Southern Accent

When Thackeray Penned the line "This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is -- --," he was eulogizing not the original French fish stew from Marseilles but the classic potpourri he had savored in a New Orleans restaurant. Verily, the culinary distance between Southern pecan stuffing and pâté de foie gras is a good deal shorter than the mileage separating Lake Pontchartrain and Lyons would indicate; the best of our Southern cookery and the elite of French cuisine bear too many common familial traits for them to be dismissed as coincidental. Our frame of reference for Dixie cookery does not, of course, include the abominations hatched by those neoned eateries squatting like luminescent toadstools along our Southern highways, where haute cuisine is a plate of eggs fried hard on both sides and butted against an ominous mound of hominy grits. For the best of the Southern table, you must go into such famed corners as the inns of Williamsburg, the Creole caravansaries of New Orleans' trellised French Quarter, and the stately dining patios of Charleston, where Carolinians still follow the royalist custom of eating the main meal at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The analogies between the two schools are constant and copious. There are few more serene adventures in eating than the French King Henry IV's pot-au-feu, a golden broth made with chicken, beef and vegetables and served in a deep earthenware casserole. But every Kentuckian who's been to Paris comes back convinced that the legendary power of pot-au-feu is not one whit more attractive than that of his native burgoo, a soup made, strangely enough, of chicken, beef and vegetables with a few added luxuries Frenchmen are relative strangers to -- young butter beans and sweet corn of the cob. From the coast of Brittany to Nice, Frenchmen of all classes gourmandise on their native seafoods, using them in countless cooking extravaganzas. In like manner, the culinary imaginations of Southerners in this country are fired by oysters from the tidewater of Virginia, Florida yellowtails, and fabulous mountains of shrimp from the gulf ports of Mississippi.

There are even close parallels to be drawn in the fanatic zeal with which Gallic and Southern chefs demand the finest meats, fowls and seafood extant, and damn the expense. Both become completely irascible when the subject of calories is broached (the prodigious quantities of heavy cream and sweet butter their dishes call for are legend), and both feel in no way bound to follow any recipe to the letter.

However, it isn't its similarities to, so much as its differences from its Gallic counterpart that's etched American Southern cuisine so prominently on the world's gastronomic map. Whenever a Frenchman argues that cooking in America did not become civilized until after the French Huguenots settled in the Carolinas or after. Thomas Jefferson returned to America from the French court with a fat portfolio of recipes, a Dixiean riposte is that one of the best regular customers for Virginia ham, among many modern French notables, was Marshal Foch, and that chicken Maryland and Florida pompano now appear on countless French menus as poulet à la Maryland and pompano sauté amandine.

One of the first tenets in the Southern code of good eating is lavishness. If a host miscalculates, it's always on the side of too much. But somehow or other his groaning board, though often over-powering, is never oppressive. If fried oysters are offered, there won't be a paltry half dozen or so bivalves dolorously dotting a dinner plate, but a stout hearth loaf of Vienna bread, hollowed out in the center, brushed generously with butter, browned in the oven and then piled high with its teetering cargo of crisp brown oysters from Chincoteague. If there's tartar sauce, it won't be spooned niggardly into a shallow dessert dish; instead, it will be ladled into a sauceboat of de luxe size built for Colonial appetites. To this day, many Southern chefs find portion-counting an anathema. The very word portion makes the Southern gourmet's soul shrivel. Huge china or silver platters and casseroles are much more soothing to their psyches, and they pile them high with deviled crabs, glazed hams, roast quail, fried chicken and hot breads all edging each other in a glorious traffic jam.

Perhaps the biggest assets of the South's festive board are the native bounties harvested from its own fields and hauled in off its long shoreline. Happily these gifts are no longer confined to the Southern states. An Oregonian can buy the same pink crustaceans white-haired colonels still eat for breakfast in a Carolina shrimp pie. At gourmet shops all over the country, you'll find water-ground corn meal for making spoon bread light as down. Black turtle beans for soup are no longer an oddity found mostly in Georgia. From St. Augustine to San Francisco the magnificent Eastern de luxe crab lump (fished from Carolina waters) is on frozen-food shelves, but unlike frozen Northern lobster, the crab lump suffers not an iota by freezing. Even the powder of young sassafras leaves, which only the Indians of the bayou once knew how to grind for gumbo soup, is now on spice shelves everywhere as gumbo filé.

Hospitality in the South, warm as a friendly sunburst, covers drink as well as food. The justly famed Southern punch bowl (Thomas Jefferson's father once paid for 200 acres of Goochland County land with an enormous bowl of rum punch made by Henry Wetherburn, keeper of Williamsburg's Raleigh Tavern) isn't merely taken off the shelf for a holiday fete; it is wheeled out on terraces and set up in dining rooms all year long as a comfortable way of handling large crowds for informal drinking before or after dinner. Punch recipes -- many of them on the cocktailish dry side -- are usually as doggedly guarded as family heirlooms.

