dixie, but I agree with others that some of those questions aren't that indicative of your background. I think the diversity in the South is the issue. They must have geared this to the Altantic Coast Southern states, from what I can tell from the questions.

From Food History News (fascinating site!) ← Wow Carrot Top, thank you so much for the link, and the SAS site is dynamite. My daughter is a double major in anthropology and english, and I am sure she will find the SAS site helpful. Anne Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Southern Cuisine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_th...n_United_States The articles list Soul food, Creole, Cajun, Lowcountry, and Floribbean as subcuisines, with several links out. The Southern Foodways Alliance is listed as a source. I was pleased to see the Floribbean food included. A large part of the population in South Florida is from the Islands, and the food has many southern characteristics.

One more brief post, to keep things on topic, then I promise to shut up! Typical Creek Indian diet: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~cmamcrk4/crk4.html "The Creek Indians raised maize or corn in the fields outside the walls to their villages. The ears were roasted over fires, then the corn was dried and the kernels pounded into meal for corn bread, ghost bread, or hard bread plus there was parched corn for travel. A soup was also prepared from corn; it was called sofkee and bits of venison might be added to it if available. The sofkee pot was kept bubbling over the fire and family members ate when they wished. They also raised squash, beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, sunflowers for seeds. Fish, game and fresh water mussels provided an excellent source of protein for their diets. Berries were found growing wild in fields and forests -- blackberries, mulberries and strawberries. The roots of the lovely smilax vine was also harvested, as was the kunti --both were good starchy vegetables. Honey could be gathered from beehives in the forests. In the 18th century, because of the contact with traders, the Creeks began to cultivate fruit trees and so had access to many fruits -- apples, pears, orange, pears. It is written that Alexander McGillivray had apple trees at Hickory Ground. They also added peas and carrots to their crops. Poultry and hogs were showing up in barnyards and gave greater variety to diet. They acquired nets and traps for better hunting and fishing. Sugar, rice, and wheat flour began to appear in the villages." For the record, "sofkee" is hominy. Alexander McGillivray was a Creek Chief, and if you have some spare time, googling Mary Musgrove (an Indian Pricess) is very interesting. Here is the recipe for Sofkee, Sofky, Osafki: "Sofky (correct form "osafki" -- Hominy): Shell good, clean and dried flint corn fromt the cob, enough to have a peck or more of the shelled grain to prepare sofky for several meals. Cover the shelled corn with cool water, and soak over night. Pound the soaked corn, or a portion, lightly in a wooden mortar enough to break the grains in half. Place the pounded corn in a fanner, and clean out the hulls. Put the clean, broken grain into a large vessel, cover with water and boil until thoroughly done. Add water if necessary from time to time to keep the hominy in a loose fluid. When it is cooked thoroughly, add ash-lye solution in the proportion of a cupful to a gallon of the boiling hominy, stirring it regularly for it will scorch easily. Boil the hominy with the ash-lye solution for at least another half house, then pour it into a stone jar to keep and serve. The Creek informant for this method of making sofky added an old saying: "As long as the Indian can eat and drink osafki, he will not go dead." Based on a manuscript of penciled notes written by Charles Gibson (Creek) of Eufaula in 1918 sent to Dr. Joseph B. Thoborn."

A little South Florida history here: http://www.historical-museum.org/history/southfla.htm From the site: "The first permanent white settlers in the Miami area arrived in the early 1800s. During the decades that followed, a wide variety of individuals left their mark on the history of this area. In the 1830s, statesman Richard Fitzpatrick from South Carolina operated, with slave labor, a successful plantation on the Miami River. He cultivated sugar cane, bananas, corn and tropical fruit. Major William S. Harney, in command at Ft. Dallas which was located on Fitzpatrick’s Planatation on the north bank of the Miami River, led several raids against the Indians during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). George Ferguson made $24,000 in 1850 by selling the comptie starch he manufactured in his mill farther up river. Carpetbagger William Gleason dominated Dade County politics during the Reconstruction Era. A few years later, Kirk Munroe, well known writer of books for boys, built a home in Coconut Grove. Many of the other settlers were homesteaders, attracted to the area by offers of 160 acres of free land by the federal government. And nearly everyone took an interest in the wrecking industry--the salvaging of cargo from ships wrecked on the Florida reefs. Those pioneer days, when the mail came once a week, travel was primarily by sailboat, children attended one-room schoolhouses, and the trading post was the lone store, ended with the arrival of Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway. Soon there were doctors and lawyers, shoe stores and hardware stores, electric lights and telephones." Slave labor, Carpetbaggers... How Southern can you get? I still contend that the Native American influence on Southern cuisine is vastly under appreciated. Everyone is well aware of the history of the "Trail of Tears" but few appreciate the signifant percentage of the Creek population that assimilated into society, though with some prejudice. Particulary in Georgia, which was a penal colony, and the Carolinas, men outnumbered women and two ancestors of mine married young Creek women out of an "orphanage" in the Carolinas where some of the poorer Native American families would place thier daughers. The Native Americans in South Flordia were the Tequesta. The "Seminoles" were not a single tribe of Native Americans and were not indigenous to the area, but migrated while fleeing persecution further north. http://www.flheritage.com/facts/history/seminole/ From the site: "Seminole history begins with bands of Creek Indians from Georgia and Alabama who migrated to Florida in the 1700s. Conflicts with Europeans and other tribes caused them to seek new lands to live in peace. Groups of Lower Creeks moved to Florida to get away from the dominance of Upper Creeks. Some Creeks were searching for rich, new fields to plant corn, beans and other crops. For a while, Spain even encouraged these migrations to help provide a buffer between Florida and the British colonies. The 1770s is when Florida Indians collectively became known as Seminole, a name meaning "wild people" or "runaway." In addition to Creeks, Seminoles included Yuchis, Yamasses and a few aboriginal remnants. The population also increased with runaway slaves who found refuge among the Indians. " The Creek were very settled and agrarian. Tending crops and keeping livestock when European settlers arrived in the new world. I still point to the Corn Culture as a strong influence on Southern food and behaviour, though the African American influence is vivid in the okra, peas and melons we love - and most probably a huge influence on the preparation of wild game, along with the Native Americans who were familiar with the indigenous wild life. I would still expect a European to be the most skilled in methods of preparing leafy greens. Sausage? I would look to Europe as well. Deep frying in fat? Well, I would guess that developed as a means to an end... Anne Edit to add: A bit more on the Creek Indians here: http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/indians/Creek/creek01.html

