Southern Traditions

[racheld]

I her dat, GRITS girl!

[tupac17616]

Hmm, what's important to me other than Barbecue?....

Chicken Fried Steak with Applewood Smoked Bacon Cornbread, and Oven-Roasted Okra & Tomatoes -- Which you can read all about on my eGullet foodblog.

[racheld]

You DID it!!! Told you you should---it's slumgullious. If I didn't already have the FIRST calamari of my LIFE thawing to cook for supper, we'd have every BIT of that. Instead, it's quick-fried squid, some crumb-coated fried shrimp, potato logs and shredded cabbage/red pepper/vinegar slaw.

Chris loves the little crusty tentacles, and I found a pack at the Asian grocery last week.

I know!!!! I'll make HUSHPUPPIES!!! Gotta stay true to our roots. I DO cook it all in a black skillet. Guess that counts.

[annecros]

annecros,

Sorry I lost the thread. Yes it was a coffee can!  How'd you know?

You know the saddest thing was when my great-grandmother went to live in a nursing home and she had to drink tea made from a powder.  Just vile.

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Oh wow! When my mother was really sick and I went to visit her, she was drinking instant tea and frozen dinners. I was heart broken for her. Seriously.

I immediately creamed some corn, smothered some squash, fixed some green beans and new potatoes, fried up some streak o' lean, and baked some biscuits - to go along with the pitcher of sweet tea, fresh brewed.

Her health improved dramatically over that week of fat and nutrient dense food. She had withered away to almost nothing. Who could blame her, sitting there without anything decent to eat!

Anne

[annecros]

Hmm, what's important to me other than Barbecue?....

Chicken Fried Steak with Applewood Smoked Bacon Cornbread, and Oven-Roasted Okra & Tomatoes -- Which you can read all about on my eGullet foodblog.

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Oh joy!

Yep, already planned dinner for tonight, but tomorrow its that for sure!

Thanks,

Anne

[kbjesq]

This great thread has been quiet too long. May I add:

-- Swamp cabbage

-- Gator tail

-- Fried mullet (served with grits)

-- Smoked fish dip (a/k/a "Smak")

-- Frogs legs

-- Cornbread stuffing with oysters

-- Garlic crab

All of which are very popular where I live (Central FL), and very foreign to me (a transplanted Yankee).

[ham hock]

Has anyone listed:

Fried pies

candied cushaw

guinea and dumplings

black bottom pie ?

[Mary4488]

Hi all,

I am new to this site, and so excited by all of the great information I have found!

I am a 2nd generation Southerner (yes, we in north Florida are most definitely Southern), of Middle Eastern descent, so I was raised on the 'best of the best' foods imaginable!

Though the majority of our foods were ethnic, Mom was raised in SC, so we had some great southern foods as well including:

Grits (only butter and salt)

Peach everything

Fig preserves (always served at breakfast along with strong coffee, pita bread, olives, and string or feta cheese)

Greens of all sorts

Creamed corn

Corn bread

Fried chicken... heavenly!

Friend pork chops

Congo squares (sort of like blonde brownies)

Banana pudding (almost a staple)

Macaroni and Cheese

Candied carrots

to name a few.

As a side note, if anyone is interested in Middle Eastern (Syrian and Lebanese) recipes, give me a shout.

Mary

[racheld]

Welcome, Mary 4488!!!

I'm not surprised at all the good cooking that goes on in your house---lots of little towns in the South have a small Mideastern restaurant or two---ours boasted the most marvelous Kibbeh and tabbouleh, and the taste for those just takes hold, and all the home kitchens which heretofore boasted salt and pepper and maybe cinnamon for the Christmas cookies, are filling the shelves with cumin and cardamom and bulghur and all sorts of peppers and spices.

And though I've made them all my life, I would never have thought of serving fig preserves with olives, pita and feta for breakfast. Our couple-of-hundred years of serving the preserves on buttered biscuits is nothing to the time your own combination has been traditional.

[Mary4488]

Thanks for the welcome, Rachel.

I live in Jacksonville, and we probably have in excess of 15 or 20 Middle Eastern restaurants and grocery stores, so it's a snap to have all the ingredients we need for our food. Obviously, we also have every southern ingredient you can imagine!