The exotic intricacies of most Southern cuisine preclude the three-minute chef, but if you possess the patience required of any art form, there are bounteous culinary rewards below the Mason-Dixon Line. And you don't need acres of lilac, miles of trimmed boxwood or piles of damask to savor the recipes which follow. Just arrange for the presence of another guy and two dolls (with or without crinolines) to break spoon bread with you.

[recipe_title]Oyster and Chicken Gumbo[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

This recipe allows for seconds, thirds and possibly fourths; it can be a complete meal.

[recipe]3-lb. fowl[/recipe]

[recipe]1 large onion, peeled[/recipe]

[recipe]3 pieces celery[/recipe]

[recipe]6 sprigs parsley[/recipe]

[recipe]2 envelopes instant chicken broth Salt, pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup rice[/recipe]

[recipe]1 medium green pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]1 medium sweet red pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 cup butter[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon creole seasoning[/recipe]

[recipe]24 freshly opened medium oysters with liquor[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce[/recipe]

[recipe]1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons minced parsley[/recipe]

[recipe]2 teaspoons minced chives[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon gumbo filé[/recipe]

In a soup pot cover fowl with cold water. Bring to a boil. Drain off water and wash fowl under cold running water. Return to pot and cover with cold water. Add onion, celery, sprigs of parsley and 1 teaspoon salt. Simmer slowly until fowl is tender, about 21/2 hours. Remove fowl from pot. Skim fat. Add instant chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste. Strain broth. Boil rice, following directions on package. Keep in warm place. Place peppers in a shallow pan in oven preheated at 500°. Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Rub peppers with a dry towel to remove thin outer membrane. Cut each pepper in 1/4-in. dice, discarding seeds and stem ends. Melt butter in a large soup pot. Add peppers and sauté slowly about 5 minutes. Add creole seasoning. Drain liquor from oysters and add to pot. Add strained chicken broth and simmer slowly about 1/2 hour. Remove skin and bones from fowl and cut meat into 1/2-in. cubes. Add diced chicken, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, minced parsley, chives and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer 10 minutes. Place oysters uncooked in a large soup tureen. Remove soup from fire and slowly stir in gumbo filé. Do not reheat soup after this step or it will become gummy. Pour hot soup over oysters in tureen. Add rice. Serve with oyster crackers, Trenton crackers or garlic bread. Pour iced chablis.

[recipe_title]Burgoo[/recipe_title]

(Serves eight)

[recipe]3-lb. fowl[/recipe]

[recipe]11/2 lbs. beef chuck[/recipe]

[recipe]10 sprigs parsley[/recipe]

[recipe]1 large onion[/recipe]

[recipe]2 pieces celery[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 small white turnip Salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper[/recipe]

[recipe]4 tablespoons sweet butter[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup onion, small dice[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup celery, small dice[/recipe]

[recipe]3/4 cup sweet red pepper, small dice[/recipe]

[recipe]1 bay leaf[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon marjoram[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup toasted bread crumbs[/recipe]

[recipe]2 cups potatoes, small dice[/recipe]

[recipe]10-oz. pkg. frozen Fordhook lima beans[/recipe]

[recipe]12-oz. can whole-kernel shoe peg corn[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons prepared horseradish[/recipe]

[recipe]3 Ozs. bourbon[/recipe]

In a large soup pot put the fowl, beef, parsley, whole onion, celery pieces and turnip. Add 2 quarts water and 2 teaspoons salt. Bring to a boil. Skim well. Reduce flame and simmer slowly, keeping pot covered, 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until meat and fowl are very tender. Strain broth, skim fat well. Remove skin and bones from fowl. Cut fowl and beef into 1/2-in. dice. Melt butter in a large souppot. Add diced onion, diced celery, sweet red pepper, bay leaf and marjoram. Sauté slowly until vegetables are tender but not brown. Stir in bread crumbs. Add strained broth and potatoes. Simmer slowly until potatoes are tender. In a separate pot cook lima beans, following directions on package. Drain limas. Add limas and corn, together with its juice, to the pot. Add 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper to taste. Add horseradish, diced fowl and diced beef. Simmer 5 minutes longer. Add bourbon. Skim fat. Serve in soup bowls.

