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Open Discussion of Southern Cooking

13K views 96 replies 25 participants last post by  scott livesey 
#1 ·
Izbnso PMed me about more Southern Cooking discussion. So here is some.

Some of what I like: Long cooking, use of vinegar, pickles, slaws, relishes, desserts, barbecue, bread, biscuits, cornbread, fried foods

Some of what I don't like: Grits, hominy, spoonbread. I'll say cornbread again as it's quite regional and some types just don't work for me. Also collard greens They've been too bitter for me. I've liked other greens better. I'll get all kinds of grief for not appreciating these hallmarks of Southern Cooking I'm sure.

In general terms, the South isn't afraid of fats and what they bring to a dish. I think we've lost that richness and flavor in much of modern cooking. The pig has reached some of it's highest peaks among the Southerners with barbecue, bacon, sausage, ham and lard. Yet it can be integrated with a modern healthy diet with discretion, moderation and balance.

Yet despite that richness, they're frugal, eating just about anything everything. Like most great cuisines, the best of the South rises from the eating of the poor commoners. And again like most great cuisines, there was a rich culture that refined some of that primitive cooking. Hospitality regardless of class is also a hallmark of the culture that is reflected in the cuisine and it's love of prepared foods for quick sharing and snacking.

And don't forget blues and jazz.

Phil
 
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#2 ·
So lets focus on grits for a minute. People swear up and down that once you have their grits you'll love them. Everyone else makes them wrong.

It hasn't proven true for me yet. I have the same problem with polenta. Not that polenta and grits are the same but when they're fresh and hot, they're just bland mush. I find the texture unappealing and the flavor lacking. Even with cheese or topped with stuff.

Once you let it set up and toast it, it gets pretty good. Just not fresh and gooey.

I'll grant you I've not tried them again in quite a while. It might be time to try again. But I'm not holding out much hope.

Phil
 
#3 ·
Sorry, but you can keep the grits...

Haven't ever been served any that I thought were appealing...

As a disclaimer, I grew up in northern Illinois, moved to the Phoenix, AZ area as a teenager, and never had any direct exposure to those things...

However, my business travels have taken me to many places in the south and southeast, and my curiosity has me trying grits at least once in each regional area.

None have passed the "acceptance" test.

Sorry if that offends true southerners, but this honky just can't hang...

Now if we want to talk about green beans or peas cooked up with a dollop of bacon grease, or scrumptious sweet cornbread, or chicken fried steak, or grilled pork chops, or kale and spinach salads with sliced tomatoes and cukes with mushrooms, well, bring it on!!!

My wife's family come from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, and the cooking she was taught at her Granny and Mom's side had a bunch of the southern influence that I learned to appreciate...

Geez, making me salivate just typing this out!!!
 
#4 ·
I wonder how many different "authentic" recipes there are for Southern Fried Chicken? I don't make it that often, but I sure do enjoy those times I do. I made a chicken dish tonight that ended up getting chucked out, possibly a seperate thread later. Drat.

Collard greens can indeed be bitter. Beet greens and spinach are similar but a bit more savory in my opinion. No opinion on turnip greens, never had them. Parsnip and carrot greens seem like they would not be good. I could be wrong, as is so often the case.

I like grits, though mostly as a carrier for the butter, salt, cheese and hot sauce. Yet another food like substance that benefits from having a couple of nice, runny, sunny side up eggs stirred into it.

A few months ago went to a nephew's wedding in Mission Viejo, CA. Stayed at this Hampton Inn where they provide a modest breakfast in the morning. My wife's family is from the Arizona, southern Cal area, they couldn't quite figure out what this one item was. Being from the midwest, having seen miles and miles and miles of cornfields, I knew what fried cornmeal mush was the moment I saw it. Sort of a Peoria polenta. I meant to seek out the staff person who was responsible and thank them. But we had a wedding to get to.

Probably the closest I come to making a 'Southern' dish is my black eyed peas with ham hocks. Plopped on a plate next to a pile of barbecue of whatever description, with an ample quantity of cornbread to sop up the various liquids, that's some good eating' Actually a number of folks I know don't eat the cornbread as a piece of cornbread, but crumble it up to scatter over the beans and such.

I've never developed a taste for sweet tea. I've never had any deep fried 'white meat' but I bet I would like it.

