Martha Hall Foose - A Southerly Course: Recipes and Stories from Close to Home

Copyright 2011 by Martha Foose
Photographs copyright 2011 by Chris Granger

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.clarksonpotter.com
www.crownpublishing.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foose, Martha Hall.
A southerly course / Martha Hall Foose. 1st ed.
Includes index.
1. Cookery, AmericanSouthern style. I. Title.
TX715.2.S68F653 2010
641.5975dc22 2010022969
eISBN: 978-0-307-95260-8

Book design by Jennifer K. Beal Davis

v3.1

FOR DONALD BENDER,
my husband and best friend, who gives our family our daily bread

The South is a blend of the relentless and the abiding for me,
and an accumulation of ironies so acute and impenetrable that my
vagabond heart palpitates to make sense of them.
WILLIE MORRIS, TERRAINS OF THE HEART

Youve got to continue to grow, or youre just like
last nights cornbreadstale and dry.
LORETTA LYNN

Contents

First Course
P ASSED , P LATED & S HARED

Second Course
S ALADS , S OUPS & D RESSINGS

Third Course
V EGETABLES & G RAINS

Fourth Course
E NTRES & M AIN D ISHES

Fifth Course
D ESSERTS & S WEETS

Mazy paths of rivers meander and by disposition I do the same. My life, aside from little stints abroad and forays to the west and east coasts, has traveled a course close to the Mississippi River. Ive lived up towards the narrow headwaters in Minnesota and down at its yawning mouth in New Orleans. As a child and now once more I live in its sprawling delta. Seemingly random events and choices conspired to bring me home again and keep me around.

This peculiarity, my trait of meandering, is markedly apparent in my cooking as well as in my conversation, a tendency to take switchbacks in time and place and even tastes. I have come to see that it is just my nature. Time and again Ive wondered why it is I traverse these same roads over and over. Why do I reach for these same familiar ingredients? Why are my most cherished belongings made of cast iron? I think it is perhaps because we Southerners are homesick for the place in which we still live.

Sentimentality and a heaping spoonful of nostalgia flavor our dishes as much as black pepper and Worcestershire sauce do. It tastes good but sets us up for mockery. Our regional history, fraught by the economics of cotton and all that surrounds it, is difficult to maneuver and remain on solid footing. Communality through food in many ways has helped us as a region begin to reconcile ourselves with the past.

For the past two years Ive spent my time touring through classic and modern kitchens, taking back-road rambles, and doing some in-depth explorations of venerated Southern ingredients. That has had me consideringand at times lamentinghow we feed ourselves, see ourselves, and portray ourselves. Peeking beneath the tables pall in the mythic South to see how its patent qualities of deep involvement with family, observance of ritual, and celebration of eccentricity play out around Southern food today has been quite a trip. It has taken me on an inner journey as well. My ambition to understand this mythologizing to which we Southerners are prone has had me up nights in the kitchen. The myths themselves seem to begin with stories told around tables.

And because so much of Southern living is spent in the kitchen, it is naturally the place to start. A Southerly Course: Recipes & Stories from Close to Home is a collection of recipes I gathered along my path. I hope it shares some of the flavors I believe will guide the way to a full-immersion baptism in the font of Southern culinary eccentricity, ingenuity, and creativity.

Many a child home sick from school has been fed Rum Tum Tiddya soothing, warm concoction of tomato soup and melted cheese over toast. Where the dish got its funny name I dont know. I do know that it can hardly be said without a smile or guffaw. Here those comforting flavors are set up as a pick-up snack great for parties of all ages.

SERVES 4; MAKES 16 PIECES

1 large egg, beaten

teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

pound Cheddar cheese, grated (1 cup)

1 cup chopped pecan pieces

1 cup soft bread crumbs

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 tablespoons finely chopped onion

1 cup (8-ounce can) tomato sauce (I like Red Gold brand)

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

8 pickled okra pods, tops and tips removed, sliced into rounds

Heat the oven to 350F. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine the egg, Worcestershire sauce, Cheddar cheese, pecans, and bread crumbs.

In a medium skillet set over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onion and cook until slightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and cook for 5 minutes. Pour the onion and tomato sauce over the bread-crumb mixture and stir together.

Spoon the tomatobread-crumb mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake for 25 minutes or until firm. Cool for 10 minutes and cut into 16 squares.

Put the Parmesan cheese on a large plate. Coat all sides of the squares in the Parmesan. Place 1 round of pickled okra in the center of each square as a garnish.

To serve, skewer each square on a cocktail pick.

NOTES

For a quick snack bite, cut white bread into cubes. Spread each cube with mayonnaise and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese or crumbled blue cheese. Bake in a 450F. oven for 7 minutes or until the bread is toasty and the cheese is bubbly. Serve warm. Youll be surprised how fast these are gobbled up.

Frank Ward OMalleys contribution to the Stag Cook Book of 1922 is a riot of a recipe for Rum Tum Tiddy!