June 6, 2009

Before the revolution in cooking technology that occurred in the latter years of the nineteenth century, the Southern kitchen wasn’t a particularly pleasant place to be.
From the founding of Jamestown until the middle of the nineteenth centuries, cooking for plantation and backcountry cabin was done on the open hearth. Site-made brick was the material of choice for fireplaces, hearths and chimneys, but it was extremely labor intensive to make and expensive, so its use was mostly restricted to the wealthy. In most Southern homes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, fireplaces and chimneys were fashioned from locally procured stone. If stone was scarce, the chimney above the roofline of the cabin was often made of wattle and daub, which was essentially sticks held together with clay. While the stone hearths could withstand the high cooking temperatures, a layer of thick plaster usually protected the brick hearths.

The goal of all homeowners was to have the kitchen separate from the main house to cut down on noise, odors, smoke and the ever-present danger of the main house burning down if a kitchen fire got out of hand. As soon as they could afford the time to do so, settlers built another room onto their cabins, separated by ten feet or more from the original structure. The old house became the kitchen, and the newer structure with a smaller and less dangerous fireplace became the living quarters.

Plantations, which had large numbers of mouths to feed, almost always had separate cookhouses, usually wood frame buildings with brick or stone floors. The interior walls were usually wood plank rather than plaster, and whitewashed regularly to keep them clean from the accumulation of soot from the large hearths.

The hearths in these cookhouses were huge, sometimes ten feet wide and four feet deep. Andirons set six feet apart held the large supply of oak and hickory logs needed to stoke the fire. The fires were kept going all day and the coals were banked at night to make starting the next day’s fire easier. The heat from these fireplaces was horrendous, especially in the stifling summers of the Carolinas and Georgia. An oven for baking was usually built into the side of the fireplace on larger farms and plantations, while in the backcountry, ashcakes and hoecakes were baked in the coals.

These brick ovens were the height of luxury for those on the receiving end of the goodies they produced, but made the cook’s life even more difficult. Patricia Brady Schmit, in her introduction to Nelly Custis Lewis’s Housekeeping Book (1982) wrote: “The oven involved a great deal of labor to use and generated terrific heat in the kitchen, even beyond that of the usual roasting fire in the hearth. Therefore the oven was heated only once a week, and all major baking was done at that time. A strong fire was built on the floor of the oven very early in the morning and stoked so that it burned fiercely: the oven door was left ajar to provide oxygen for the fire.”

After the fire had burned down to coals, they were raked out and discarded; the oven, having retained the heat from the roaring fire, was now ready to use. Pans of bread dough, cakes, cookies and other items to be baked were placed in the oven in descending order by the amount of time they needed to bake; items that needed a short amount of time at high heat went in first. As the oven gradually lost its heat, items such as cakes that required longer baking times at lower temperatures took their place in the oven until all the baking for the week was done.

The fireplaces of plantations were often state of the art, as Joe Gray Taylor pointed out in Eating, Drinking and Visiting in the South (1982): “On a built-in ledge lay the back bar, sometimes as much as six feet from the fireplace floor. Hooks of various lengths hung from the back bar, designed so that pots and kettles could hang at various distances from the fire. Trivets of various heights sat on the floor so that food could be placed at exactly the desired distance from the coals.”

Plantation kitchens often boasted several sizes of iron or brass pots, iron spits turned by wall mounted clockwork mechanisms for roasting meats, and long handled skillets (called spiders) equipped with legs and lids for placing coals under and over them.

Martha McCulloch-Williams remembered the equipment found in the plantation kitchen of her youth in Dishes & Beverages of the Old South (1913): “The pots themselves, of cast iron, with close-fitting tops, ran from two to ten gallons in capacity, had rounded bottoms with three pertly outstanding legs, and ears either side for the iron pot-hooks, which varied in size even as did the pots themselves. Additionally there were…spiders, skillets, a couple of tea-kettles, a stew kettle, a broiler with a long spider-legged trivet to rest on, a hoe-baker, a biscuit-baker, and waffle-irons with legs like tongs. Each piece of hollow ware had its lid, with eye on top for lifting off with the hooks. Live coals, spread on hearth and lids, did the cooking.” There were also long metal dripping pans that were placed underneath meat as it was roasted to catch drippings for gravy; root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and parsnips were often put in these pans to simmer in the meat juices.
Other tools of the plantation cook’s trade included long-handled shovels for banking coals and shoveling them under Dutch ovens and pots, pokers and bellows for tending the fire and long-handled tongs, spoons and skillets. Iron hooks of various lengths called trammels were used to suspend pots from the back bar at different heights above the fire to regulate cooking temperature.

