Southerners loyal to their fried cooking

[Gifted Gourmet]

the article from the Asheville (NC) Citizen Times

Another aspect that we in the South are all deeply aware of is the tendency for many southern foods to be fried in either oil or lard. So where did that type of cooking originate and how did it become so very popular? Virtually a trademark of the cuisine?

Southern fondness for fried food can be traced to the antebellum era, according to both Browne and food authority John T. Edge, who considers fried okra "one of the Supreme Being's greatest gifts to mankind." "The presence of African-American cooks who were expert in frying in deep oil brought a taste for such dishes here," says Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance,University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.

In the past, Edge says, Southerners also fried foods because they had so much lard from the many pigs they had butchered and eaten. "That's no longer the case, but it in some ways set the love of fried foods in motion," he says. Also, frying is fast.

This article has some interesting ideas from John T. Edge about frying. Read it and see what it evokes within you ... any opinions on deep frying?

Do you indulge in this practice yourself at home?

Or simply eat it in restaurants?

[fifi]

I have to admit that I make a pretty mean pan fried chicken. I don't do it that often because my previous house had inadequate ventilation and my current apartment has just about none. For new house, I am toying with the idea of an outdoor kitchen area with a honkin' big burner to indulge in my frying tendencies. My chicken is the soaked in buttermilk and floured in a brown paper bag style. No, I didn't get that from James Villas. That is how my great aunt Minnie did it.

My favorite medium for frying is fresh lard. (I make my own. I refuse to use that hydrogenated stuff on the grocery shelves.) If I don't have that, I confess to using Crisco.

Thin fish filets are the next favorite. When I was hanging out with a fishing crowd many years ago, we would often have a big fish fry after a particularly successful trip.

As for the okra... Well... We all know where I stand on that.

[AmbrosiaFood]

Yes, I do deep frying at home. So did my grandparents who lived to their 90's.

It is a part of the soul food culture, and I love it.

[fierydrunk]

Fried food is fantastic and eating it wasn't what has killed any of my family--leave that to carcinogens.

I get a little annoyed however at "overfrying", like bar foods (mushrooms, cheese et al). I think we Southerners figured out what needs to be fried and what doesn't! My fave fried food is chicken livers! I don't think I will convince my beau to eat them though.

[Gifted Gourmet]

More books have appeared from John T. Edge on frying foods, in this case, fried chicken .... article from San Diego papers on his new books

Seemingly possessed by a taste for the demon fat, the prolific food writer made it his mission to travel the nation in search of America's iconic foods. Perhaps it says more about America than it does about Edge that many of the foods he sought prominently feature lard. "Fried Chicken" and "Apple Pie" are the first two in a series of four slim volumes that Edge has penned examining our favorite foods and our deep associations with them.

Edge gobbled it all up, dipped in honey, drizzled with pickle juice or served with waffles and maple syrup at any time of day.  He also got an earful of stories. We have his Southern heritage to thank for the way he highlighted the characters he met as they wielded skillets and fry pots

[andiesenji]

I confess to using Crisco.

Me too.

I keep Crisco on hand for a few things for which it has no match. In particular, baking potatoes.

I have tried every way known to man (or woman for that matter) and keep coming back to greasing them well with plain old Crisco and baking them directly on the oven shelf.

The skin crisps up better than with any other fat (including duck fat) and it virtually disappears.

When done, you would never know that any kind of grease at all had ever been applied to the potato skin.

There is one kind of cookie I make, an oatmeal hermit, that works only with Crisco. And the thing that is very strange is that they taste buttery, yet have not a bit of butter in them.

If they are made with butter, they don't retain their shape and are soft and crumbly, instead of crisp at the edges and chewy in the center.

[fifi]

Andie... You are so right about the potatoes. That is my method as well. Funny that I have never done them with the fresh lard. I will have to try that. Unless I am on a chicken frying binge, I only keep one of the small cans of Crisco in the pantry for the very occasional crust and the potatoes. Lately, I have had difficulty finding good quality, nicely dense pork fat for any large scale lard production so I have had to revert to Crisco. BTW... Other brands need not apply. I made that mistake... once.

[fifi]

Sorry for the double post but I just remembered... I know that the tradition of frying in deep fat came over with the slaves from Africa. But, I read somewhere recently that the native americans also had that tradition of frying in clay pots of goose and bear fat. They would particularly fry whole birds. There is some speculation that that is where the fried turkey tradition of south Louisiana came from. I don't know if that is true and I can't find the source that it came from but that is what I remember. I wonder what other parts of the world have a deep fat frying tradition?

[wcmckinney]

I think this is an interesting article and maybe it says something greater about Southern Cooking: Pork may be the reason there is so much southern "frites."

Lard produces the fat to do the frying, and it is the same pork stock that Momma Dip cites in her quote on Southern vegetables (fried or not).

Admittedly, southern food in general owes a tremendous amount to black culture that came from Africa and the Carribean. I would think that today fried food is so profligate in the South (and the rest of the America) that its origin is almost superfluous.

One of the interesting issues that Southern Fried Cooking raises is healthiness. I know of a few public health programs that are trying to teach "healthy" frying techniques to Southern communities. Probably a good idea.

[bleachboy]

I keep Crisco on hand for a few things for which it has no match.  In particular, baking potatoes.

I have tried every way known to man (or woman for that matter) and keep coming back to greasing them well with plain old Crisco and baking them directly on the oven shelf. 

The skin crisps up better than with any other fat (including duck fat) and it virtually disappears.

When done, you would never know that any kind of grease at all had ever been applied to the potato skin.

Wow. This is the method I use too, and I admit it rocks. However, I also sprinkle kosher salt on the outside of the greased potato. This does three things:

1. It looks cool.

2. It seasons the tasty skin.

3. It draws the moisture out of the potato, resulting in a more fluffy potato (I have not done tests with this, but I read it somewhere).