And I'm assuming that by 'Southern' you are leaving out southern Louisiana, which is a whole 'nother story.

mjb.
 
#6 ·
>What states make up the south? <

Depends on who's counting, and for what purpose, Shel.

Geographically, if you extend the Ohio River along the Mason/Dixon line, everything bordered by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, except Florida, is considered to be the South.

Florida, because of it's different location, weather patterns, culture, and history, is in a class by itself.

From a cultural viewpoint, Arkansas and Louisiana are often grouped as part of the South.

From a culinary viewpoint, Arkansas and Louisiana are not truly southern. They are southern with a French overlay.

From one historic viewpoint it would include all states and territories that joined or backed the Confederacy. So in that regard, Texas, for instance, which is generally considered Southwestern, would be a Southern state.

I forget, offhand, how the Commerce Department and Census Bureau define it. But I seem to recall that they do it differently from each other.
 
#7 ·
I grew up in southeast Georgia. When I was 4 or 5 to age 7, we lived with my maternal grandmother and then we moved into the newly remodeled "home place" across a small field from her. This is the home where my grandfather, mother, and then my sister and I lived as children. My father planted a garden every year and my mother, grandmother, sister, and I froze and canned the vegetables he grew. The garden consisted of several types of butterbeans (colored and white but I don't know the "official" names), peas (black eyes, purple hulls, zippers, big boys, and more), squash (yellow and zucchini), tomatoes, bell peppers, cayenne peppers, okra, cucumbers, corn, green beans, watermelons,and sometimes cantaloupe. In spring, he'd plant turnips, beets, collards, mustard, cabbage, and garden peas. In fall, he'd plant more turnips, collards, mustard, etc.

In summer, we would have the best meals. Because we did most of our freezing and canning at my grandmother's house. She'd cook lunch while we worked. We'd have whatever was picked fresh from the garden that morning. Sometimes, we'd have fried fatback, fried cubed steak, fried chicken, hash (not from corn beef, from pork or beef roast), pork chops, pork roasts, etc. For supper, we'd have more of the same.....fresh cooked, not leftovers.

Southern cooking to me, is not only about fat. It's about using what you have. The current movement to support locally grown foods, is only a new age version of how I grew up. We grew and put away as much as possible for eating year round. It was hard work and as a child/teen, I hated it! Now I try to grow as much as I can in my limited space and not waste a bit of it.

We ate chicken cooked in many ways. For my family, southern fried chicken was not what I have seen it called online. There was no soaking in buttermilk and battering it. The chicken was cut up, washed, patted dry, salt and peppered, then dredged in flour before being fried in a cast iron skillet. I've adapted my own seasonings other than just salt and pepper but still do not use a batter or a soaking method. We grilled chicken and covered in bbq sauce. We roasted and baked chicken. We boiled and made chicken and dumplings, chicken soup, chicken and rice, chicken pot pie, chicken casserole.....my aunt and uncle even published a cookbook called "100 Simple Easy Ways to Prepare Chicken".

We ate pork chops, beef, shrimp, catfish, and other fish. True, a lot of these foods were fried but we didn't eat fried food every day. In reality, I'd say the "southern" diet I grew up eating was the first movement towards an everything in moderation mindset.

We always had a meat, starch, and veggies, usually at least 2 veggies, sometimes more, and lots of times had biscuits, lacy cornbread (thin batter fried on a cast iron griddle with a crunchy texture and "lacy" edges), rolls, or some other bread.

Mealtimes were family time. We ate when my father got home from work at the same time and as a family. Our large extended family get-togethers centered around food. We had two family reunions per year, one for my maternal grandfather's family and one for my maternal grandmother's family. These were potluck dinners and almost every woman cooked her best recipes and carried the food in her best dishes. The same went for funerals. As soon as neighbors, family, and friends heard of a death, the women started cooking and delivering food to the home. On the day of the funeral, lunch was provided for the familiy and everyone at the home but the community. No one was alone in their grief.

This is how I grew up and I'll always treasure my childhood in The South. My love of cooking came from watching my mother, grandmother, and aunts preparing meals seasoned with love for family and friends.
 
#8 ·
I just spent the weekend visiting old friends in Virginia - where I spent my teen years. It was great to revisit the flavors of Virginia.

