Cooking to Honor Edna Lewis

[ludja]

Ludja, I want to thank you especially for inspiring this Yankee to check out the book.  I've heard and read about Edna Lewis, even her close friendship with the book's narrator, but never bothered to investigate further.  Racheld's response to Ling's question provided a second nudge.

...

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Glad my report helped to pique your interest, Pontormo! I have a bunch of southern cookbooks and this is already looking to be one of my favorites along with Bill Neal's books.

I like lard in moderation and use it in places where it will really add some flavor like in a bean dish. Another key application for me is pie crusts--I use half lard/half butter. For frying, which I do infrequently, I use canola oil--the good lard I render myself is too precious! I used whited cornmeal when I lived in North Carolina for a few years but I can't remember enought to make a comparision anymore. I use yellow cornmeal and regular flour with any adjustments as suggested.

[NYC Mike]

I'm late to the party but I wanted to thank you all for this thread. Having recently moved to Georgia we have been very keen to learn how to cook southern food at home. The touching story of Miss. Lewis and Scott's relationship is very inspirational.

With brand new unsoiled copy in hand, we dip our little pinky toe in the water. More to come hopefully, it is a wonderful book.

Boiled Peanut Cookies

-Mike

[Gifted Gourmet]

I'm late to the party but I wanted to thank you all for this thread.  Having recently moved to Georgia we have been very keen to learn how to cook southern food at home.  The touching story of Miss. Lewis and Scott's relationship is very inspirational.

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Thank you, Mike, for reviving this thread! You are so right about Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis ... together they brought this type of cooking back to life and gave it new exposure to a new generation of southern cooks ... hope your Boiled Peanut Cookies were as delectable as the book was delightful!

[NYC Mike]

My wife just got this in the mail from the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs.

2006 WCR National Conference - Atlanta

Southern Roots & Hospitality

Mark Your Calendars!  The 2006 WCR National Conference will be held in Atlanta, November 18-20. Registration materials will become available by mid-month. 

Some planned session topics will include:

A Tribute to Miss Edna Lewis

Slow Southern Grains in the American Culinary Fast Lane

From Southern Iced Tea to the Modern Tea Cocktail: American Trends in Tea

From Restaurant to Retail: Perspectives From the Trenches

Writing Recipes for Home Cooks

Southern Cakes

We hope to see you there!

-mike

[NYC Mike]

Working my way up to country captain and ham steak with red eyed gravy very slowly.

Here is our attempt at the pound cake with lemon glaze. This is the best pound cake I've ever had. The slow increase in cooking temp allowed it to develop a remarkable but subtle crust. In the future we will omit the glaze, it just seems overkill with such a good pound cake.

-mike

[shellfishfiend]

NYC Mike, that pound cake looks wonderful. I remember growing up and going to relatives' houses for visitin' and half of them would have that pound cake to serve with coffee. We never had it with the glaze, it just didn't need it. And moist—it brings tears to my eyes to remember how moist that pound cake was.

[NYC Mike]

Thanks Shellfishfiend!

Well, I just can't put this book down!

Last night we made the Country Captain with rice and Onion Rings. This was the children's first intro to curry and they all loved it. As with all the other recipes we have tried in this book so far, its a keeper and we will do all again.

.....and for dessert. Fresh Apple Cake. We couldn't find Winesaps anywhere so we made it with Granny Smiths.

When we try new recipes we always ask ourselves what we would do differently. So far with this book's dishes we wouldn't change a thing. Very fine indeed.

-Mike

[Pontormo]

Mike: I can't believe it!

I am waiting for the fresh apple cake to come out of the oven in 5 to 20 minutes (recipe says 75 minutes, start checking after 50) and I thought I'd look down here since I remember Gifted Gourmet documented the same cake some time ago.

You said you wouldn't change a thing. Please see my question about ingredients (White Lily flour, etc.) which is a few posts before you started contributing to this thread. It was written some time this summer. If you have any thoughts on the matter, let me know.