Yes, the fig preserves are wonderful with the savory bits and pieces, especially with the olives. My grandmother used to make shirred eggs, bacon, and the aforementioned mazza (Arabic appetizers), and we would all sit around the table in the breakfast nook and feast! Of course, she also made a full lunch and supper, as well. The cooking that went on in her kitchen was staggering.

Just today, I made a dish called shishk barak, which is yogurt soup with dough filled 'hats' of lamb, onions, pine nuts and spices. The soup is flavored with mint, garlic, salt and pepper, and it is a divine dish!

I also am in the process of making this extraordinaryly pungent cheese called shanklish, which won't be ready for a month or so.

Anyway, this is a southern thread, so I had better get off the ethnic food chat!

Mary

[lrsmann]

Between Houston and Beaumont is/was a place called The Boondocks.  It was built out on a dock over the bayou.  The specialty was spicy fried catfish, but the real attraction was the hush puppies they gave you to toss to the alligators while you waited for your table. It was quite a place.

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Unfortunately this is gone now, but check out the Pine Tree Lodge on LaBelle Road. Not quite the same atmosphere, but excellent stuffed crab!

[JimH]

Hi all,

I am new to this site, and so excited by all of the great information I have found!

Fig preserves (always served at breakfast along with strong coffee, pita bread, olives, and string or feta cheese)

As a side note, if anyone is interested in Middle Eastern (Syrian and Lebanese) recipes, give me a shout.

Mary

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Wow! I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow (less the pita bread) , I found a case of fig preserves I had canned a couple of years ago.

Please share your recipes!

Jim

[racheld]

We served these Sunday at Chris' Birthday Brunch:

The pears were brought back last Summer by DS#2 from a trip to Mississippi. He picked them on the old "Home Place" where they grew up, and he and I sat on the patio three states away and peeled and cut, talking of the old days.

The pear pieces go into an enamel pan to be covered with almost as much sugar as pears, then weep their juices out overnight, to be cooked until rosy and sweet the next morning before canning.

We served them with these:

And there were several kinds of olives on the buffet, as well, along with several cheeses.

I've already used these pictures over on the Birthday Brunch thread, but they're the only ones of biscuits and preserves that I have.

[Sony]

I adore this thread.....

What about drinking buttermilk? I remember once that a guy who grew up in upstate NY took a swig from my glass of unadulterated, tangy goodness and almost spit it out. NY is a dairy-rich state, which makes me wonder if it's a southern thing? Upon reflection, it seems like the only other people that I know who will drink buttermilk straight are from the South, but maybe it's just me.

(And yes, it's just lovely to crumble up that cornbread in a cold glass of buttermilk! When you see an empty glass streaked with buttermilk rivulets and a few stray cornbread crumbs, you know someone ate well! )

Though I grew up in the South, desserts were never big in my family, and so I was in my mid-twenties before I ate nanner puddin'. In, of all places, a hospital cafeteria. I was in Charlotte, NC for an internship and it was one of the side dishes for a meal. The person in front of me loved it so much, he had a double portion of the pudding count as his 2 sides. It was also the same place where I ate the "vegetarian greens" with a suspiciously smoky taste. Upon polite inquiry of how the greens were made, the kitchen staff let me know that 'it doesn't have meat in it, hun- just some onions and a little bacon base....'

A friend of mine from Louisiana (near Baton Rouge) was telling me that his family's version of succotash has sausage and some other meats in it. I grew up thinking it was a mix of butterbeans, corn, onions and maybe a little chopped bell pepper and cream if we're talkin' fancy. He is (allegedly) going to show me how to make his family's recipe- we'll see if he's good on his word.

And I'm quite sure that my penchant for hot sauces was nurtured by my southern upbringing. The mass of peppers soaking in vinegar, steeping with anticipation of completing a bowl of greens? Texas Pete? Tabasco? Crystal? Frank's Red Hot? These bottles had a better chance of depleted in my childhood home than ketchup. I know most of us now have access to tons of designer hot sauces from the far reaches of the earth, but my current fridge has to have at least 2 of southern heritage on hand.....

Last but not least- how likely it is to find Kool-Aid pickles outside of the South?

[Jaymes]

We served these Sunday at Chris' Birthday Brunch:

The pears were brought back last Summer by DS#2 from a trip to Mississippi.  He picked them on the old "Home Place" where they grew up, and he and I sat on the patio three states away and peeled and cut, talking of the old days.

