OKRA

"Cut in wheels and fried in meal." My Mammaw’s reference to a pan of fried okra. It was a wonderful introduction to a lovely vegetable, and served to be my introduction to oysters, as well. I'd SEEN those hideous gray/black little quivery creatures, and could not imagine that anyone had ever got up the nerve to eat one. But fried, they looked OK....doesn't most anything? Everyone said, "Try one---see, it's just like fried okra." And it kind of was.

And okra is just scrumptious. Gently steamed on top of a pot of field peas with a big hunk of ham or bacon, the tiny pods tender and melty to the tongue, with some of the flavor of that smoky pot of peas. Wheeled and fried in either meal or flour, a mixture of both, or even one of those fishfry mixes in a pinch (or in someone else's kitchen). Tiny circles afloat in the rich brown-red gumbo, holding their own amongst the sea-tang of the shrimp and crab, adding a deep earthy flourish to the dish.

Or as oddly as my Mammaw cooked it, a strangely concocted dish of pods, stems intact, steamed and THEN meal-rolled and fried and spoked round the plate, the daintily-arranged golden delicacies with their long greeny-brown bodies and tails arrayed like a lizard pinwheel. The outside was crisp, salty, perfect, then the melting, creamy interior richness. Never had it that way before or since. Guess it was her own recipe.

And pickled!!!---salty and crisp and tangy with good vinegar and the snap of red pepper. I watched admiringly once as a lady who was to be our hostess at a cocktail party in her suite at a VERY grand hotel in Washington unpacked a small case. It was red leather with shiny brass fittings, and looked worthy of jewels or State secrets or at least caviar. To go with the lovely spread and bar she had ordered from the hotel, out of the case came three pretty home-canned jars from her own Southern garden. One of thumb-sized baby green eggplants, brined with garlic and herbs, and two pints of pickled okra.

My own great liking for okra (sometimes pronounced okry by some folks in my neck of the woods) was cause for an irate reaction, a considerable grudge against two of my Mother's friends, and the very first lightbulb moment in my love affair with words when I was about six. I made up little poems and stories and scenes, carefully crafting the rhyme and meter and plots, and had been reading avidly since I was four.

That great gift of reading had come to me courtesy of Mrs. Cooley, a lovely woman across the "road" (our smalltown synonym for "street" in my childhood).

She was Mother to four husky, rowdy boys, all yells and fists and elbows, and I think she valued our quiet days of books and words as much as I, in the quiet of her smoky, cluttered living room with all the books stacked round the walls and the dust motes falling like snowflakes in the narrow sunbeams squinting between the musty drapes.

She had introduced me to BOOKS---places and people unknown, and I will bless and value her all my days. I had developed quite a vocabulary, and though I knew not the meaning of syntax and was just grasping the definition of grammar, I had quite a firm standard for my own sentences. Pronunciation, however, was another matter. Just the reading of a word, without having heard it in its proper inflection, can make for some strange syllables.

The two neighbor women were standing beside a flowerbed in one's yard, and I was playing on the lawn with the daughter of the house. We were well-raised children, taught not to interrupt our elders, but when one mentioned okra, I burst in with my own enthusiastic endorsement, "I LOVE okree!!"

They burst out laughing, and I rose, highly insulted, and did my chubby little best to stalk off in righteous indignation, thinking they were making fun of my contribution. Before I could reach the road, one said, "We were just mentioning it's not correct to say you ‘love’ any food."

I wanted so badly to ask them if it wasn’t time to take their brooms in for an oil change. I DID like okra that much. And still do.

Someday, all those people who say eeeeeewwwwwww at the mere mention of okra will wake up and see CNN announcing that scientists have discovered that okra is a combination of Botox, Viagra and SlimFast, and what will they say THEN, HUH? THEN we'll see who's been right all along.

Crispy, crispy little wheeeeels. . . . .

PASSING THE TORCH

One night right after we met, we had a date to go to Memphis for dinner. By four o’clock it had begun to snow, and was really falling fast. I called him and asked if he’d settle for fried chicken by the fireplace---a question on a par with asking a kid if he’d like candy. He ate it and was much impressed with my culinary talent.

I didn’t tell him until much later that Caro fried that chicken, while I primped for the evening.

Well, I TAUGHT her.