May 3, 2009

From the first wife who watched as her husband grabbed a musket in 1776 to the one who waits for her husband to return from Iraq or Afghanistan, military wives have shared the same worries, concerns, challenges and camaraderie.

Carolyn Quick Tillery, herself a military wife, has written “The Military Wives’ Cookbook,” a collection of recipes from generations of military wives with stories and historical photographs.

In the book, Tillery profiles some of the country’s earliest military wives, beginning with Anne Warner, wife of Capt. Elija Bailey, who served during the American Revolution; Mary McCauley (aka Molly Pitcher) who served with her husband John Hayes in the Pennsylvania Artillery for seven years during the Revolution; and Lucy Brewer, the first woman Marine who served during the War of 1812.

Tillery begins with a recipe for red raspberry tea similar to the one served on Oct. 25, 1774, in Edenton, N.C. at the Edenton Tea Party, one of the first political protests by American women.

While the recipes come from all regions of the country, there are plenty of Southern favorites such as fried chicken, fried catfish, buttermilk biscuits, red velvet cake and plenty of others.

The book is an interesting look at the women who have supported, and continue to support, those who serve our country. You can order a copy by clicking below.

Old Fashioned Banana Pudding

From the Military Wives Cookbook

2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 cups half and half
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 (12-oz) box vanilla wafers
2 cups sliced ripe bananas

Meringue Topping (recipe follows)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the top of a double boiler combine the sugar, flour and salt over boiling water. Add the half and half and stir for 10 minutes or until the mixture thickens; remove from the heat. Stirring constantly, pour half of the hot cream into the egg yolks. Return the egg yolks to the rest of the cream mixture and cook over the simmering water until thickened. Remove from the heat; stir in the butter and vanilla. Cool slightly. While the mixture is cooling, place a layer of vanilla wafers on the bottom of a casserole dish. Alternate wafers with layers of banana slices and cooled pudding mixture, ending with the pudding on top. Make the meringue topping. Spread over the pudding top and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.

Meringue Topping

2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar

Directions

In the bowl of an electric mixer, whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until the hold a peak without being dry. By hand, beat in the vanilla extract and sugar.

May 1, 2009

In honor of the Kentucky Derby, which posts at 6 pm tomorrow, a few words about mint (and other) juleps.

There is no alcoholic drink more readily identified with the moonlight-and-magnolias image of the Old South than the mint julep.

The julep has its roots in the English practice of infusing alcohol with fruit, fruit juices, cucumbers or other cooling ingredients in the summertime.

Although there are many recipes for this drink, in its purest  (and earliest) form, it consists of sugar, bourbon, mint leaves and ice. This passage from William Alexander Percy’s Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son (1941) is the only recipe you’ll ever need to make a good mint julep:

“Certainly her juleps had nothing in common with those hybrid concoctions one buys in bars the world over under that name. It would have been sacrilege to add lemon, or a slice of orange or of pineapple, or one of those wretched maraschino cherries.
First, you needed excellent bourbon whiskey; rye or scotch would not do at all. Then you put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampened it with water.

Next, very quickly––and here was the trick in the procedure––you crushed your ice, actually powdered it, preferably in a towel with a wooden mallet, so quickly that it remained dry, and, slipping two sprigs of fresh mint against the inside of the glass, you crammed the ice in right to the brim, packing it with your hand.

Last you filled the glass, which apparently had no room left for anything else, with bourbon, the older the better, and grated a bit of nutmeg on the top. The glass immediately frosted and you settled back in your chair for half an hour of sedate cumulative bliss. Although you stirred the sugar at the bottom, it never all melted, therefore at the end of the half hour there was left a delicious mess of ice and mint and whiskey which a small boy was allowed to consume with calm rapture.”

‘Nuff said.

Corinthian Julep

“Mrs. Harris says, ‘Give her a Corinthian julep if she wants one and by the time I get in the house she won’t know whether I’m wearing a sunbonnet or a crown.’”

