Sunday, February 21, 2010

• Recipes from Wesley House Valentine's Gala, 2010

  Sunday, February 5, 2012
• Turmeric, Ginger and Cinnamon: Three Great Spices

  Sunday, January 29, 2012
• Yet Another New Diet to Look Into This Year

  Sunday, January 15, 2012
• Exploring Variations on Themes for Casseroles

  Sunday, January 1, 2012

Iwouldn't want Black History month to go by without mentioning southern cuisine and the contribution the African-American community has made to it.

It's easy for well-meaning people who aren't African American to blunder when dealing with black culture. This was brought home to me recently when I came across a black political blog on the Internet that talked about a gaffe made by a public school in Denver. It seems officials there have had to issue an apology for serving fried chicken, collard greens and biscuits in the school cafeteria on Martin Luther King Day this year. A parent complained that the school lunch, meant to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was racist.

Coincidentally, on the same day the menu at the NBC cafeteria featured fried chicken, corn bread and collard greens, with Dr. King's favorite dessert: sweet potato pie. According to that story, the chef, Leslie Calhoun -- herself an African American -- was baffled by complaints. She has been trying to feature a special Black History Month menu for years and was allowed to do so for the first time this year. "It's just a good meal," she was quoted as saying. "I thought it would go over well."

The Denver Public School's spokesman, Michael Vaughn, quickly back-pedaled and released a statement that said: "The plan to serve a Southern-style meal in recognition of Martin Luther King Day was well intentioned but highly insensitive in light of certain hurtful cultural stereotypes still harbored in parts of our society."

Organizers of Denver's annual Marade, a combination march and parade that honors King every January, did not consider the menu inappropriate considering that King came from a southern background, but said there are other, more meaningful ways of honoring him. "When you reduce the 'I have a dream' speech to a fried chicken and collard green lunch, you have just destroyed everything that Dr. King stood for," said Vern Howard, chairman of the Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission.

So there are two ways of looking at it. I can understand Howard's reasoning but I don't see what the fuss was about, since King was from the South and evidently loved fried chicken and collard greens. True, it is a cliché, like the corned beef and cabbage and green beer they serve in restaurants and bars on St. Patrick's Day. Those of us whose ancestors were Irish don't pay much attention to that nonsense. Or to the silly leprechauns that have come to symbolize a country with a rich culture.

I'm not sure how African Americans in Key West feel about the lunch incident, but I'd welcome comments (joschmida@aol.com). As a food writer, my main criticism of these cafeterias, especially the school in Denver, was the missed teaching opportunity. It seems to me that the holiday was the perfect time to show how African Americans have influenced Southern cuisine and talk about their enormous contribution to it. They could have offered a choice of soul foods, instead of just fried chicken and collard greens. There are so many gourmet recipes on American menus today that can be traced to early black culture. What better time to talk about them than on Martin Luther King Day?

Soul food originated from the cuisine developed by African slaves in the American South. During this dark period in U.S. history, slave women developed interesting ways of cooking the meager, undesirable ingredients made available to slaves and black sharecropper families. Over the years, these methods turned into a cuisine that is simple yet hearty and delicious. Hog maws and chitterlings were simmered into tasty dishes served with rice, the "chitlins" eventually evolving into andouille sausage used in gumbos. Old hens were cooked forever and appeared in delicious soups, chicken pot pies and stews with dumplings. The slaves routinely ate organ meats and developed great recipes for them. Ironically, white planters did not consider crustaceans as edible human food, so slaves in coastal areas were treated to lobsters, crabs and crayfish that went into dishes like jambalaya, seafood gumbos or pies.

As for the blog I was visiting, the consensus by the writer and bloggers was that it was all a tempest in a teapot; there are other, more important issues to focus on, like the sufferings of their brothers in Haiti. In Denver, they'd just like to forget the whole incident.

Here are a few southern favorites you might enjoy.

Southern style Oxtails

4 pounds oxtails trimmed, cut into 2-inch sections

3 cups water

1 large onion, quartered

2 celery stalks

2 carrots

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

2-1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper to taste

hot pepper flakes to taste

dry bread crumbs, about 2 to 2-1/2 cups

1/2 stick melted butter

Peel carrots and cut up, cut celery in large chunks. Combine the onion, celery, carrots and thyme and bay leaf with the oxtails in the water. Braise for about 2-1/2 hours (oxtails should not fall apart). Allow to cool. In a bowl, combine sour cream, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and crushed pepper flakes. Stir until blended. Remove oxtails from cooking liquid and pat dry. Coat with sour cream mixture, then dredge in the bread crumbs. Arrange on a baking sheet, drizzle butter over the oxtails and broil about four inches from the heat until golden, turning once, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve with black-eyed peas or corn pudding.