Her own Grandmother---my first Mother-in-Law---taught me to fry chicken---black skillet (she parted with one of her own slow-cured, crusty-bottomed ones in the name of love and authenticity), Crisco from a can, flour, salt and pepper. S&P and a little can of sage, like a captive, mentholated dustbunny in a can---were the ONLY condiments in her quite considerable kitchen cabinets---if you don't count the cinnamon which she saved for sweet potato pie and baked apples.

And she was a GLORIOUS cook. Her chicken was a model, the essence, the very paragon of fried chicken, to be held up as the zenith to which we could all aspire. Her biscuits and cornbread (also black skillet) were tender, crusty marvels of breadhood.

And her desserts!!! She had a way with piecrust and cake batter that would make Betty Crocker hand over her apron. My soul still longs for the long-lost recipe (confiscated by a VERY quick, very sneaky SIL the day before the funeral) for her famous caramel cake---a tendercrumb, buttery, meltingly delicious golden poundcake with a poured icing which, coincidentally, had been cooked ditto black skillet. She could take the last smitch of flour in the bag, the crumbs of sugar left in the bowl, and the paper off a Parkay stick, and turn out a dessert fit for royalty.

One of the funny memories of her wonderful chicken dinners is that the chicken was the STAR, and the rest just add-ons. That platter of golden-brown, crusty delight would be set down before family and company alike, accompanied by the most featherlight rolls, a can of Schoolday English peas, and a can of Pride of Illinois corn---each heated in a little pot just long enough to melt the butter.

I cannot fathom to this day the two Sacred Mysteries of my cooking forebears---Mammaw’s Magical Teapot and Maw’s ability to heat ONE CAN EACH of two things, put them in bowls, and serve a family of five and assorted guests generously. (And don't forget the drained pineapple rings, topped with a coronary-busting tablespoon of Blue Plate and a big pinch of hoopcheese).

The chicken and the dessert---that's what you came for.

So I learned, those days of Delta heat and no A/C, in that kitchen with one window over the sink, 10 square feet of counter space, and a shiny yellow dinette set butt-bumping you every time you moved toward the stove. I sharpened the knife, washed the carcass, cut it into fourteen pieces, (count 'em---2 legs, 2 thighs, pulley bone, two breasts, stripped of two small sections of boneless meat, neck, back-cut-in-two, 2 wings). I don’t count the liver and gizzard---you never count them when you’re figuring pieces to go around. If they don’t get lost on the platter, somebody will have scarfed them up before the tea’s on the table.

I soaked, I carefully measured quantities and seasonings, I shook that big brown sack. I heated the pan of shortening til it "browned a cube of bread" and laid in the carefully floured pieces (always the dark meat first, legs turned to fit against each other "saves space," with the bony tent of of the back in the same pan, liver tucked carefully beneath---livers have a way of choosing their moment, and will blow skyhigh at the exact minute you take off the lid if you don't capture them under that handy ribcage).

White meat came next, and was lidded, turned, uncovered, crispened, and set on a great mattress of "Scotch towls" to drain. It was wonderful chicken, tender and crisp and salty and just right. And I still cook it just like that, same skillet, same method, in a place faraway and a time so different.

We’ve graduated from the can of big ole mooshy peas to a bowlful of tiny tender frozen ones, microwaved under Saran for three minutes, and still a lovely emerald, with the whiff of green gardens when the covering’s whisked off.

Occasionally I DO open a can of that thick, sweeter-than-sweet corn and cook it like pudding in a tiny skillet with butter. And again, we occasionally have a Pineapple Salad, ditto Blue Plate and some extra-sharp Kraft. It’s like going Home.

Chris gets out of the car, comes into the house grinning. "I smelled fried chicken all the way out into the yard!!"

FEEDING THE TROOPS

Another thing we had quite often was salmon and rice. Which is simply a heated can of salmon poured over cooked rice. Delicious with home made biscuits. Tonja

This little note in the "comments" section reminded me of a story I've returned to time and time again, in one of those Good Old Days books, for the sheer simple HOME of it, and the wonderful supper created from just a few jars in the pantry and big panfuls of light, homemade biscuits.

It was the early 'teens' of the last century, just before Wartime, and the narrator was a little girl---she and her brother were playing a game on the rug beside the fire. It was already dark on a Sunday evening, and since they'd had a good Sunday dinner right after church, they expected to have the few leftovers for their supper.