Most notably hush puppies!!! I don't know what's wrong with northerners but hush puppies served with honey butter are the best darned thing about eating at a seafood shack.

I miss country fried steak, white gravy, real mac 'n cheese, corn bread (here in NY we have corn muffins - ick) fried chicken, and BEEF - I don't know why but beef in ny just doesn't taste good to me. You could order a steak at Applebees in Virginia and it would taste better than the fanciest steak house here in NY.
 
#10 ·
I love Southern cooking in its many glories. There are lots of regions and localities in the South that have their own special styles. I disagree that cajun, creole, "soul-food" etc., aren't "southern." There isn't just one, suburban, country-roots, white-folks, NASCAR Southern. That's a political marketing myth we shouldn't confuse with food.

And let's not confuse Southern cooking with generic farm and country cooking. There's nothing particularly Southern about biscuits, fresh vegetables, canning, fish fires, hush-puppies or any of that. It's just country. They do all that stuff all over the rural east and Midwest, too. They don't have the same flair with overcooking vegetables in pig fat though.

Grits are Southern. As was already said, grits aren't the point of grits. Grits are a way of eating something that's bad for you. Usually butter. I've got a shrimp and cheesy-grits recipe that will shut every artery you ever met. Yes. Including traffic arteries. Southern California counts, right?

Southern cooking kind of brings all that bad stuff in, sneaky like. "Iced tea" sounds innocent enough but Southern iced tea is so sweet you're molars vibrate at frequencies which make dogs howl. Hush puppies! Squash -- no. Squash flavored fat back -- yes. And so it goes. Of course, you can make all that stuff northern again by putting it on a stick and deep frying it. We're not completely clueless. But that's out-front bad. Not sly bad. A lot of Southern cooking is a way of getting kids to eat what's bad for them without them knowing it. "Mama," says the little Birmingham tyke, "I love your grilled chicken."

"Of course you do dear, and you're going to love it still more with this white sauce." Nothing like mayo and sugar to build build healthy bones.

"Southern fried," does not involve oil. Oil is too healthy. Like in salads. Salads are healthy. Your southern salads do involve oil, but only to make the mayo part of the Thousand Island dressing. Had there been a way to do it with Crisco, it would have been done. Spinach salad with hot bacon fat dressing? Southern. Southern Germany, to be sure... but Southern.

To the extent that it means anything, "Southern fried chicken," usually means flour dredged as opposed to battered. Add in pan frying, in lard or Crisco -- you're getting pretty darn Southern. Genuflect towards Savannah and you've got it. A buttermilk bath isn't particularly Southern or not Southern. It's just a good idea to make the chicken extra tender and tasty. And it is country. Loved the dipped in barbecue sauce before dredging thing. Loved it. I'd heard "The South shall rise again," but didn't know it was premised on midnight indigestion.

Some kinds of barbecue are southern, and some kinds aren't. California, open-pit beef barbecue isn't Southern. But it's barbecue. Great barbecue, in fact. One thing though, bad barbecue isn't Southern. They just won't have it. Also, every Southerner knows down to her cute little Southern toes that a barbecue and a grill are not the same thing. In the interests of maintaining perspective, let's not go overboard. It's true fire was not invented in the South and neither was smoked pig. On the other hand, mid-Carolinas mustard sauce was. They eat that in heaven, you know.

Chili dogs with coleslaw are Southern cooking. Chili was not invented in the American Midwest. Chili was not invented in Texas either. Texas chili, such as it is, as sold by the San Antonio "chili ladies" of sainted memory, was and is just regular old chili colorado which is a Mexican thing. Or, thang, if you're reading this with an accent.. When the busboy dumped the beans in it, but forgot and left it on the table, and someone ate it and thought it was good -- if Cincinnati wants to claim that, they can have it. On spaghetti? Why not. Just goes to show, bad taste isn't regional. The hot dog wasn't invented in the South, neither was the bun nor the cole slaw. But put them together and ... Get you some plaid shorts, a pink alligator shirt, a pair of white socks with a big ol' Nike swoosh on them, and some brown boat shoes with leather laces. You in the South now, boy. Might as well dress like it.

Hush puppies are so southern they're from the Great Lakes. Seriously. No, seriously. Well, semi-seriously anyway. You can't expect me to stop laughing. The point is that fish-fries are neither Southern nor not-Southern. They're more Rotarian. Hush puppies are fish-fry and just as good in Minnesota as in Mississippi.