Thus wrote ten-year-old Virginia Cary Hudson in O Ye Jigs & Juleps (1900) about this potent Southern libation. The drink draws its name from Paul’s letter to the provincial churches in First Corinthians, Chapter13.
The drink is made in the same manner as a regular mint julep, but with three jiggers of bourbon, one each for Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Yield: 1 serving

• 4 sprigs fresh mint leaves
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 jiggers (about 1/2 cup) bourbon whiskey

In a silver julep cup or a 12-ounce Collins glass, crush mint leaves and sugar with a spoon. Fill with cracked ice and whiskey. Stir, without touching the outside of the cup, until the outside frosts. Garnish with mint sprig and serve with a short straw.

March 23, 2009

“Cover the berries with cold water and let boil a few
minutes until done. Then strain, and to every pint of juice
add one pound of granulated sugar. Put back on the fire.
Tie up a little cinnamon, allspice and cloves in a thin muslin
bag, and let boil with the juice until the latter is a pretty
thick syrup, then take off, and when it is thoroughly cold
add one-third as much good brandy or whisky as you have
syrup. It is not necessary to seal it.”

—Echoes Of Southern Kitchens, Compiled and Published by the Robert E. Lee Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy No. 278, Los Angeles, 1916

March 1, 2009

Caramel cake is a Southern favorite, one of those cakes that if you notice one on a church buffet table, you might have to strong-arm your way past the preacher and head deacon to get a piece before it gets gone.
The cake dates at least to the last quarter of the nineteenth century; the earliest published recipe I hace been able to find is in The Dixie Cook- Book by Estelle Woods Wilcox, published in Atlanta in 1883.
This recipe is typical; it comes from Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes. Mrs Garrison was a longtime food editor of The Charlotte Observer.

Yield: 1 9-inch Layer Cake

1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divided use
1/4 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter or margarine
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Caramel Frosting (recipe below)

Melt the one-third cup sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until deep-brown syrup is formed - a process called caramelization. Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set syrup aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchment paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the bottoms and sides.

Cream butter in bowl of electric mixer. Add 11/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well-incorporated. Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.

Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Combine milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until smooth. Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.

Frost cooled cake, stacking layers.

Caramel Frosting

3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage, 235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.

Remove pan from heat. Stir in butter, then let syrup cool. Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half-and-half) may be added is mixture is too thick.

February 27, 2009

HOME DINNER FOR WINTER.

Oysters on Half Shell.

Turtle Soup.

Boiled Fish and Creamed Potatoes.
Fillet of Beef and Mushrooms. French Peas. Macaroni.

Lettuce Salad. Crackers and Cheese.

Cardinal Richelieu Pudding. Fruit. Coffee.

Serve Claret and Appolinaris.

–Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland and Virginia Cook Book. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company, 1894.

February 14, 2009

As noted in the earlier post, the diet of slaves varied widely depending on where they lived, the type of plantation they lived on, and even the years they lived. Here are some excerpts from books written by former slaves detailing their diets.

“The food of the slave is this: Every Saturday night they receive two pounds of bacon, and one peck and a half of corn meal, to last the men through the week. The women have one half pound of meat, and one peck of meal, and the children one half peck each. When this is gone, they can have no more till the end of the week. This is very little food for the slaves. They have to beg when they can; when they cannot, they must suffer. They are not allowed to go off the plantation; if they do, and are caught, they are whipped very severely, and what they have begged is taken from them.”
—Peter Randolph, Sketches Of Slave Life: Or,Illustrations
Of The ‘Peculiar Institution.’ Boston: published for the author, 1855.

“Slaves every Monday morning have a certain quantity of Indian corn handed out to them; this they grind with a handmill, and boil or use the meal as they like. The adult slaves have one salt herring allowed for breakfast, during the winter time. The breakfast hour is usually from ten to eleven o’clock. The dinner consists generally of black-eyed peas soup, as it is called. About a quart of peas is boiled in a large pan, and a small piece of meat, just to flavour the soup, is put into the pan. The next day it would be bean soup, and another day it would be Indian meal broth. The dinner hour is about two or three o’clock; the soup being served out to the men and women in bowls; but the children feed like pigs out of troughs, and being supplied sparingly, invariably fight and quarrel with one another over their meals.”
—Francis Fredric, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky; or, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States of America. London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1863.