I did change several things, but in minor ways since I don't like overly sweet things and I wanted to use up stuff in the house, including too many apples of various kinds. I prefer butter to vegetable oil and actually combined butter, newly made applesauce and just a little canola to replace the 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil. It smells incredible. So hard to wait.

[annecros]

Ludja, I want to thank you especially for inspiring this Yankee to check out the book.  I've heard and read about Edna Lewis, even her close friendship with the book's narrator, but never bothered to investigate further.  Racheld's response to Ling's question provided a second nudge.

I only wish you and other scalloped tomatoes/vegetable plate makers in the Dinner thread advised us to high y'all hither and yon.  I would have visited this thread earlier. 

Judy, I have to say your description of a meal early in this thread is truly eloquent--lovely!

The vegetable-based dishes look fantastic!  It makes sense that there are so many dishes perfect for the muggy weather and summer produce of Washington, D.C.  And man, does that Lane Cake look amazing!!!

*  *  *

REGARDING PREFERRED INGREDIENTS A NORTHERNER WOULD NORMALLY SHUN

In high school I worked at McDonald's when they used lard for french fries.  My stepfather stopped buying the fat when his doctor put him on a radically altered diet in which all fried foods were forbidden.  Therefore, I am ambivalent: a bit hesitant about using lard and rarely deep fry anything, but willing to make biscuits with lard at least once.  I know about the lard thread in another forum and will consult it.

The two things that make me more reluctant are the following:

1) White cornmeal

2) White Lily flour & bleached Gold Medal All-Purpose flour

Please redirect me if there is a fine discussion of these Southern preferences in the Baking forum.  I can also conduct a search using Google on my own.  However, if anyone here has an opinion based on personal experience, I'd like to know more, especially in the form of comparative analysis.

It was my impression that white cornmeal is more refined than yellow cornmeal, and that it not as nutritious.  For example, it lacks the Vitamin A the latter provides.  Ditto regarding the preferred soft flours made from wheat. 

I have new bags of King Arthur All-Purpose and Bread flours and like the results I get from each.  In fact, I thought the larger amount of protein in bread flour promoted rising.  I get the impression that Scott Peacock believes KA does not produce baked goods as light as the more refined flours do, though KA is fine for a few items.

I also really like the gritty texture and taste of newly ground yellow cornmeal and am a miser when it comes to mail-ordering food.  What would the advantage be in switching to white cornmeal?

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White Lily Flour is divine, especially for biscuits. Lard is a separate issue. If you cannot get a good quality lard, or do not want to render your own, don't bother. I think there is a separate thread around here dedicated to lard and includes detailed instructions.

I prefer white cornmeal, espeacially for fried cornbreads like hoecakes, or for coating okra to pan fry. Yellow cornmeal I reserve for baked corn breads and corn muffins, as I prefer that texture there. I think that, unlike the difference between yellow and white grits (white grits being treated with lye), white cornmeal is actually made from white corn. But I could very well be mistaken on that count. I would suggest that you try them both, and take what you like and leave the rest. The nutritional differences in the two products is probably minimal if they do exist, from what I can tell from the labels I've read. The biggest difference appears to be in fibre content, and that is even minimal. You are dealing with a starch here, shouldn't be thought of as a vegetable. There is a sweeter, cleaner flavor to the white cornmeal and a softer texture. The yellow cornmeal is denser, moister, and has a grittier texture and perhaps a stronger flavor.

Have fun, and good luck!

[annecros]

Working my way up to country captain and ham steak with red eyed gravy very slowly.

Here is our attempt at the pound cake with lemon glaze.  This is the best pound cake I've ever had.  The slow increase in cooking temp allowed it to develop a remarkable but subtle crust.  In the future we will omit the glaze, it just seems overkill with such a good pound cake.

-mike

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Lovely! Pound Cake is the recipe that most young southern cooks first cut their teeth on, I know I did! I have modified my sour cream pound cake using her technique for temperature , and it made a fantastic difference in my old recipe that was quite good already.

Don't wait too long to whip up that country captain. It is easier than you think! Just requires patience and involvement, just like the rest of Ms. Edna's recipes, and you have demonstrated that with your lovely pound cake!