But there is one serious thing we have to face honestly -- unpleasant as it is. We northerners neither truly loved nor understood Crisco. That they went and wrecked and made it "New With Zero Transfat" is probably because Crisco cried itself to sleep every night because the north was so cruel. Now there's this other healthy that doesn't cook for $#%!. You know whose fault that is, right? Crisco died of a broken heart because the North killed it. Probably in San Francisco.

Some thoughts,
BDL
 
#11 ·
Haha, yes the hot dog!!!

My parents used to own and run a hot dog shop in Va. Beach. They used to advertise "Coney Island Style Hot Dogs" but then I got to NY and realized that there ain't nothin coney island style about 'em. Ooooooh NY talks a big game about their dogs but they hold nothing over the south. Unless of course you like 3-cent all-beef boiled kosher dogs topped with "mystery onion sauce".

Hmmmmmm the snap of a hormel or boarshead dog topped "all-the-way" (mustard, raw onion, chili) plus a big bloop of slawwww, nestled in a perfectly steamed bun YES STEAMED and it makes a world of difference! Southerners from my parts take their dogs seriously and there's all kinds of hot dog shops in the area. You haven't had one till you had one.
 
#12 ·
Cream Gravy is also often falsely ascribed to Southern Cooking. It existed many other places too but the Southerners do it best.

Perhaps its the low protien flour making for silkier sauces.

More likely it's that fact that they use fat for flavor and the gravy is probably loaded with bits of sausage and fond and plenty of black pepper.

Phil
 
#15 ·
Teach me to send a pm about starting a thread and then go to bed. Ya'll got started with out me. And chasing children all day got me behind.

KY is right about it depending on who you ask about which states make up the South. However, there are a fat lot of folks in the Florida Pan Handle that consider themselves separate from all those snow birds that moved in once they brought in air conditioning and got rid of the mosquitoes. My husband is from Miami, born during the Stone Age, and the Miami of his youth is culturally a far cry from Southern Florida today.

Louisiana is different, something that the people of Louisiana are very proud of, but still the South. We lived there for three years when I was young. I loved all the people and some of the food. Hot and spicy isn't my thing and neither are mud bugs. But a good mild sausage jambalaya and now we're talking. The first time my mother attended a neighborhood crawfish boil, she exclaimed that her Daddy used them for bait.:lol:

Grits, love 'em. If they are gooey, they're not right in my opinion.

Fried Chicken…well I'm a bit emotionally scarred from working at Fried Chicken joint in high school :eek:. Still gives me the willies and I refuse to eat at any fast food Fried Chicken restaurant and I highly recommend that no one else does either.

Sweet Tea, if it's made right I love it. I don't make it very often at home. Both my grandmothers and my mother made it everyday. My mother and my paternal grandmother put so much lemon in the pitcher (as many as 4 lemons to a pitcher) that I found it repulsive when I was little. My maternal grandmother made the best. Lemon added by the glass (or not) and enough sugar to be sweet but not cloying.

Quick breads are predominant here. You see dinner rolls that are yeast risen and a few coffee cakes, but that's it. I have never gotten a reasonable answer from a fellow Southerner as to why that is. The best assumption I can make is that it is tradition more than anything else.

I have to agree with BDL about what is considered Southern Cooking and how the South has been "marketed" and really that's the angle I had in mind when I suggested the thread to Phatch.

We in the South are known to absolutely never have a chip on our shoulders about anything (that's called sarcasm). A fair amount of us are perturbed that when Southern cooking is extolled out side of our borders that what the rest of the world usually hears about is food from the bayou, generic farm food, or overcooked lard ridden food.
That is not to say that we all don't use more lard and bacon grease than the rest of the country put together. Or that you won't find those types of dishes in a myriad of different homes and restaurants. However, over use of the fat of the pig with mushy vegetables isn't the hallmark of real Southern cooking. It is the hallmark of a certain kind of Southern cooking.

The thing is, while every region has its stand out specialties, usually based on local ingredients and traditions, the rest of the world seems to think that chitlins, collards and corn bread is what we eat all the time. (I have never and will never touch the first, can't stand the second, but love me some corn bread!)There are plenty of people who eat lots of these dishes and generations of Southerners who's Mamas and Grandmamas never dreamed of serving such things.