My mom grew up feeding me potatoes "baked" in a wrapping of aluminum foil. "But that's a steamed potato, mom!" I said. So I made her one using the Crisco-and-kosher-salt method (I like to use high heat, 450 or so) and she agreed it made a vastly superior, more "potatoey" potato.

[FistFullaRoux]

Sorry for the double post but I just remembered... I know that the tradition of frying in deep fat came over with the slaves from Africa. But, I read somewhere recently that the native americans also had that tradition of frying in clay pots of goose and bear fat. They would particularly fry whole birds. There is some speculation that that is where the fried turkey tradition of south Louisiana came from. I don't know if that is true and I can't find the source that it came from but that is what I remember. I wonder what other parts of the world have a deep fat frying tradition?

←

Deep frying a turkey is not a Louisiana tradition. First time I ever saw one was about 7 or 8 years ago...

Regarding southern fried everything - I'm thinking that frying is one of the more efficient cooking methods. You've got this fat that would probably be thrown out anyway - because it would go bad. So you cook something in it trying to get a little more use out of the food. It could be done outside, keeping the inside of the house cool - no heating the cast iron oven, which would stay hot for hours afterward. The fat could be re-used a few times. It provided calories, which for a long time were needed in quantity, no matter how you got them.

And most of all, all you needed was a pot. Find some dead branches, make a fire, and you could cook whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, wherever you wanted.

[lovebenton0]

Fish frys have long been a tradition with SE Native American communities. I'm not saying that they "invented" it, however fish was a major food source for most of the SE. Whether riverine (most common) or coastal, the abundant fish contributed a major part of the diet and a significant measure of protein. Frying is indeed an efficient way to prepare a large amount of food-- anywhere -- in a short period of time.

I seldom fry anything. Didn't even realize there was such a thing until I was taken out to a new fried chicken restaurant in our town outside Dallas while guests were visiting my parents when I was seven! (Fried bologna doesn't count! ) First time ever to eat fried chicken livers and gizzards.

I do fry chicken livers. And oysters. On the stovetop -- in a big pan -- with oil. About 99% of the rest of my "frying" takes place in the oven. And i seldom eat it out either. Childhood food imprinting.

[andiesenji]

Andie... You are so right about the potatoes. That is my method as well. Funny that I have never done them with the fresh lard. I will have to try that. Unless I am on a chicken frying binge, I only keep one of the small cans of Crisco in the pantry for the very occasional crust and the potatoes. Lately, I have had difficulty finding good quality, nicely dense pork fat for any large scale lard production so I have had to revert to Crisco. BTW... Other brands need not apply. I made that mistake... once.

←

A long time ago there was another vegetable shortening, marketed mostly in the midwest, that was as good, if not better than Crisco, it came in a pale blue and yellow diagonally striped can(bucket with a wire bail) and had a name that started with Sno- and I can't recall the rest of the name. We used it in my mom's bakery and got it in 50 pound tins.

I had one of the buckets for years in my shed when I lived down below but it was lost in one of my moves.

I have tried just about everything over the years, including a "vegetable ghee" that one of the guys who owns the middle eastern market here in town talked me into trying. Not bad, but not up to Crisco standards.

There was a time when I used to buy beef kidney suet, render it down and use that fat for frying French fries because I had good friends who were Jewish and I didn't think vegetable oil produced as good a fried potato as an animal fat and wouldn't settle for a less than perfect fry!

Everyone thought I was just a tad obsessive about it but those were really great fries.

I am no longer quite that dedicated to the perfect fry but may occasionally make the effort.

The problem is that with the "factory" beef production it is getting much harder to get kidney suet.

I do get what there is when I have my steer butchered but there isn't that much on one animal.

[tryska]

has to be the scots-irish connection.

[Lan4Dawg]

Andie... You are so right about the potatoes. That is my method as well. Funny that I have never done them with the fresh lard. I will have to try that. Unless I am on a chicken frying binge, I only keep one of the small cans of Crisco in the pantry for the very occasional crust and the potatoes. Lately, I have had difficulty finding good quality, nicely dense pork fat for any large scale lard production so I have had to revert to Crisco. BTW... Other brands need not apply. I made that mistake... once.

←

A long time ago there was another vegetable shortening, marketed mostly in the midwest, that was as good, if not better than Crisco, it came in a pale blue and yellow diagonally striped can(bucket with a wire bail) and had a name that started with Sno- and I can't recall the rest of the name. We used it in my mom's bakery and got it in 50 pound tins.

I had one of the buckets for years in my shed when I lived down below but it was lost in one of my moves.

I have tried just about everything over the years, including a "vegetable ghee" that one of the guys who owns the middle eastern market here in town talked me into trying. Not bad, but not up to Crisco standards.

There was a time when I used to buy beef kidney suet, render it down and use that fat for frying French fries because I had good friends who were Jewish and I didn't think vegetable oil produced as good a fried potato as an animal fat and wouldn't settle for a less than perfect fry!

Everyone thought I was just a tad obsessive about it but those were really great fries.

I am no longer quite that dedicated to the perfect fry but may occasionally make the effort.

The problem is that with the "factory" beef production it is getting much harder to get kidney suet.

I do get what there is when I have my steer butchered but there isn't that much on one animal.

←

Sno-Drift I believe was the name of the shortening. I remember the name and the advertising and we had it here in the South but I recall every one using Crisco. Maybe it was because Loretta told us, "It'll do you proud ev'ry time!"

[Lone Star]

Recently I read an interview with retired White House Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier , who had been in the White House for decades. One of the questions was what does a good cook need in the kitchen? His answer was: Crisco, nothing else will do!