Edited to add: OOPS! I see you have already made the country captain jump! Congrats and it looks wonderful!

Edited October 22, 2006 by annecros (log)

[Pontormo]

White Lily Flour is divine, especially for biscuits...

I prefer white cornmeal, especially for fried cornbreads like hoecakes, or for coating okra to pan fry. Yellow cornmeal I reserve for baked corn breads and corn muffins, as I prefer that texture there. I think that, unlike the difference between yellow and white grits (white grits being treated with lye), white cornmeal is actually made from white corn...

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Anne: Thank you for the long response, written from experience. I understand that WL Four is low-gluten and highly processed and therefore not appreciated by the Yanks who give you stone-milled flours. However, I made the spiced apple cake with caramel glaze using cake flour instead of AP (Ling told me she always makes this sub) and probably got similar results for that reason. I liked it!

Also, after no one responded to my questions, I found a little information online about white cornmeal that confirms what you say in distinguishing white cornmeal from white grits. I have some green tomatoes to fry, coated with a buttermilk batter. I imagine white cornmeal might be good for them, too.

Mike, Abra, Melissa, Ludja, et al: I agree about the apple cake!!! HOWEVER, I did cut back the amount of sugar to 1 1/3 cups vs. 2. This was a good change. I used muscovado (only 1/2 c) and light brown sugar, no white. I'd keep the muscovado, but use half white next time just to lighten up the taste a bit. I would also cut back on the cinnamon and the vanilla since I would rather have the foreground tastes to be apple combined with the caramel. I love spice cakes, but what can I say? I hail from the North.

My pecans had been in the freezer at least since the aftermath of Christmas cookie-season. Therefore, I toasted them using Deborah Madison's trick: boiling the pieces for one minute before putting them in the oven. Really brought out the nutty taste of these tired souls and crisped them up. This I endorse as well. Finally, I cut back the amount of fat by 1/3---not for the sake of diminishing calories, it's cake after all--because someone else had written a thread about large quantities of oil in apple, carrot and spice cakes. I wanted to see what it would be like to use fresh applesauce instead. The effect of such a minor substitute was hard to gauge, though a stick of butter replacing 1/2 cup of oil was kind of nice.

Since it made such a large cake, I brought pieces down to the market to thank some of my favorite farmers. They liked it too. What smiles!

Edited October 22, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Gifted Gourmet]

What pleasure I am deriving from watching those fresh apple cakes on display here! Edna has surely watched over all of us who are using her recipe ... even with our own variations on her (precious) theme ... bless you, Edna, for the gifts you shared so graciously!

[NYC Mike]

You said you wouldn't change a thing.  Please see my question about ingredients (White Lily flour, etc.) which is a few posts before you started contributing to this thread.  It was written some time this summer.  If you have any thoughts on the matter, let me know. 

I did change several things, but in minor ways since I don't like overly sweet things and I wanted to use up stuff in the house, including too many apples of various kinds.  I prefer butter to vegetable oil and actually combined butter, newly made applesauce and just a little canola to replace the 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil.  It smells incredible. So hard to wait.

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Pontormo, for this cake we used KA Unbleached AP flour, although we wonder how much lighter it would taste using cake flour. As for White Lily flour, in our limited experience it is the best flour for biscuts hands down. When we first got down here we did a test with every flour on Krogers shelf (and with a little EG help ) and White Lily really makes a great light fluffy biscut. We don't use it for anything else...yet.

I would love to hear about how your cake turned out using the butter/applesauce/canola combo. Adding all that veg. oil does make me cringe a little and I imagine there are many ways of imparting that moistness into the cake.

Mike, Abra, Melissa, Ludja, et al: I agree about the apple cake!!! HOWEVER, I did cut back the amount of sugar to 1 1/3 cups vs. 2. This was a good change. I used muscovado (only 1/2 c) and light brown sugar, no white. I'd keep the muscovado, but use half white next time just to lighten up the taste a bit. I would also cut back on the cinnamon and the vanilla since I would rather have the foreground tastes to be apple combined with the caramel. I love spice cakes, but what can I say? I hail from the North.