And as to not being healthy, yes we don't think about that too terribly much. One Southern practice that I have always found abhorrent was the use/over use of food coloring. The reason for this always makes me think of the line in Steel Magnolias "Our ability to accessorize is what separates us from the animals." It's about being "pretty."

What is billed as Classic Southern food (as Phatch points out) is typically the food of the lower economic classes, of which we, admittedly, have always had a profusion of. But no, we aren't all NASCAR watching bumpkins who like deep fried pork chops served with insulin shock tea and cracklin' bread. Nor do we all take home fresh road kill for dinner, but I do know people who do. And a fair amount of us live on paved roads.

There is an entirely different side and approach to Southern cooking that doesn't get the same "press" as the clog your arties food BDL mentioned. For goodness sake, start a thread on Southern cooking and grits, fried chicken and pig fat are what ya'll start talking about, somebody cue the banjo music. We are more than that.

I believe I have a unique (and certainly biased) perspective because not only am I a Southerner, I come from both sides of that economic fence.
I've talked about my Big Mama's biscuits before, throw in her divinity candy and corn bread and that is the complete list of foods from her kitchen that I remotely enjoyed growing up. She had a sixth grade education, never learned to drive and they got indoor bathrooms around 1960. Her husband, my grandfather, was a sharecropper and a prison guard. They grew a great deal of what they ate hunted and fished for most of their meat and she cooked it all to death and then some with enough lard and bacon grease to make your mouth greasy and a healthy dose of the homemade pepper vinegar on top.

My father's mother, a school teacher from a once prominent family but by no means wealthy, had a garden and grew some of their food. When they had sweet potatoes there were no marshmallows involved: roasted potato, little dot of butter a smidge of brown sugar and black walnuts. And Easter dinner had lamb when finances permitted (although I preferred ham) and always asparagus. Congealed salad desserts were a staple, as was ambrosia (no cherries or marshmallows), syllabub on the occasional Christmas Eve and her favorite pie was mince meat. Her black eyed peas (rarely served) retained a texture far away from baby food, but were seasoned with bacon grease or ham hock. Yellow squash, fresh from the garden, were either done in a similar fashion to scalloped potatoes or served cooked with just a bit of butter and onions. She often lamented that she never took the time to have her mother teach her how to make the dessert that was saved for special company: Charlotte russe

On the coast of Alabama, where I have spent the majority of my life, the culinary influences are very diverse. The French settled and held the area long enough for just about everything from the Mobile region to have a major French twist. Over in Baldwin county, there were (and still are) a number of German families (Elberta sausage festival), my late husband was one of them. There is an enormous Greek influence here as well. Mobile has hosted a Greek festival for as long as I can remember and the Malbis Plantation in Baldwin County supported a self sufficient Greek community until the property value skyrocketed and they began putting up "planned communities."

And all of this "back story" makes the food or recipe relevant. Phatch, in your review you talked about how so much time was spent talking about the party or social event at which a given recipe was served, it seemed to puzzle you. Let me explain: often times, the back story is the most important bit of information.

As in:
"I got this recipe from Billy's wife. No, not Cindy-Lou, she couldn't cook her way out of a wet paper sack. I got it from Becky-Lee, his first wife, who was the preacher's daughter that ran off and left Billy for that lion tamer from the circus. Which caused Billy to have to switch churches and that's where he met Cindy-Lou, who was so homely she was lucky to even get a divorcee. Well, Becky-Lee served this at the last garden club meeting she hosted before she blew out of town. She knew how much I liked it so she sent it to me on the back of a post card from Tanzania. But don't tell anybody I told you."
Entertaining can be a contact sport for the ladies of the South. Although it is tacky to keep score. Hence, you will always find that "party food" and "desserts" are the largest sections in any Junior League cookbook.
We like winning ribbons for our desserts and preserves (I have a few myself) and the types of recipes we choose to share as our favorites speaks volumes about "who our people are", which is still something that is very important to a lot of us. Go ahead; ask me who my people are.:D

I'm sure it is true of all regions to some extent, but it feels to me that we Southerners disproportionally tie our stories and our food together so tightly that it is difficult to separate one from the other. Which is why a goodly number of us chafe at being thought of as only pig fat and collards, as I said before, we are far more than that.