Corn Pudding

2 eggs

1 tbs flour

1 cup sugar

1 can evaporated milk

salt

2 tbs butter

1 can corn (drain off half of liquid)

1 tbs vanilla flavoring

Mix eggs, flour and sugar together. Add remaining ingredients. Bake in glass container in oven at 350° for 40 minutes or until pudding is firm in center. Serve hot from the baking dish.

Black-eyed Peas

1 lb black-eyed peas, dried

1 piece skin from a smoked ham or

2 oz. slab bacon, diced

1/4 cup pork rib drippings or fried chicken drippings or bacon drippings

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper, ground

1/2 tsp sugar

Pick over the peas to remove stones and dirt. Rinse the peas well and soak them in cold water for 20 minutes. Drain well.

Combine the peas and the remaining ingredients in a large pot. Pour in enough cold water to cover the peas by one inch. Heat to simmering and cook, covered, until the peas are tender but not mushy, about 1-1/2 hours. Keep an eye on the peas while they are cooking and add more water to keep them covered if necessary.

Fried Catfish With

Buttery Pecan Sauce

1 cup white cornmeal

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 lbs fresh catfish fillets, rinsed and patted dry with paper towels

vegetable oil for frying

For the sauce:

1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped

1/2 stick butter, melted

1 tsp fresh lemon juice (or to taste)

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Tabasco sauce to taste

Combine all the sauce ingredients and stir till well blended. Set aside, keeping it warm.

Combine cornmeal, flour salt and pepper on a plate and mix well. Dredge fish fillets in the mixture. In a large cast-iron skillet, heat about 1/4 inch of oil over moderate heat and, in batches if necessary, fry the fillets about five minutes on each side or till nicely browned. Drain on paper towels and serve with a little sauce over each fillet.

She Crab Soup

(Invented by black chef William Deas of Everett's Restaurant in Charleston)

1/2 stick butter

1 medium onion, minced

2 tbs flour

2 cups whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp nutmeg

2 tsp white pepper

2 tsp salt

2 tbs Worcestershire sauce

2 tbs cornstarch

1 lb fresh lump crabmeat (examine for bits of shells and cartilage

1/2 cup crab roe (available in specialty food shops or on the Internet)

dry sherry (to taste)

In the top of a double boiler over direct heat, melt butter, add onions and cook till just soft. Add flour gradually and stir until thick. Then put over the bottom of the boiler, half filled with hot water. Slowly add 1/2 cup milk, stirring. When hot, add cream, nutmeg, Worcestershire and seasonings. Mix cornstarch into the rest of the milk. Remove pot from double boiler and ad the cornstarch mixture. Return to double boiler and cook until hot, about five minutes. When ready to serve, add crabmeat and roe. Heat soup gently over the boiling water and sprinkle each serving with sherry (about 1 tbs for each bowl.)

Seafood Gumbo

(The name gumbo derives from the African Congo word for okra, "guingumbo")

1/2 pound bacon, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup flour

5 cups fresh okra, trimmed and cut into rounds

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 medium green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 large stalk celery, chopped

2-1/2 cups canned tomatoes, drained

2 qts chicken broth

1/4 chop chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp dry thyme

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

1 lb fresh medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 lb claw crabmeat, preferably fresh

1 pint fresh shucked oysters

boiled white rice

Fry the bacon till crisp, drain on paper towels. Add flour to the bacon grease and stir for about 15 minutes, or until you have a good roux. Add okra and cook, stirring till roux is brown. Add tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, bay leaf and seasonings. Simmer uncovered for two hours, adding water if necessary. Add shrimp, crabmeat, oysters and bacon, return to simmer and cook about 15 minutes longer. Serve over rice in soup bowls.

Fried Okra

10 pods okra, sliced in 1/4-inch pieces

1 egg, beaten

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 cup vegetable oil

In a small bowl, soak okra in egg for five to 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, salt and pepper.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dredge okra in the cornmeal mixture, coating evenly.

Carefully place okra in hot oil; stir continuously. Reduce heat to medium when okra first starts to brown, and cook until golden. Drain on paper towels.