[recipe_title]Breast of Chicken Maryland[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]2 large or 4 small whole breasts of chicken[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup light cream[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup flour Salt, pepper, paprika[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons butter[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons salad oil[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 1b. sliced bacon[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon flour[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons dry sherry[/recipe]

[recipe]1 envelope instant chicken broth Dash cayenne pepper[/recipe]

Have the butcher split each breast, removing the keel bone. Wash, and dry well with absorbent paper. Soak in cream for 1/2 hour. In mixing bowl combine 1/2 cup flour with 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon paprika and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Remove chicken from cream, draining well. Save cream. Dip breasts in flour mixture, coating thoroughly. Pat well, then shake off excess flour. Melt butter and heat with oil in a heavy cast-iron or cast-aluminum pan with metal handle. Sauté the chicken until brown on both sides. Drain off excess fat from pan, but do not wash pan. Return chicken to pan, and bake in oven preheated at 350°, about 20 minutes or until chicken is well browned but not dry. While chicken is baking, sauté bacon slowly until brown. Drain off fat, and keep bacon in warm place. When reaching for pan handle in the oven, be sure to use a thick pot holder. Remove chicken from pan. Add 1 tablespoon flour to pan and place on top flame. Slowly stir in cream in which chicken was previously soaked. Bring to a boil. Reduce flame and simmer very slowly about 5 minutes. Add sherry and instant broth. Stir well. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Pour sauce on platter. Place chicken on top of sauce. Place bacon on chicken breasts. Garnish with peach fritters.

[recipe_title]Peach Fritters[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]2 12-oz. packages frozen sliced peaches, thawed[/recipe]

[recipe]3 eggs, well beaten[/recipe]

[recipe]11/4 cups flour, sifted before measuring[/recipe]

[recipe]11/2 teaspoons baking powder[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon salt[/recipe]

[recipe]1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg Salad oil[/recipe]

Drain peaches well. Put contents of one package in well of electric blender and blend until pureed. Cut balance of peach slices crosswise 1/4 in. thick. Stir the peach puree and sliced peaches into the beaten eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture, stirring only until a coarse batter is formed. Heat 1/4 in. oil in an electric skillet preheated at 370°. Drop batter by large spoonfuls into skillet. Brown fritters on both sides.

[recipe_title]Roast Quail with wild rice and Pecans[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]8 quail[/recipe]

[recipe]8 thin slices salt pork, large enough to cover each breast[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons butter[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 cup wild rice[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons minced onion[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons minced celery Salt, pepper, monosodium glutamate[/recipe]

[recipe]12-oz. can chicken broth[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon arrowroot or cornstarch Brown gravy color[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon brandy[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon dry sherry[/recipe]

Place pecans in a shallow pan with 1 tablespoon butter. Bake in oven preheated at 350°, 10-12 minutes. Wash rice well and boil in 1 quart salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain rice. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in saucepan. Add onion and celery. Sauté slowly until tender. Remove from fire and add rice and pecans. Season with salt, pepper and monosodium glutamate. Stuff rice into cavity of each quail. Fasten vent with toothpicks. Place salt pork on quail breasts. Roast quail in oven preheated at 450°, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove quail from pan and discard salt pork. Pour off excess fat from pan. Add chicken broth, and bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes slowly. Dilute arrowroot in 2 tablespoons cold water and slowly stir into pan. Cook a minute or two longer. Add brown gravy color, brandy and sherry. Place each quail on canapé (recipe below). Pour gravy over quail. Serve with crabapple jelly or guava jelly.

[recipe_title]Canapés for Quail[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]8 slices long French bread 1/2 in. thick[/recipe]

Butter

[recipe]Quail livers[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 lb. chicken livers[/recipe]

[recipe]1/8 teaspoon powdered sage[/recipe]

[recipe]1/8 teaspoon leaf thyme[/recipe]

[recipe]1 small onion, minced[/recipe]

[recipe]1 piece celery, minced[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon brandy Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper[/recipe]

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan. Add quail livers (if you can find these small organs), chicken livers, sage, thyme, onion and celery. Sauté slowly until livers are brown. Let the mixture cool slightly. Put the sautéed livers and vegetables through a meat grinder twice, using the fine blade. Or force the livers through a colander until pureed. Add brandy, salt and pepper to taste, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Spread each slice of bread on one side generously with butter. Place the buttered side down on a preheated heavy pan or griddle. Sauté until brown. Brush or spread butter on other side of bread and brown. Spread one side of each slice with liver mixture. Place each slice under a roast quail.