 
#17 ·
Here in upstate NY we have an abundance of Greek owned diners that pump out dogs with a meat sauce that's different than any other I ever had. It looks like a chili sauce but it's not. It's beef based with tomato juice, a lot of black pepper, and cinnamon in the background. Then it simmers all day and gets potent. They use plain old hot dogs with God knows what's in them grilled on the flat top, plain yellow mustard, sauce, and raw onion all in a steamed roll.

I'd pass on a recipe but they don't pass it out. In my younger years I worked in 3 different places and never got close to finding out what goes into that sauce. I'll tell you though, I wish I had a dollar for everyone of those dogs I put out (and ate).

Willie
 
#18 ·
Well said, Izbnso.

But you have to admit that southerners help perpetrate the idea that southern cooking is all grits and red eye gravy.

When is the last time you heard someone admit, outside our insular borders, that there was anyone in the population who wasn't a rusty neck, good ol' boy, or trailer trash?

The fact is, we love the stereotype typified by the old New Yorker cartoon. There's a guy in a suit & tie, with a briefcase that says "census bureau." He's talking to a long-bearded drink of water rocking on the porch of his ramshackle cabin.

"I'd say the average income 'roun' heah is $15,000 a year," the hillbilly is saying to the census taker. "Most of us make aroun' 1,200 dollah. Fella up on the hill makes 'bout half a million."

It's always amused me how much the NY Times is responsible for the maintaining the image of the dirt-poor, ignorant southerner, considering how many of its editors and columnists have been from the South.

That aside, there are socio-economic differences that dictate the kind of food we eat, as well as regional ones. And the "party" mentality Phil refers to pervades everything. What is it Paula Dean told an interviewer: "We have the best funeral food in the world."

A lot of that dates from before the War of Northern Aggression, when unexpected visitors were likely to drop by, and stay for a month. The whole concept of southern hospitality was born in those days, and became ubiquitous. Rich or poor, there was always enough food prepared to feed the stranger at the door.

I eschew most books that proclaim themselves to be about southern cooking. They tend to cater to the image rather than the reality. Instead, I turn to any of the numerous church, and grange, and Junior League, and historical society cookbooks. You've seen them. Probably own a shelf of them. Volunteered recipes, plastic spiral binding, and used as fund raisers. But they contain what most would think of as "real" southern cooking.

Well, real to a certain stratum. Just as real are dishes like:

Rice Paper Wrapped Tuna Loin with Ginger.
Scallop Escabeche.
Pork Tenderloin "Au Poivre"
Bacon Wrapped Trout Stuffed with Crawfish..
Roasted Chicken with Collards, Red Onion, and Sweet Potato Chips.
And yes, even, Grilled and Braised Rabbit with Molasses, Bourbon, Slap Bacon, and Stone-Ground Grits.

Each of them can be found in Marlene Osteen's Great Chef's of the South, and are served in some of the finest restaurants in the region.

Are they any less southern cooking for being haut. I don't think so. The Blackberry Inn is just as much a southern eatery as Wanda's Café, outside of Norcross, Georgia.
 
#19 ·
Anson Mills grits.....actually have a corn flavor to them.....last time I served them with morels (dried added to the water), Hooks 10 year cheddar.....
smoothed them out with a dab of cream.

skimmed this thread, gotta go cook......but it was interesting reading that Arkansas has French influences.?!

I lived in Little Rock 7 years in the 1960's
Memphis 7 years
New Orleans/DeRidder/Baton Rouge 15 years
now St. Louis.....MO has the Mason-Dixon line but I honestly don't think of Missouri as the south.

All were different, all had regional specialties......

Thank goodness one of my buddies just openned a Southern bent restaurant with dishes from TN.
Another is openning a place this winter called Acadia......he worked with Leah Chase in the late 1970's at Dookie Chase in NO.....later worked at Blackberry Inn, Inn at Little Washington etc.....the place should have under 40 seats and real cajun/creole/soul food.!!!!! All this from a 50 year old heavily tattooed, white pony tailed, white guy.....just exciting having someone who knows their shtuff cooking at an easily neighborhood joint.
 
#20 ·
The South is also the home to rice in the US. California and Texas might be big growers now, but they don't know rice like parts of the South know rice.

