Maggie Green - Tasting Kentucky: Favorite Recipes from the Bluegrass State

TASTING KENTUCKY Favorite Recipes from the Bluegrass State by Maggie Green photography by Sarah Jane Sanders foreword by Ouita Michel For Kentucky cooks and bakers who stand in a kitchen every day to put a wholesome meal on the table.by Ouita Michel Kentuckys family farms, 85,000 strong, have deeply influenced the course of its history, economy, and food culture. One of Kentuckys leading exports, our delicious bourbon, is firmly rooted in Kentuckys corn production. For more than 200 years, we have distilled corn into this elixir, and still today Kentucky is among the top corn-producing states in the nation. It is evident also in what we eat: cornbread, corn cakes, grits, spoon bread, corn puddingall traditional Kentucky favorites. Kentucky boasts a livestock industry second to none, raising beef, hogs, chickens, lamb, goat, rabbit, and even squab (pigeon). Increasingly this livestock is processed here instead of being shipped to other states, and more and more Kentuckians are enjoying the delicious flavors of grass-finished beef, pork, and local chicken.

Chefs and cooks from across the Commonwealth are involved in celebrating and preparing Kentucky-produced foodstuffs through a Department of Agriculture program called Kentucky Proud, which helps brand locally produced products for consumers. Together we have boiled up local freshwater prawns; sliced up Kentucky-made cheese boards; picked blueberries, strawberries, apples, plums, and pears at local orchards; even slathered delicious Kentucky caviar on corn cakes. We have made tomato pies and pickled peppers, fried up breakfast sausage, whipped up eggs, and even picked pawpaws and persimmons grown here in Kentucky. The diversity of our farming community has deeply inspired me as a chef. The beauty of this farm-fresh food is always breathtaking: multiple varieties of Swiss chard, mustard greens, lettuces, herbs, beans, tomatoes, eggplant, squash... the list is endless.

One farmer I know grew twenty-six varieties of potato! This diversity brings me so much joy in my cooking and leaves me grateful to live and work in such a beautiful place. Maggie Green has compiled recipes from every region of Kentucky, representing chefs, cooks, and farmers themselves. These recipes reflect our ever-changing food culture. Sarah Jane Sanderss photographs bring the recipes to life. It thrills me to know that the bounty I have enjoyed as a Kentucky chef will make its way into kitchens across America.

Except for a three-year stint after college, Ive always lived in Kentucky.

Kentucky is not just a place where I lay my head at night, but its also my home. Every part of the Bluegrass Statefrom northern Kentucky where I now live and have raised my three children; to central Kentucky where I grew up and went to grade school, high school, and college; to western Kentucky where Ive explored caves, lakes, and towns; to eastern Kentucky where Ive worked in hospitals and made home health visits it all draws me in. Ive seen the mountain grandeur and the green, green grass of horse farms. From root to tip, from stem to stern, among the people and on the land, Kentucky is where I belong. In my family, all my children, both of my parents, and all four of my grandparents eventually called Kentucky home. Kentucky offered something that they maybe could have found elsewhere, but that they chose to find here.

Some were born here, but in the end they all lived and worked here. Drove buses and went to church here. Built roads and bridges here. Raised their families here and took advantage of the historic sites, state parks, horse farms, countryside, and sense of place that Kentucky offers. Anyone who spends any time in Kentucky will tell you that you cant travel and enjoy the scenery or visit family or friends without a bite to eat. No matter where you go or what you do in the Bluegrass State, its not a gathering unless you share some food and drink.

At a Kentucky foodways event sponsored by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Library, panel moderator John van Willigen reminisced about one of the first meals he was served when he visited Kentucky. One Sunday afternoon in a friends south-central Kentucky home, van Willigen had the opportunity to stay for dinner. He described on the table a platter of fried chicken that was hot and golden-brown. But it wasnt this platter of chicken that impressed him. It was the side dishes that surrounded the platter of chickenmuch of it from the garden that grew just outside the back door or from the jars of food preserved from last years garden bountythat made the meal. Sliced red tomatoes, green beans cooked with ham, steamy corn pudding, flaky biscuits, and thick-sliced sweet pickles, all piled high in bowls and strewn across the table, as the supporting cast for the chicken.

When I look back, thats pretty much the way most meals that I remember were served, too. Our large family ate dinner together almost every night of every week. My mom cooked meatloaf, roast beef, or pork roast and then on the side served the fresh stuffsliced red or fried green tomatoes, sometimes tomato aspic, green beans, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, bread dumplings, corn pudding, pickled beets, red cabbage, baked beans, watermelon balls, or cooked apples. Outside of Kentucky homes, meals in family- or chef-owned Kentucky restaurants, cafs, B&Bs, and inns are prepared in much the same way, offering whats fresh, abundant, and available, sometimes from a garden out the back door or a nearby farmer or food producer. Drive across the state from east to west and from north to south, and youll find regional variations in Kentucky foodsfrom Appalachia to central Kentuckys horse farms, and from the German-influenced cities in northern Kentucky to the barbecue of the west. But the underlying current is the same: how can we make the most of what we have and put a fresh, wholesome meal on the table.

Ingredients typically include beef, pork, wild game, black walnuts, wild pecans, hickory, mutton, corn, spring water, distilled spirits, beans, tomatoes, and a whole host of other fresh vegetables. Cooking methods that preserve food for later: smoking, pickling, fermenting, canning, and curing all show up when you eat a meal in Kentucky. Whether at someones home or at the table of a chef who understands Kentuckys food and its connection to the land, youre going to eat some of the most delicious food found anywhere in the country. With four other state-inspired cookbooks under their belt, Farcountry Press embarked on a journey east of the Mississippi River. Lucky for me, and lucky for you, they landed in Kentucky. Its no accident, at least as far as I can see, that Kentucky was the first state they chose for a cookbook from the eastern corridor of the United States.

Kentucky was a land of promise for immigrants and settlers who explored and made their way through the Cumberland Gap from Virginia or through Ellis Island to Kentucky. Immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and Scotland and settlers from the English colonies to the east were offered and saw promise in land that was new, fresh, and abundant. They brought with them their traditions of agriculture, smoking, distilling, and farming. These all influenced the food we find today in Kentucky. The states culinary traditions are unique, a subset of Southern cuisine unmatched in any other southern state. Weve got it all here in Kentucky diverse people, diverse traditions, diverse heritage; world-class sporting events and top-notch college sports; lakes, rivers, farmland, and mountainsall intersecting to provide ingredients, cooking techniques, and grand occasions that bring everyone to a table spread with food and traditions that only Kentucky can offer.