[recipe_title]Baked Virginia ham with Port[/recipe_title]

(Serves 12)

[recipe]1 whole Virginia country ham, completely cooked, about 12 lbs. cooked weight[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup tawny port[/recipe]

[recipe]12-oz. can chicken broth[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup dark brown sugar[/recipe]

[recipe]1 tablespoon prepared mustard[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons bread crumbs[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 teaspoon ground cloves[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 teaspoon ground allspice[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons tawny port[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons arrowroot or cornstarch[/recipe]

[recipe]2 teaspoons bottled onion juice[/recipe]

(Any completely cooked smoked ham with bone may be used in this recipe.) Remove outer skin from ham. Place ham, fat side up, in a baking pan. Pour 1 cup wine and chicken broth into pan. Bake in oven, preheated at 350°, for 11/2 hours. Baste about every 15 minutes with liquid in pan. Combine sugar, mustard, bread crumbs, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and 2 tablespoons wine into a paste. Add more wine if necessary to make the paste smooth enough to spread easily. Spread on fat side of ham. (It is not necessary to score ham by cutting diagonal slices in the fat.) Continue baking until top is glazed and brown. Remove ham from pan. Measure liquid in pan. If necessary, add port and chicken broth in equal amounts to make 2 cups liquid. Bring to a boil over a top flame. Simmer 5 minutes. Dissolve arrowroot in 1/4 cup cold water. Slowly stir into simmering liquid. Add onion juice. Add brown gravy color if desired. Carve ham. Pour hot gravy over slices on platter. Pass additional gravy in sauceboat. Surround slices of ham with glazed apples (recipe below).

[recipe_title]Glazed Apples for ham[/recipe_title]

(Serves 12)

[recipe]2 cans baked apples containing 3 apples each[/recipe]

[recipe]1/3 cup apricot jam[/recipe]

Ground cinnamon

Drain apples. Cut each one in half crosswise, using a very sharp knife. Place apple halves, cut side up, in a shallow baking pan. Put jam on a cutting board and with a heavy French knife chop thoroughly until pureed. Spread or brush jam on top of apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Place under a preheated broiler flame until top is glazed and lightly brown.

[recipe_title]Beef Daube[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]4 lbs. beef rump[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 lb. sliced bacon[/recipe]

[recipe]1/4 teaspoon leaf thyme[/recipe]

[recipe]1 bay leaf[/recipe]

[recipe]4 whole allspice[/recipe]

[recipe]8 peppercorns[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup dry white wine[/recipe]

[recipe]11/2 cups canned brown sauce[/recipe]

[recipe]8-oz. can tomatoes, coarsely chopped[/recipe]

[recipe]1 large onion, peeled[/recipe]

[recipe]1 carrot[/recipe]

[recipe]6 sprigs parsley[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 small turnip, Salt, pepper[/recipe]

Lard the beef with the bacon: that is, pull strips of bacon through the meat from top to botton, using a larding needle. If you lack this gadget, make narrow tunnels through the meat with a sharp paring knife and force the bacon through with the finger. Place beef in a shallow pan in oven preheated at 450°, until brown, about 30 to 40 minutes. Transfer to a heavy stewpot. Add remaining ingredients. Cover with tight lid and simmer until meat is tender, about 2-1/2 hours. Strain gravy. Skim fat. Correct seasoning with salt and pepper. Pour gravy over sliced meat on platter.

[recipe_title]Spoon Bread[/recipe_title]

(Serves four)

[recipe]1 cup corn meal[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup cold water[/recipe]

[recipe]1-1/4 cups boiling water[/recipe]

[recipe]1 teaspoon salt[/recipe]

[recipe]1/2 teaspoon onion powder[/recipe]

[recipe]3 tablespoons butter[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup cold milk[/recipe]

[recipe]4 eggs, well beaten[/recipe]

Mix corn meal and cold water, blending well. Slowly stir into boiling water in a large heavy saucepan. Add salt, onion powder and butter. Reduce flame as low as possible. Cook about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from fire. Slowly stir in cold milk, blending well. Slowly stir in eggs. Turn mixture into a greased casserole. Bake in oven preheated at 425°, uncovered, about 1/2 hour or until top of spoon bread has risen and is lightly browned. Serve at table from casserole. Place a dab of soft butter on top of each serving.

[recipe_title]Artillerymen's Punch[/recipe_title]

(12 glasses, six ozs. each)

[recipe]18 ozs. 86 proof bourbon[/recipe]

[recipe]6 ozs. light rum[/recipe]

[recipe]3 ozs. dark Jamaica rum[/recipe]

[recipe]3 ozs. apricot liqueur[/recipe]

[recipe]6 ozs. lemon juice[/recipe]

[recipe]12 ozs. frozen concentrated orange juice[/recipe]

[recipe]18 ozs. very strong black tea[/recipe]

[recipe]2 lemons, sliced[/recipe]

Put all ingredients in a punch bowl over a large block of ice. Let mixture stand for at least 20 minutes to ripen and chill. It will dilute slightly. Punch ingredients may also be poured into a large pitcher with ice. Serve in prechilled punch glasses.

A final requisite is to savor it all at a properly leisurely pace. It's an old Southern custom, and we're not just whistling Dixie.