I ran into this last winter. Darling sis came to visit, and because she was coming to South Florida in February, I decided to treat her to a farm fresh veggie meal. Cooked half a day to have it ready when she arrived. Long story short - she had just started her Atkins diet two days before.

After seeing Tyler Florence on Sandra Lee's (she kept bending over to show us her cleavage) Halloween special, making semi-homade pizzas with pregrated cheddar cheese, I guess I have to revise my opinion of him downward.

Fun! Do you go to several different grocery stores? Yep, three major chains, two meat markets, a meat and seafood warehouse, and a Farmer's Market Do you clip coupons? Yes, but I invariably forget them at home. I also have discount cards for two of the major chains I shop What do you usually buy at the grocery store? Staples and non perishables - rice, beans, canned goods, dog food... Do you tend to buy more meat or more produce? Depends upon which door I am darkening. Are you too ashamed to make purchases from the "reject bin?" Absolutely not! I love clearance and discontinued items as well. Do you make a list? Almost never. I just buy what looks good or what is on sale. How many refridgerators and pantries do you have for food storage? Two fridges, one large pantry, and lots of cabinet space for commonly used items that need to be handy in the kitchen. Do you enjoy grocery shopping as much as I do? I love it!

So where are we? Is this the consensus?: South Carolina Mississippi Florida (living in South Florida personally, while the retirees have quite an influence and I can go Kosher or Vietnamese two blocks from my home, there are still some crackers down here that are decidedly southern. My meat market does a frisky business in Hog Maws and Chitlins') Alabama Georgia Louisiana Texas (at the very least eastern Texas) Virginia West Virginia Southern Maryland (Baltimore area for sure, but doesn't it turn into Pennsylvania fare further inland?) District of Columbia Arkansas Tennessee North Carolina Missouri Kentucky (Come on, Colonel Sanders and Bourbon?) I am sure there are fuzzy borders all over. This is a great discussion, thanks NYCMike. Anne Edit to add: Would someone from Oklahoma speak up one way or another?

No. Cowboy food is not Southern food. I think most people from Texas would agree that, with respect to culture and cuisine, Texas is a region unto itself. ← It certainly is. If you want to group it in with another region, you can. As long as that region isn't the south. ← Pecan Pie? Are you telling me that Dallas doesn't make a mean, corn syrup based, pecan pie? Just asking.

No. Cowboy food is not Southern food. I think most people from Texas would agree that, with respect to culture and cuisine, Texas is a region unto itself. ← Well, yeah, you guys like to feel special.... Calling a little pond a "tank" of all things. Still a bunch of rebels, though.

Well, I spent some time in Arlington, TX back when I was single, young, and still had a fire in my belly. I had the priviledge of being courted by the epitome of Southern Gentlemen, Bill who worked at the Bomber Plant. Robert E. Lee himself would have felt rude in his presence. Culturally, he and his friends and the majority of those I met (including Mexicans, who if thier forebears are Mexican "Indians" are truly Native to the American Continent) were uniformly slow speaking and absolutely old fashioned in their manner. As far as diet and food are concerned, I would have to point out the corn culture. Masa is cornmeal, after all, and to be fair so are polenta and grits. However, corn and tomatoes arrived in the Old Word, after being discovered and being utilized in the new world. Peppers and BBQ are a whole 'nother story, though our European settlers had a great influence in sausage making. I had some great biscuits and cornbread in Texas, and could purchase grits and okra in the grocery store. Beef based instead of pork? Sure, but cows grow better there than pigs. I agree with you that in the whole state basis is rather limiting. However, we were asked to draw geographic lines.