Whilst Peggy was with us she cooked some traditional southern US food. This bowl is full of pinto beans and ham hock or hough as we say in Scotland, it was very tasty. I suppose it’s peasant food but that’s my favourite kind and the weather was cold enough to want winter warmers. If you’re interested you can see a recipe similar to the one Peggy used here.
The photo below is of hoecakes which are made from cornmeal which Peggy had to bring with her as you can’t get it in the shops in Scotland. Again, very tasty, like thick pancakes with a distinctive flavour of corn. You can read about them and see a recipe here.
Peggy also brought a tub of grits with her. I had always wondered what grits were, now I know, it looks similar to porridge but again has a corn flavour. I preferred it straight but it can be eaten with syrup, I tried that but it drowned out the corn taste. A lot of southern US food does seem to be very sweet, or has syrup added where I wouldn’t expect it to be, which reminded me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird when her lunchtime guest from school asked for syrup for his ham, much to her disgust. She got skelped for that!
I’m pleased to say that my provincial town has a bulk-wholefoods shop where I can buy cornmeal/polenta in varying grades of fineness, as well as buckwheat flour and other less-usual ingredients. They’re also in the gluten-free section of the supermarket.
The bean-dish and the hoe-cakes look delicious!
Valerie,
We can get various different sorts of flour uuch as spelt in larger supermarkets, but I haven’t seen cornmeal, Peggy thinks it is different from polenta but I wouldn’t know.
I’m so tickled you guys loved them! Great link about the hoecakes! My grandma’s recipe calls for buttermilk though.
Peggy,
I’ll be using your family recipe, I just didn’t have time to copy that one out!
Wonderful to see that you’re getting to try Southern food, Katrina! I’m originally from Georgia (Atlanta), and so there are certain foods from the region I will always appreciate, no matter where life takes me.
You mentioned one of my very most favourite ones – grits. As you mentioned, they can be drowned in something sweet, but no one I knew ever did that when I was growing up. Grits were to be enjoyed with butter, salt and pepper. Later, people began mixing Cheddar cheese, bacon, and various other savoury things into them, but buttered grits still remained the top choice. Since moving to Iowa, I still have access to grits (they’re made here and shipped South, actually), but not many people here know much about them, much less eat them. If I want grits with a breakfast, I must breakfast at home – I cannot get them in a restaurant here.
Did Peggy introduce you to Southern biscuits? They bear no relation whatever to biscuits in the U.K., which are what Amurrkuns call cookies. Instead, they’re rather akin to a scone, but with no sweetness whatever. They should be feather-light and fluffy, and properly-made ones make you weep, they’re so good. Southerners often split biscuits and put things in or on them. Sausage gravy (essentially a cream sauce with crumbled cooked sausage in it) is one thing to ladle over biscuits. Scrambled egg, Cheddar and bacon (or sausage) can be put into them. Very fattening, not for those with cholesterol problems, and oh-so-good.
I would have loved being present as you tried each offering – to observe your reactions! I’m glad you got the experience.
Sandy,
Peggy ate the grits with butter, salt and pepper but I had them plain the first time then tried the syrup. Maybe when I make them myself I’ll try the butter, salt and pepper. She didn’t make biscuits but I might have a go at them myself, you make them sound so good. If I make them I’ll blog about them.
Props to your friend for trying to cook American Southern in Scotland. I’ve tried cooking at my daughters and it can be a bit of a challenge, given the different names of things, cuts of meat and measures. And I noted that the ovens are awfully slow to heat up there.
I just came off a Southern cuisine bender, myself. We took a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi from Memphis TN to New Orleans LA. Fried catfish, crawfish etoufee, shrimp remoulade, fried green tomatoes, beignet, red beans, rice and sausage…yum!
…and I forgot: bacon wrapped shrimp and cheese grits, with collard greens! (Note: that’s American bacon – much different than the bacon I had in Scotland – that kind doesn’t wrap well at all. Tried it with scallops.)
Pearl,
Peggy asked me what I would like to visit if I ever did go to the US and I said – go on a Mississippi riverboat trip. I’ve fancied doing that since reading Mark Twain when I was about ten. My ovens have always seemed to heat up fast, gas or electric, maybe it depends on the make. I think P thought that US bacon is more like our streaky bacon. I’m not mad keen on seafood so I’d skip the shrimps and scallops but I’d like the collard greens I’m sure. I’m going to look up beignet now!
I posted some photos from our trip down the Mississippi on Facebook. I’ll send you the link to my full online album once I get it posted. It was fascinating! The boat we were on – American Queen – actually does a cruise all the way down the Mississippi from St Paul, with time in St Louis and Hannibal MO. We just did the second week, from Memphis to New Orleans, due to time constraints. I’m a huge fan of the blues, though, so that leg of the journey was well suited to my interests. Beale Street, Indianola, New Orleans – even a side visit to Graceland, home of America’s “King”…Elvis!