The pear pieces go into an enamel pan to be covered with almost as much sugar as pears, then weep their juices out overnight, to be cooked until rosy and sweet the next morning before canning.

We served them with these:

And there were several kinds of olives on the buffet, as well, along with several cheeses. 

I've already used these pictures over on the Birthday Brunch thread, but they're the only ones of biscuits and preserves that I have.

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I have to tell you that these pictures make me weep.

Just so happens I'm on a cruise ship, tied up at the Auckland Ocean Terminal, in midst of sailing 'round the world. And while I know that's a pretty terrific thing, this morning I got such a hankerin' for southern biscuits, I cannot tell you. I asked the fellows at the breakfast buffet if they had biscuits. One helpful lad replied, "Yes, madam, of course," and scurried away. He returned to my table moments later with several packets of saltines.

[racheld]

Oh, Jaymes!!! What a treat!! I hope you're taking loads of pictures, and will post the whole trip in all its colorful, delicious glory when you return.

I'd trade you a BIG black skillet of catheads, with butter and preserves, all warm and crusty and drippy, for just one glimpse out your porthole at that ocean.

[markemorse]

We served these Sunday at Chris' Birthday Brunch:

The pears were brought back last Summer by DS#2 from a trip to Mississippi.  He picked them on the old "Home Place" where they grew up, and he and I sat on the patio three states away and peeled and cut, talking of the old days.

The pear pieces go into an enamel pan to be covered with almost as much sugar as pears, then weep their juices out overnight, to be cooked until rosy and sweet the next morning before canning.

We served them with these:

And there were several kinds of olives on the buffet, as well, along with several cheeses. 

I've already used these pictures over on the Birthday Brunch thread, but they're the only ones of biscuits and preserves that I have.

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Agghhh! Need. Biscuits.

I haven't had a biscuit breakdown since I've been here, but this has done it I think. Hope I can make them, it'll be my first time...

[racheld]

Marke---the only out-of-the-way ingredient in your stores there might be the SR flour---Martha White is the one of choice at our house, of course, but White Lily or even Pillsbury would do.

Martha White just seems to make better (read Southern-style) biscuits.

Biscuits are customarily made in a BIG bowl of flour, dragging small avalanches down into the buttermilk/shortening puddle in the bottom until the right consistency, either for hand-rolling or roll-out-and-cut, whichever you prefer. And the shortening is seldom measured, either, just a three-finger clop out of the can and into the bowl.

This is as precise as I can get the measures.

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour

1/2 t. salt

2 T. sugar (optional)

1/4 c. shortening (Crisco, of course, if you have it)

Sift dry. Cut in cool shortening to small peas stage.

Pour in 1 1/2 c. buttermilk and stir all around the bowl until it makes a big wet ragged pillow.

Pour out onto well-floured counter or flourcloth, roll or pat out and cut into 12 biscuits. If you use a flourcloth, lift each side in turn and sort of make a semi-fold of the wet dough til it's coated all over the outsides with flour. Dip the cutter down into flour between each cut. You can also pinch off pieces and roll between floured palms.

Oven 425. Grease or spray black skillet or cake pan. Set biscuits just touching in pan, so they'll rise UP and not OUT. Give each one a tiny "poomph" with the first two finger-knuckles, to make a nice pool for the butter later.

Bake 25 minutes, check for browning, and give another couple of minutes til you like the color. Brush tops with melted butter.

Five minutes to make---25 to bake.

[markemorse]

Marke---the only out-of-the-way ingredient in your stores there might be the SR flour---Martha White is the one of choice at our house, of course, but White Lily or even Pillsbury would do.

Martha White just seems to make better (read Southern-style) biscuits.

Biscuits are customarily made in a BIG bowl of flour, dragging small avalanches down into the buttermilk/shortening puddle in the bottom until the right consistency, either for hand-rolling or roll-out-and-cut, whichever you prefer.  And the shortening is seldom measured, either, just a three-finger clop out of the can and into the bowl.

This is as precise as I can get the measures.

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour

1/2 t. salt

2 T. sugar (optional)

1/4 c. shortening (Crisco, of course, if you have it)

Sift dry.  Cut in cool shortening to small peas stage.