Daddy appeared at the door, having walked into town to his store for a while, and with him were four young soldiers, whose train was delayed for several hours. There was nothing open in town at that time of day, and it would be many hours before they could get anywhere that they could buy a meal, so he brought them home.

Mother was dismayed, as they had eaten almost all the roast, and very little of anything else was left, especially not to stretch double with four extra hearty young appetites. She thought for a moment, summoned the two children with her to the kitchen, and got out her biscuit pans.

The picture in the book shows a turned-out pan of a dozen puffed-over-the-top golden rolls or biscuits, standing high and proud, and I could just see that lady getting out the dough-bowl and sifting and working that dough. The little brother loaded up the woodstove to get it "good and hot" and Mother put in pan after pan of the light, airy biscuits.

Then she went into the pantry, stood surveying her jars and cans of possibles, and selected the last two cans of salmon, jars of peaches and home-canned pears and preserves and honey . She made a smooth, velvety "white sauce" to which she added the gently-flaked salmon, making a luscious, savory gravy for ladling onto the biscuits.

She filled the tureen with the sauce, put the preserves and the pears and the butter into pretty glass dishes, and summoned the guests to the table. The child's memory of that wonderful thing---that evening the Mama made do with what was available and made biscuits fit for a king, of how some hungry young men going who-knows-where to serve their country sat down at their table and enjoyed that bountiful basket of wonderful biscuits with the salmon gravy and the home-canned fruits---that was a bright moment for remembering.

And I think that good home dinner of humble, warming food was more than a meal---it was a gesture of kindness, a proffering of hospitality to those who were far from home, and perhaps unlikely to see it again. I'll bet the memory of the warmth of that welcome and that simple, comforting dinner went with every one of those young men to whichever part of the globe they were sent.

And that long-ago child is gone now, but when I remember it, I smile.

SAL-MON PADDEHS

Every pantry of my childhood held several tall red cans of salmon, with a silvery, leaping fish portrayed in a little oval on the label. Salmon in the tall can was cheaper than the squat cans of Starkist tuna, and you could stretch one can to feed a family of four---especially if one of the members was ME; I hated the stuff.

I still can't abide eating it, but have turned out countless little paving-stones over the years, starting with about ten crushed Premium crackers, and the clunky cylinder of salmon laid out on a white plate, so as to dissect it from all those pesky little bones (especially the crunchy round ones---they had a fossily look to them, like something in a line-drawing in my sciencebook).

And even after I caught on to the "don't cook fish too long" trick, I marveled at the soft, mushy pinkfleshed fish, and wondered HOW LONG it took to cook those bones to that crumbly, edible stage. My Grandpa would walk up beside Mammaw as she "picked over" the fish for cooking, and pick up every little round cylinder, crunching it between his back teeth with evident enjoyment.

The silver skin had a strong fishy/tincan tang to it, and it was stripped away, leaving just the soft pinkness of the fish itself, which was crumbled into a bowl with a little minced onion, the cracker crumbs, and an egg, as well as the secret--a teaspoon or so of Blue Plate mayonnaise, which lifted the everyday dish from the level of ordinary cooks' efforts to a special flavor known only at our table.

And was there a hierachy in the croquette-cooking set, with some cooks sneering at other cooks' amount of flour paste used to "stretch" the salmon? You gotta know that in the Southern kitchen, you might cut corners and stretch stuff and add an extra can of water to the Minute Maid at HOME, but not for company, and certainly not for taking to someone else's house or to any potluck gathering.

A cook's reputation was ALL, and a cook or two would coyly mention that hers was a "six-cracker" recipe, when the standard per tall can was ten, and I'm sure, though I never heard it, were those of "sleeve a' crackers" reputation, right down there with the trashy in their ways and the all-around stingy.

Tablespoons of the mixture were dropped gently into melted Crisco or oil in the big black skillet; after a good crusting on the bottom, they were flipped, then mashed just a tiny bit flatter with the egg turner to make them solid and well done all through. Onto a plate with paper towels when they were browned on the other side. Ours didn't seem to have any soft center---they looked more like crispy little pancakes with chunky bits of fish and little white or golden shards of fragrant onion.