On the book's advice, we cut back the cinnamon since we didn't have "ceylon cinnamon" but there was still a nice spice flavor. What kind of apples did you use? The grannies we used gave a great tartness to the cake that offset the sweetness of the glaze and sugars. I've personally never had a winesap but I've been told to hurry and get hunting before they are gone.

-Mike

Edited October 23, 2006 by NYC Mike (log)

[NYC Mike]

Lovely! Pound Cake is the recipe that most young southern cooks first cut their teeth on, I know I did! I have modified my sour cream pound cake using her technique for temperature , and it made a fantastic difference in my old recipe that was quite good already.

Anne, would you mind sharing that recipe!? We are on a kick to try a slew of pound cakes and compare. That tender crust the temperature technique imparts is really special isn't it? It was a new thing to us here.

-Mike

[annecros]

Lovely! Pound Cake is the recipe that most young southern cooks first cut their teeth on, I know I did! I have modified my sour cream pound cake using her technique for temperature , and it made a fantastic difference in my old recipe that was quite good already.

Anne, would you mind sharing that recipe!? We are on a kick to try a slew of pound cakes and compare. That tender crust the temperature technique imparts is really special isn't it? It was a new thing to us here.

-Mike

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Happy to! As it was originally an old recipe I copied out of my Mom's 1963 edition of "Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers" (Sis has already claimed that cookbook ), and I have made several modifications over the years at the advisement of my Grandmother-in-law and Mother-in-Law, I am pretty sure there are no copyright problems, although it is an old recipe and you will find several similar. Nothing beats the moist flavor of a Sour Cream Pound Cake. It is wonderful warm, but to me it is better the next day, and makes a great breakfast if you toast a slice and butter or top with berries. All ingredients at room temp before you start!

1 cup (2 sticks) Butter

3 cups sugar

6 eggs (if I want an especially dense yellower cake, and have a need for some meringue, I substitute with 4 whole eggs and 4 yolks)

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Zest of one lemon, or substitute 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract (sometimes I use orange zest, depending on the time of year and my taste buds, summer = lemon and winter = orange)

3 cups sifted cake four (sift before you scoop and measure)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (8 ounces) dairy sour cream

Grease and flour 10-inch tube or 12-cup bundt pan. Cream butter and sugar, then beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in extracts and/or zest. Sift flour again with baking soda and salt, and add alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with flour, mixing well after each addition. Spoon batter into pan, and knock out the large air bubbles (gently). Put the pan into a cold oven, 20 minutes at 225 degrees, 20 minutes at 300 degrees, then an additional 30 to 45 minutes at 325 degrees. Start testing with a toothpick at 30 minutes, but be forewarned that in my oven it takes the full 45 minutes for the final bake, but of course your milage may vary depending upon your oven. Remove from oven when toothpick tests clean, and place pan on a wire rack to cool EXACTLY ten minutes. It should turn out of the pan perfectly with that lovely golden crust intact uniformly all over the cake if you stick to the 10 minute rule.

I have glazed this cake once or twice in the past, but it feels like gilding the lily.

Good luck, and let me know how it comes out for you. It is very much an old fashioned southern style pound cake, techniques and all, and thanks to the input of fine old southern cooks I have had the good luck to be exposed to, including Ms. Edna's great books!

Anne

Edit to add: A couple of other variations I have made to this recipe include:

sustituting 1/2 cup of cocoa powder for 1/2 of a cup of flour and omitting the citrus and almond flavorings for an amazing chocolate/sour cream pound cake

substituting buttermilk for the sour cream, reducing the eggs by one, and once again omitting the citrus and almond flavoring for a wonderful plain old vanilla pound cake

That is the beauty of these old pound cake recipes. Once you have a recipe that suits your tastes, it is very easily modified. I have even incoporated floured, toasted walnuts in the chocolate/sour cream version, and last year at Christmas I folded toasted chopped hazelnuts, dried cherries, and chocolate chips (all lightly floured so that they remain suspended in the batter) and it was a huge hit. I bet that trinity of additives would be great in the buttermilk/vanilla version as well, and a little bourbon or kirsch sprinkled over it for good measure.