The Mississippi is an astounding sight! Even as far North as I am, it’s incredibly broad – it runs through Dubuque here in Iowa. For those in the U.K., the river essentially bisects the United States, running from very far North all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It was THE major shipping artery before railroads were built, and retained a very fair amount of shipping business even afterwards.
Katrina, you must try fried green tomatoes! They are easy to prepare, and they are addictively delicious. They are basically slices of unripe (green) tomato, battered and sauteed in oil until crisp outside, tender inside. I introduced one of my Iowa neighbours to them, and she says she has not raised a tomato to ripeness since. Recipes abound on the Internet.
Sandy,
I had no idea that the Mississippi is so vast! Maybe they will get around to using it for more shipping business in the future. The canals here are being used more and of course in Holland they have always moved things around by boat. I used to grow my own tomatoes and would put the green ones in a drawer with a ripe banana to make them ripen – I wish I had known that they were tasty fried.
Katrina,
Here’s a link to a Wikipedia photo of the Julien Dubuque Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi at Dubuque. I’ve crossed the river here many times. It’s not an exceptionally broad part of the ‘Big Muddy,’ either.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Julien_Dubuque_Bridge_September_2007.jpg
I am not sure if we will ever see a return to use of the Mississippi as a major shipping channel. It is broad, but its depth varies enormously, with shoals, shallows and underwater obstacles galore. Even more problematic, its bed keeps changing, due to silt depositing and dislodging; a place that has a certain depth today may have a much lesser depth next year – or a greater one. Barges and riverboats running aground used to be an enormous problem in the Nineteenth Century. Today, with sonar, the river is more safely navigable, but still tricky. There is also the problem of the river’s course – North to South. Most commerce in the United States today needs shipment from West (the Port of Los Angeles, entry point for goods made in China) to points East.
The next time you have green tomatoes, be sure to look up a recipe and fry some. They’re a bit sweet, a bit tart. The interior consistency is not unlike eggplant (aubergine to you). The outside is as crisp as you make it; some cooks make very crisp versions, others less so. They are usually served as a vegetable with meats like chicken or pork chops; their piquancy marries well with the bland savouriness of both.
Once you’ve got used to fried green tomatoes, you can move on to more advanced Southern delicacies, like okra. Fried okra is delectable, but okra stewed with tomatoes has many fans – including this one!
Sandy,
Thanks, I’m a big fan of bridges, that’s a lovely one. It sounds like the Mississippi will be used mainly for tourism rather than commerce now, I imagine there will always be people wanting to take trips on it.
I was introduced to okra years ago by friends from the Middle East, not my favourite as I’m not keen on the slimey texture but frying it sounds good! I think that southern cooking seems to have been heavily influenced by the west of Scotland, where the frying pan ruled for years and it is the home of the deep fried Mars Bar!
Katrina,
‘Slimy’ okra is the sign of an un-accomplished Southern cook. In other cuisines, the effect can be prized, so these comments don’t apply there. But in Deep
South cooking, okra is either battered and fried – which leaves the okra lacking sliminess – or some acid, like lemon juice or vinegar, is found in the recipe.
I once was invited to dinner by California friends who decided to include okra in their menu, knowing that I was from Georgia. I don’t know what possessed them, but they sliced it, boiled it, and buttered it. You could not, if you sat up nights for a year, figure out a better method to maximise the slime factor!
You’d enjoy seeing that bridge in person; Dubuque is a lovely town with lots of Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century American architecture surviving. And not too many miles outside of town, the landscape breaks into bluffs and crags, looking for all the world like Yorkshire. You could film ‘Wuthering Heights’ there, with no one the wiser.
Pearl,
Thanks, I’ll look forward to that. Your trip sounds fantastic but sadly I can’t see myself braving such a long flight to the US to do the trip myself. A Graceland visit is very popular with folks here, in fact a member of my extended family actually bought a house close to Graceland!
A note to commerce on the Mississippi – while the river is somewhat unpredictable, there is plenty of commerce on her waters – especially around Baton Rouge on to New Orleans. Barges pull 4 to 5 abreast, refineries firing away – especially stunning at night.. I prefer the more peaceful stretches along the way, but the commerce is powerful to see.
And while properly fried okra (that is, with cornmeal) is heavenly, slimy okra is the devil’s handiwork for sure.
Pearl,
Thanks for the information. I actually like rivers which are still used for some industrial reasons, if it doesn’t pollute them, it makes them seem more alive, and people need jobs.
I have a bag of cornmeal now so maybe I’ll get some okra and fry it!