Tartar sauce was the favored accompaniment, made up cool and tart while the patties were frying---a spoon or so of finely chopped home-canned dill pickle and an equal amount of sweet onion, cut about the size of rice---all stirred into perhaps a half-cup of cold mayo with a dribble of the salty, dilly juice from the pickle jar. I liked the sauce very much, and still follow that exact recipe today, for accompanying all fried seafoods or fish of any sort.

I don't make the patties too often any more---short cans of the candypink "fancy" salmon stand in my own pantry, for Caro's favorite salad, made up like tuna, but with a bit of the tartar sauce stirred into the right-out-of-the-can fish, for a nice cool dinner to take to work, or for Summer lunches. Chris likes little bites of it on crackers as a nibble while supper is cooking.

Chris' children remember their maternal Grandma’s making the salmon patties almost every time they visited her house---her other mainstay was fried chicken tenders, and both dishes are still favorites of them all. She was a lovely woman, slender and spare of aspect and word, but very kind to me, in my role of outsider joining her family. Her soft voice echoed her kindness and generosity of Spirit, and I remember her fondly.

Almost all the women I knew who made those salmon patties spoke in the same soft, gentle tones, and I think perhaps the secret of the flavor and the charm lay in the pronunciation common to all:

"Would Y'all want some sal-mon paddehs for supper?"

GRITS AND BISCUITS

I just had a question from a friend on another continent, asking about grits and what's the difference in biscuits and Southern Biscuits, what are beaten biscuits and what about Hominy Grits. My answer in the "comment" section went on and on, as I am wont to do, so I just moved it here.

Scones and biscuits on the same day---what's not to love?

I don't know a lot about anybody else's biscuits, but almost all "Southern Biscuits" or Southern Style Biscuits are made by starting with a shortening---originally lard, and it's still used by purists and a lot of the new gourmet cooks. Now, Crisco is the one of choice mostly, and most cooks use Self Rising flour, even if they do add a little extra salt or leavening.

And Buttermilk is the Southern mixing-liquid, with or without "baking soda"---rare is the kitchen in the South which has not a box of Arm & Hammer in the cupboard, for biscuits and other baking, and for cleaning drains, freshening laundry, and keeping the fridge and freezer fresh and odor-free. Right in there beside the Argo Cornstarch and the can of Clabber Girl.

Grits is a singular food, and I still think and say "Grits are" because of the plural sound. One would never speak of "a grit," but I know it should be followed by "IS," just as you would say, "Molasses is."

There's corn grits, white made with the white center of the corn, or yellow, with the whole kernel, ground more coarsely than cornmeal, which makes such velvety, wonderful cornbread.

And there's HOMINY grits, made with the "lye" or (dictionary word) nixtamalized corn. It's dried, ground, and can be advertised as Hominy Grits, the old fashioned kind.

OH, and beaten biscuits---I've made them. Once. Just as an experiment on a lazy Saturday morning. They're like a cross amongst a Ritz cracker and a dog biscuit and a Communion Wafer---the really hard, tough kind found in Baptist churches, which, if they weren't tiny enough to get back there and crunch between your back teeth, would do some serious dental damage. Or hang out like a mint until they melt sometime between Lord's Supper and "Just As I Am."

I had a recipe once for a cake, from way in the day before mixers. You were supposed to beat it for six hours. Unh unh. Not me. Just smacking that biscuit dough "til elastic" with the rolling pin one time was enough for me. And nobody would eat 'em, anyway.

Grits and how to eat them have caused more family dis-harmony than politics---butter or not; sugar or not; gravy or shrimp or syrup on top.

I cook the plain old Quaker, right off the grocery shelf in the round cardboard cylinder---the cook-it kind. Those packets which dump powder in the bowl and change to part-mush, part-crunch under the boiling water---not spoken of in polite company.

The pot simmers for a bit whilst the bacon and eggs cook; a big pat of butter is scraped off the knife into the pot, left to melt, and stirred in just before ladling a good hot serving onto everybody's plate. Then it's every man for himself---treat 'em as you will. No censure from me.

Be sure and run an inch or two of warm water into the empty pot and replace the lid til time to do the dishes, or you'll be chipping spackle off that thing for a week.

Jeff Foxworthy says that every single garbage can in the South has one fork with white stone between the tines, that somebody gave up on. And if the Egyptians had had grits instead of mortar, there'd be a whole townful of pyramids.