Folks who live in other parts of the good ole U S of A don’t know what they’re missing when it comes to sitting down at the table, especially during summertime.
This time of year, we have food available to us that folks up north don’t appreciate and probably wouldn’t even if they sampled it. Their taste buds are more attuned to stuff that’s been sauteed or poached or whatever. Down here, our food, especially here in summer, is romping with flavor and is just flat out delicious.
Let’s start with fishing. I see posts on social media of northerners cooking fish in ways we wouldn’t think of cooking. Their fish are boiled or simmered in butter after being coated with flour. I have sampled fish cooked this way but I prefer our southern tradition hands down.
Bluegill bream is one of our favorites and we don’t poach ours; we scrape and gut them before coating whole bream with yellow mustard and roll them around in salted meal before dropping them in a pot of hot peanut oil.
When they turn brown and crispy, there is only one way southerners eat a bream. First step is to turn it around so you’re looking at the hind end and take a crispy bite of the tail. It’s like biting down on a potato chip, only much more flavorful. Then we carefully remove the back fin – some call it unzipping the fish – and gently pull the sides apart. Avoiding bones, when these parts are dipped into tartar sauce or ketchup, this is some fine eating when adding fries and hush puppies on the side.
It’s time to mention stuff that is grown here in gardens, and I’m not talking things like kale or spinach. I’m talking purple hull peas, tomatoes, okra, sweet corn et al.
I grew up at the north end of Natchitoches Parish with a custom that is still imprinted in my brain. The whole family would gather on the porch, each with a pan and sitting between us was a big tub of purple hull peas that were still damp with dew from being picked that morning, saving the hulls our milk cow saw as a special treat.
This was a great time to catch up on the day’s neighborhood news like how Aunt Lucy was feeling after her untimely accident when her milk cow kicked her after she pinched too hard while milking old Bossy.
Before electricity came to Goldonna, Mama would wash the shelled peas, save out enough for dinner and then preserve the rest by canning them in glass jars, peas that would feed us until pea picking time next year.
I can still see Mama pouring peas for today’s dinner into a boiler, season them up with salt, pepper and drippings from the bacon we had for breakfast and let them simmer while she put together the ingredients for a pone of her corn bread. She would also take a few pods of okra picked that morning, boil them on the side and when done, drop them in the pot of peas.
The meal that we had several times a week would consist of peas, boiled okra, corn bread and slices of tomato along with ears of cooked-until-tender sweet corn. Sweet pickles would add just the right tang to the meal. The whole shebang was washed down with sweet tea.
For dessert, Mama always had a cake or pie cooling on the side board that we enjoyed after the garden feast, unless you were too full and had to wait and have it with coffee later.
Given today’s political climate, lots of northerners are moving south and we welcome them here. Just don’t even think about bringing your recipes on poaching or boiling fish or how to cook kale with you. Come sit at our table and find out what real fine eating is all about.
Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com