Edited October 24, 2006 by annecros (log)

[NYC Mike]

Thanks Anne!!

mike

[annecros]

Oh you are quite welcome Mike. Egullet has been so good to me as far as others offering advice to me on technique and recipe ingredients I am not familiar with (particulary Asian), its nothing. That's why I love this place so much!

Hope it turns out well for you, and suits your tastes.

Anne

[Pontormo]

Pontormo... I would love to hear about how your cake turned out using the butter/applesauce/canola combo.  Adding all that veg. oil does make me cringe a little and I imagine there are many ways of imparting that moistness into the cake.

On the book's advice, we cut back the cinnamon since we didn't have "ceylon cinnamon" but there was still a nice spice flavor.  What kind of apples did you use?  The grannies we used gave a great tartness to the cake that offset the sweetness of the glaze and sugars.  I've personally never had a winesap but I've been told to hurry and get hunting before they are gone.

-Mike

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1) I may not have said much about the combination of fats here since I reported results in a thread where I first sought advice about the flour and learned more about the fats. I got the inspiration from Andiesenji here. No matter how much I give away, I still have leftovers. It's still quite moist.

2) I'm not sure about the apples. There are several farmers who bring 8-12 kinds of apples to the market. I am partial to two (Gold Rush and Mitsu), but like to gather lots of different types for making applesauce or baking. In that season in between all the peaches, plums, cherries and melons of summer, before the citrus fruit is good, a week or two of concord grapes and bunch of bananas will get me only so far. I need variety!

3) Since I was relying on Leite's Web site for the recipe, I didn't realize there was advice about cinnamon. I used two different kinds and noticed the SE Asian one was much lighter. Good to know.

[NYC Mike]

It is getting dern cold here in Alpharetta (insert re-evaluation of weather in the "south" here ) and soup was the ticket.

We made Scott's Chicken Stock and the Chicken and Seduced Vegetable Soup and served it with a little white rice (I love asopao de whatever anyday). It was a very nice and flavorful soup although for my tastes it was a little too subtle. I can't exactly put my finger on what it was, the base stock was very good and the poached chicken was juicy and flavorful. Perhaps another chicken soup recipe in house with an already good one was just a bad idea .

Sorry up front for the poor quality pics.

This next is a little off topic but I am sure Miss Lewis wouldn't mind a good pound cake, no matter whose recipe. Anne, we just loved your pound cake, it was amazingly light and fluffy. The crust was so caramelized and good! Sorry again for the pic, I am a butcher with a knife!

Fried Chicken tonight!!

-Mike

[annecros]

Hi Mike!

Ms. Lewis must have been looking out for all of us last night, as we had the chicken soup as well!

Looks like you did a great job with the pound cake, and I am so pleased that it turned out well for you. It really is better to my taste after overnight for the flavors to develop and mellow, but that doesn't happen very often when my son and his friends are around! That crust is pure Edna Lewis technique, and I have been known to save it for last on my plate.

Anne

Edit to add: I had already put the chicken in the buttermilk to soak for fried chicken tonight before I saw your post! I'll be using peanut oil instead of the lard/butter combo though.

Edited October 25, 2006 by annecros (log)

[ludja]

Thanks Shellfishfiend!

Well, I just can't put this book down! 

Last night we made the Country Captain with rice and Onion Rings.  This was the children's first intro to curry and they all loved it.  As with all the other recipes we have tried in this book so far, its a keeper and we will do all again. 

...

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I've been thinking about making this recipe also. Did you end up using their curry mix? Any other comments?

Thank you...

[Pontormo]

Edit to add: I had already put the chicken in the buttermilk to soak for fried chicken tonight before I saw your post! I'll be using peanut oil instead of the lard/butter combo though.

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It's like being back in a college dorm when all the women on your floor discover they're in sync.

Honest, I did the Judy Rodgers pre-salting thing on pieces of chicken Monday to cook thighs in Umbrian fashion last night and to soak the drumsticks in buttermilk for tonight to accompany green tomatoes!