Gullah meals revolve around rice.

Also dirty rice.

Thomas Jefferson had his cooks make a risotto with the US rice after his trips to Italy. It's not the same in texture, but it's not bad. Not worth it if you do have arborio.

Louisiana cooking also needs its rice for accompanying red beans. And Gumbo needs that rice too.

Phil
 
#21 ·
I can't believe you wrote this. What would California, with its huge Hispanic and Asian populations know about rice?

The Asian population in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area alone, is about the same size as the combined, entire populations of Atlanta and (pre-Katrina) New Orleans. And that's about 1/4 the size of the Hispanic population here. And that's just one megalopolis.

I don't know where you go to eat when you come here, but you definitely need a better class of recommendations.

I'm not sure which rice you're comparing to Italian arborio, there are quite a few. Nor do I know which rice Sally Hemmings lovingly stirred to make TJ's risotto, but it was probably a long grain. Things have come a long way since then. Several of the Calrose types are at least as good for risottos as arborio. In terms of my own cooking, I'd choose a Calrose over arborio for risotto.

All sorts of rices from all over the world work for different applications. You don't need Fragrant Thai to make dirty rice. And if you use it, you're wasting your money.

BDL
 
#22 ·
I don't go to California. Haven't been in decades and have no plans to go again.

My point was that for US cooking, the south is the place for rice. Sure Asian rice and hispanic rice is good. That's not US cooking. It's cooked in the US but it's not our cuisine so to speak.

Now I prefer Asian cuisine to Southern food. But I limited it to the US in my very first line. Perhaps not clearly enough.

Phil
 
#23 ·
OK

I see what you're saying. But it's silly and East-Coast-centric. Gullah/African, and Cajun/French is American. But Mexican and Asian influenced food isn't? Why? Mexicans got here before dirt (and us for that matter); and Asians became a significant part of the population in the middle of the nineteenth century. Surely, that's long enough to count.

I know it seems like a stretch, but California is America too and so is Texas. American food is a big subject, and either includes all of the immigrant subgroups or none. I see it this way: If a young mother, herself born in the U.S. of A. cooks it at home -- it's American cooking -- no matter where grandma came from.

Got a better rule?

BDL
 
#24 ·
Southern Cooking was largely intact and at it's peak at those times of ethnic influx. Consider the impact of Randolph's The Virginia Housewife". Much of that cooking is still classic Southern Food.

The Mexican and Asian influences haven't generated the same sort of regional cuisine. New Mexico cooking is quite different from Texas or California cooking. The Hispanic influence in East coast cooking are very different from those in the West coast.

The historic Mexican and Asian populations were never brought into the mainstream society to have the impact that black slave cooking had. Not that black slaves were integrated into society either but their work and cooking strongly influenced southern cuisine. It may well be that without slavery, southern regional cooking would not have become what it is. Not so much with the others in my view. You can make an argument about Chinese Cooking and the railroads though.

There is a contemporary California cuisine that melds these influences. I don't think it as significant or historical yet. A very present influence in modern cooking, true.

Phil
 
#25 ·
Phil,

I understand what you're saying and your point of view. Although I strongly disagree, my POV is clear enough to not require more discussion. The only thing I'm going to add is that in spite of and/or because of our disagreements, I have a lot of respect for you.

BDL
 
#26 ·
So let's talk about mayonnaise in Southern cooking.

It's authentic to modern southern food. Commercial mayonnaise seems to have originated in NY in the early 1900s. Not very historically southern.

It's not authentic to older southern food which would have used boiled dressing. I often prefer a blend of boiled dressing and mayo for potato salad and it makes a good coleslaw to with the higher vinegar content.

And with the health and storage issues surrounding dairy, boiled dressing may not have been in wide use either. I certainly don't see many references to it, even in the few old Southern cookbooks I've read. And I don't recall any references to mayo though I suspect the recipe was known by some.

Another commercial product I interpret as having changed southern food is canned milk. The first canned milk was much like sweetened condensed milk and was supplied to the US soldier in the Civil War. The high sugar content was the preservative. While another northern product, I see sweetened condensed milk in desserts and sweets in many southern cookbooks, probably more so than in other regions. I've never seen it discussed so I'm just reading between the lines of history as it were as to where this trend may have originated.

Phil
 
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