Pour in 1 1/2 c. buttermilk and stir all around the bowl until it makes a big wet ragged pillow.

Pour out onto well-floured counter or flourcloth, roll or pat out and cut into 12 biscuits.    If you use a flourcloth, lift each side in turn and sort of make a semi-fold of the wet dough til it's coated all over the outsides with flour.  Dip the cutter down into flour between each cut.  You can also  pinch off pieces and roll between floured palms.

Oven 425.    Grease or spray black skillet or cake pan.  Set biscuits just touching in pan, so they'll rise UP and not OUT.  Give each one a tiny "poomph" with the first two finger-knuckles, to make a nice pool for the butter later.

  Bake 25 minutes, check for browning, and give another couple of minutes til you like the color.  Brush tops with melted butter.

Five minutes to make---25 to bake.

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Thank you very much miss rachel for not leaving me to the Google wilderness. I will drag my butt to the store for buttermilk directly.

Edited February 9, 2008 by markemorse (log)

[racheld]

2) frying catfish & hushpuppiees

3) fried pies

4) tomato & mayo sandwich with white bread

5) glass of buttermilk &  cornbread

6) slugburgers!!!!! (read prior posts on this section to learn more)

7) r.c. cola & moon pies

8) martha white biscuits

9) homeade molasess

10) duck gumbo from winter duck season.

11) purple hull peas, chow-chow & cornbread

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Coming back in with this list from a while ago---keeping with the biscuit memories revived as in a gentle, slowly reminiscent conversation among friends---from the first time I stepped up onto that big silvery lard can which held the flour, the biscuit pan, the sifter, I was at home in the kitchen as nowhere else. My Mother was left-handed and my Mammaw would not let her cook or cut "backward like that." And Maw was my first Mother-in-Law, a sweet country woman who lived for her family.

In a little book of memories I finally got together for all the children and relatives for Christmas this past year:

Because of her own banishment from the kitchen, Mother was quite willing and ready for me to learn at her apronside. She’d repeat from time to time, “I ALWAYS said I was going to let MY girls cook,” from the time I had to climb ONTO the lard can to sift and measure and stir. I’m sure my first “making” of biscuits consisted of several stirs around the flourpan with the wooden spoon, with the attendant flurries of flour onto the counters and floor which my young eagerness caused. The flour in the pan was WAY too much, with the Crisco cut in carefully in the indentation, the right amount of buttermilk stirred in, gently pulling down the side flour from the crater and stirring it in until the right texture was reached. THEN you could reach in, closing your fingers like spiderlegs around a handful of the soft, squishy dough, to roll into little round pillows, leaving more dry flour in the pan than you had used in the biscuits. This was re-sifted BACK into the big can, the pan and sifter replaced, and the lid tightly sealed for safekeeping.

Soon I was aproning up and hitting the kitchen for real, standing on the can, a chair, tiptoes, whatever it took to be allowed at that food and all the excitement of seeing something I made come out of that oven, that stewpot, that Jello mold. Aunt Lucy’s cook had cautioned Mother about the sin of using “self-raisin’” flour---that was the resort of a trashy cook, and anyone who didn’t keep a fresh can of Clabber Girl in the cabinet---well, nobody would eat HER sorry biscuits, anyway.

And so we measured out the salt and the baking powder, me with a spoon for a long time---a teaspoon was measured with the same spoons we used to stir coffee, and a tablespoon was the round-bowled soupspoon that came in the silverware chest. Mother would dump the required portion into her palm, toss it in, and be done with it. I saw a little set of copper measuring spoons at a friend’s house when I was about twelve, and thought they were just the cutest things---the silver ring that kept them attached in their little cuddle, and the neat way they hung on the hook right over the counter. I asked for, and got, my own set for Christmas that year, and measurements became an easier matter.

And then, when I had my own home, Maw, who lived right next door on the farm homeplace, had the exact silver can under her own kitchen counter, right down to the big circled “HF” imprinted in the lid. She had a bowl and sifter in hers, as well, and contrary to Mother’s fastidious spooning and stirring, made biscuits BY hand and WITH her hand. She, too, put twice-too-much flour into the bowl, made the crater by banking it against the sides with her fingers, and then three-fingered a clop of Crisco out of the three-pound can.