Alas, I am winging it so to speak, since I returned the cookbook to the library. If I don't find Ms. Lewis's instructions online, would someone mind telling me if there is anything special I should do besides soaking the chicken in buttermilk?

[annecros]

Edit to add: I had already put the chicken in the buttermilk to soak for fried chicken tonight before I saw your post! I'll be using peanut oil instead of the lard/butter combo though.

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It's like being back in a college dorm when all the women on your floor discover they're in sync.

Honest, I did the Judy Rodgers pre-salting thing on pieces of chicken Monday to cook thighs in Umbrian fashion last night and to soak the drumsticks in buttermilk for tonight to accompany green tomatoes!

Alas, I am winging it so to speak, since I returned the cookbook to the library. If I don't find Ms. Lewis's instructions online, would someone mind telling me if there is anything special I should do besides soaking the chicken in buttermilk?

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It is funny, isn't it?

Here's the recipe on line:

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/coo...ried_chick.html

Edna Lewis had several variations in her cookbook, but this one is the consensus "best" that she and Scott Peacock came up with, if I remember correctly.

Anne

[NYC Mike]

Looks like you did a great job with the pound cake, and I am so pleased that it turned out well for you. It really is better to my taste after overnight for the flavors to develop and mellow, but that doesn't happen very often when my son and his friends are around!

Anne, its so funny you say this, the cake came out around after school time and was gone before dinner. I almost didn't get a picture off my three devoured it so fast!

I've been thinking about making this recipe also. Did you end up using their curry mix? Any other comments?

Ludja, we did use their curry mix on the preceding page but we used already dried and ground herbs versus the freshly ground they recommend and we loved it. We are planning to fresh grind everything next time we make it, I imagine it will only make the dish better. We also would have added more heat but since it was for the kids too we only added what was listed. Also, next time we will make the coconut rice with it, we got caught unprepared but it would be a perfect combo.

I am a fairly new cook so I tend to live or die with the exact recipe. I am not brave enough with most things to improvise yet...much to my wife's chagrin.

As an aside, two of mine are 4th graders and they were in the process of learning about the great explorers and the spice trade etc the week we made it. So, this dish made a great conversation peice with them about Savannah's role in the spice trade and the origins of the dish. Fun stuff!

It's like being back in a college dorm when all the women on your floor discover they're in sync.

I seriously LOLed out loud Pontornmo and had to check just to be sure!!

I have a question on the chicken. I just transfered from the brine to the buttermilk and my skin is in really bad shape. It is mostly just hanging on for its life and many peices have lost peices of skin. Is there a technique to either cutting it up or brining it that I am missing that will allow me to keep all my skin on??

-Mike

Edited October 25, 2006 by NYC Mike (log)

[annecros]

Looks like you did a great job with the pound cake, and I am so pleased that it turned out well for you. It really is better to my taste after overnight for the flavors to develop and mellow, but that doesn't happen very often when my son and his friends are around!

Anne, its so funny you say this, the cake came out around after school time and was gone before dinner. I almost didn't get a picture off my three devoured it so fast!

It's like being back in a college dorm when all the women on your floor discover they're in sync.

I seriously LOLed out loud Pontornmo and had to check just to be sure!!

I have a question on the chicken. I just transfered from the brine to the buttermilk and my skin is in really bad shape. It is mostly just hanging on for its life and many peices have lost peices of skin. Is there a technique to either cutting it up or brining it that I am missing that will allow me to keep all my skin on??

-Mike

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Well, I have a little trick I played on the kids (and continue now that they are young adults), in that I use a little bit smaller bundt pan, and make a second, smaller pound cake in a loaf pan to sort of stash away. I pull each one as they test done, the loaf comes out first and usually has more crust, but that's MY cake anyway and that is how I like it! They sort of feel like they have to eat a whole cake when one of those things come out of the oven and they smell!

On the chicken, I usually take one stroke with a sharp knife to split the skin on the carcass at the appropriate joints before butchering. Seems to cause less wear and tear on the skin. A very heavy, sharp butcher knife helps, as well.

We all should post pictures of our fried chicken tomorrow! I still haven't settle on my sides, though.

Anne