“The supply of food given out to the slaves, was one peck of corn a week, or some equivalent, and nothing besides. They must grind their own corn, after the work of the day was performed, at a mill which stood on the plantation. We had to eat our coarse bread without meat, or butter, or milk. Severe labor alone gave us an appetite for our scanty and unpalatable fare. Many of the slaves were so hungry after their excessive toil, that they were compelled to steal food in addition to this allowance.
During the planting and harvest season, we had to work early and late. The men and women were called at three o’clock in the morning, and were worked on the plantation till it was dark at night. After that they must prepare their food for supper and for the breakfast of the next day, and attend to other duties of their own dear homes. Parents would often have to work for their children at home, aftereach day’s protracted toil, till the middle of the night, and then snatch a few hours’ sleep, to get strength for the heavy burdens of the next day. “
—Thomas H. Jones, The Experience Of Thomas H. Jones, Who Was A Slave For Forty-three Years. Boston: Bazin & Chandler, 1862.

“The slaves got their allowance every Monday night of molasses, meat, corn meal, and a kind of flour called “dredgings” or “shorts.” Perhaps this allowance would be gone before the next Monday night, in which case the slaves would steal hogs and chickens. Then would come the whipping-post. Master himself never whipped his slaves; this was left to the overseer.

We children had no supper, and only a little piece of bread or something of the kind in the morning. Our dishes consisted of one wooden bowl, and oyster shells were our spoons. This bowl served for about fifteen children, and often the dogs and the ducks and the peafowl had a dip in it. Sometimes we had buttermilk and bread in our bowl, sometimes greens or bones.”
—Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood’s Slavery Days. Boston: Ross Publishing Company, 1909.

February 10, 2009

“Kill your hogs when the wind is from the north-west. The night before you salt the meat take a string of red pepper and make a strong tea. (Let it remain on the stove over night.) Put in the tea 2 heaping tablespoons of saltpetre to every 2 gallons. Take this strong tea and pour on the salt. Salt the meat lightly the first time to run off the blood. Let the meat lie packed 3 days–longer, if the weather is very cold. Then overhaul the meat and put 1 teaspoon of pulverized saltpetre on the flesh side of each ham and rub in well. Then rub with molasses mixed with salt. Pack close for 10 days. After this overhaul again, rubbing each piece, and pack close again. Hang the meat in 3 weeks from the time the hogs were killed. Before hanging, wash each piece in warm water, and while wet roll in hickory ashes. Then smoke with green hickory wood, and tie up in cotton bags in February.”

—Minerva C. Fox, The Blue Grass Cook Book. New York: Fox, Duffield & Company, 1904

February 9, 2009

2 cups corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
1 whole egg
l /2 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons onion, (grated fine)

Mix all dry ingredients, add onion, then enough buttermilk
to make a stiff dough, add the egg, mix well then drop by spoonsfull in hot deep fat, when done they will float, lay on paper and serve with fried fish.
In Florida they fry the Hush Puppies in the grease in which
they have just fried the fish. Mrs. Jessie E. Lawson
—The American Legion Auxiliary, Beppo Arnold Knowles Post No. 32 (Greenville, MS). The Delta’s Best Cook Book. Greenville, MS, privately published. ND, probably late 1940s-early 1950s.

February 7, 2009

By 1864, inflation had rendered Confederate currency worthless, leading to desperation among Southerners living in cities, who depended on money to buy food. Judith McGuire wrote about wartime food prices in Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War by a Lady of Virginia, “Coffee is $4 per pound, and good tea from $18 to $20; butter ranges from $1.50 to $2 per pound; lard 50 cents; corn $15 per barrel; and wheat $4.50 per bushel.”

There were at least thirteen food riots in the Confederacy during the later years of the war. Jefferson Davis tried to stop a bread riot in Richmond by offering a mob of rampaging housewives money from his own pockets. His money was as worthless as theirs, and the angry mob only dispersed after Davis threatened that hastily assembled troops would open fire if they didn’t go back home.

The more wealth a family had, the less impact the food shortages had on their daily lives. Mary Boykin Chesnut, a Charleston socialite whose husband James was an advisor to Jefferson Davis, recorded the menu of a “luncheon to ladies only” given by Mrs. Davis in late January, 1864: “Gumbo, ducks and olives, chickens in jelly, oysters, lettuce salad, chocolate cream, jelly cake, claret, champagne, etc., were the good things set before us.”

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