Her busy little soft hands were quick as lightning, working that flour into the handful, fingertips busily rubbing, til the “peas” stage. I don’t think she measured the buttermilk, either, but just poured from the BIG crockery pitcher, lifting it with a big sigh, and then I’d clean the white clotty handprint off the handle with a wet dishrag before replacing it in the refrigerator. She also made the buttermilk in a big crock, which somehow took up most of the left side of the refrigerator, possibly two gallons worth. Dried milk, water, a cup of last week’s making, overnight on the kitchen counter with a neat tea-towel cover, and voila!! Good as a fresh-churned batch.

I loved to watch her hand squish that biscuit dough; at first the buttermilk shot through her quick fingers like soapsuds, then as the flour absorbed some of it, the dough became a heavy, pliable mass, with the flour worked in from the sides til it was to her liking---a quite wet dough which would seek to escape from her two hands when she lifted it from the bed of flour like a limp cat.

Onto a flourcloth it went, the cloth homemade from newbought Curity diapers, each sewn double for strength, and covered in a thick layer of flour. Several lifts of the four cloth edges in turn, to even up the dough and give it a thorough coating, then pinches quickly rolled through floury palms, placed gently into a Crisco-rubbed skillet, with a final two-knuckled salute to the top, making twin dimples to hold the pools of brushed-on melted butter. The cloth also went back into the bin after use, its dusty weight settling into the dark to await its next needing.

All our biscuits were different, all good, all crusty and golden and steamy-soft within. Maw’s had a crispy bottom crust, beloved by Paw, who would separate several biscuits with a quick twist, butter them BEFORE we said the blessing, then distribute the dripping top halves to the little ones, while he applied a liberal dousing of sorghum or pear preserves to the cookie-crisp, butter-saturated bottoms. For Paw, life was simple: gravy went on the soft, spongy top halves, syrup on the bottoms. Would that all our paths be so easily chosen.

Edited February 10, 2008 by racheld (log)

[onrushpam]

Rachel,

I just love the tales of your childhood, because you write so beautifully and also because your memories are so closely aligned with my own!

For some reason, my Gramma never made biscuits. Instead, my twin and I argued over who would stand on the special step-stool and help with the making of "light bread".

When the bread was baked and cooled enough, Gramma would give us each a slice, slathered in butter and sprinkled with sugar. Depending on the time of year, the bread/butter/sugar would be accompanied by a steaming pot of hot tea or a big pitcher of cold sweet tea steeped with mint.

Gramma's bread was made from a sweet starter... nothing at all like sourdough. She always said it came from a friend whose cook brought it from the West Indies. Years after gramma was gone, DH and I went on a sailing cruise in the West Indies. I was delighted when we were served "Gramma's bread" at every meal!

Speaking of which, I have some of that starter in the freezer and it's been there WAY too long! I need to see if I can bring it back to life!

Please keep telling us the tales of your childhood! I look forward to every one.

Pam

[pax]

I am wondering if your "sweet starter" is the same starter I had for a while, along with a recipe I got for "Amish Friendship Bread".

I let it die not knowing the value of what I had, in my young and stupid days. (Completely different than my old and stupid days, of coure! )

[racheld]

I adore this thread.....

When you see an empty glass streaked with buttermilk rivulets and a few stray cornbread crumbs, you know someone ate well!

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One of the favorite repasts of ALL four of my grandparents.

A bit of trivia---like the riddles people ask each other in bars, with beers as prize:

Take a glass of milk or buttermilk. Take a glass exactly like it and fill it with another food. Put all of the food into the glass of milk, and it won't overflow.

What's in the second glass?

There are probably various answers; I just know the one I heard and have tried.

[onrushpam]

I am wondering if your "sweet starter" is the same starter I had for a while, along with a recipe I got for "Amish Friendship Bread".

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I've used that Amish bread starter and this is not the same.

I THINK this starter begins with grated or mashed potatoes.

It makes a light, white sandwich type bread... just a little bit sweet. It is wonderful for cinnamon rolls, but is also good just for sandwiches or toast.

Pam

[Sony]

Take a glass of milk or buttermilk. Take a glass exactly like it and fill it with another food. Put all of the food into the glass of milk, and it won't overflow. What's in the second glass?

I'm pulling on my memory of Laura Ingalls Wilder books to guess popcorn? Never tried it myself, but the next time I make popcorn....