{"id":4607,"date":"2016-08-17T00:02:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T21:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/?p=4607"},"modified":"2016-09-02T22:27:17","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T19:27:17","slug":"culinary-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/?p=4607","title":{"rendered":"Culinary discoveries"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Mama’s shrimp technique in the Restaurant Issue of Gourmet magazine, October 2002.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

August 16, 2016; Savannah, Georgia <\/strong>It’s been such a hot summer, the hottest on record nearly everywhere. I haven’t been cooking as much as I usually do, though I somehow manage to post a culinary image on Instagram or Facebook nearly every day. A video I posted<\/a> on Instagram of me salting shrimp the way my mother used to on our sailboat has been viewed 2000 times in the past couple of days. It has no sound, but I described the simple technique in a caption. Chef Sean Brock<\/a>, who has nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram, was the first to notice the video: “Incredible,” he wrote. I assume that the intense interest in the video was because of his fans, not mine. Sean and I have never met, but he’s always publicly admired my work, and we have plans to have lunch with Tank Jackson of Holy City Hogs<\/a> and John Folse<\/a> in a couple of weeks. Mama’s method, which I described in the first paragraph of my first book, has become an overnight sensation on social media. People I have known all my life have thanked me for sharing this family “secret.” It’s no secret: not only is the technique in my book which has been in print continuously for almost 25 years, but also I have prepared shrimp like this on national television, and I have written about it in national publications as well (as in the October 2002 issue of Gourmet<\/em>, left. That article is archived here<\/a>). It’s always fascinating to me what and when certain ingredients and\/or preparations capture the public’s imagination. And why? Why cupcakes and kale one year, macarons<\/em> and marrow the next?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I was writing about fresh, local, and traditional southern foods years before they became popular in restaurants, but there are several prominent writers now who are contending that chefs and restaurants have shaped local cuisines. I don’t buy it. Regional cooking has always been the domain of home cooks. I’m thrilled to see Charleston chefs now embracing fresh and local ingredients and traditional preparations, but they neither invented shrimp and grits nor charcuterie. I would love to see the reappearance of a lot more of the old dishes. But hats off to Brock for his historical research and his re-introduction (and reinterpretation) of some of the dishes of yore.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Conspicuous in their absence from restaurant tables — though there are many southerners who still make them — are the various French, English, and Italian sauces, creams, and puddings that have been popular on southern tables for three hundred years: Richmond Maid of Honor, Bavarian Cream, Zabaglione, and Blanc Mange, for example. I thought about those soothing delights as I cleaned my mother-in-law’s vast collection of crystal sherbet glasses last weekend. Loaded up with fresh, ripe peaches from the Pee Dee (the upper coastal plain of South Carolina), I returned to Savannah with those sweets in mind. Meanwhile, my husband, who is not a cook, began poring over his grandmother’s and great aunt’s handwritten recipes. Among them were many gems.<\/p>\n

I ended up making an Italian peach zabaglione (sabayon<\/em> in French). I found the recipe in The Good Cook book on Fruits. Edited by Richard Olney and published by Time-Life in the early 80s, the multi-volume series is an indispensable compendium of techniques, with recipes from around the world. Pesche alla Chicchera<\/em> — Peaches in a Coffee Cup — is utter simplicity to make, and, unlike a traditional zabaglione, this winey, creamy delight neither contains cream, nor needs to be cooked. I peeled, pitted, and pureed 4 very ripe, average size peaches. To the peaches, I added 1\/2 cup of sugar, 7 egg yolks, and about a cup of Cr\u00e8me de P\u00eache de Vigne<\/em>. The original recipe, from Lombardy, calls for sweet white wine, which I never have, but I happen to have found this bottle of sweet peach wine while cleaning the cupboards at my in-law’s. I remember when she brought it back from France — 20 years ago — but I knew, at 18% alcohol, that it would be fine. P\u00eaches de vigne\u00a0<\/em>are volunteer peach trees that are allowed to grow in vineyards in France. Their season is brief and their flavor is much admired in France. Most of them do not make it to market but are bottled in the vineyards, with a bit of sugar and pure spirits added. The Loire is known for these light liqueurs (most liqueurs have much higher alcohol levels), but this particular bottle is from Burgundy, between M\u00e2con and Cluny. Beaten until thick and fluffy, then chilled, the dessert was the perfect ending to our August meal of shrimp, butterbeans, and corn. I just as easily could have found a similar concoction in any number of fundraiser cookbooks from the South. In my second book, The New Southern Cook<\/em>, I offered two recipes from mother’s best friend, who was from Anderson, in the “upcountry” of South Carolina. One called for fresh fruit juices mixed with eggs, sugar, and cream; the other, a sort of trifle spiked with sherry or bourbon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While I cooked, Mikel, my husband, looked through the handwritten recipes and the fundraiser cookbook from the church in the little town close to the farm where he grew up. Therein, he found his grandmother’s “Half Pound Cake” recipe, which she baked in layers and iced with either chocolate or caramel. When I published “New Southern,” I, too, included a recipe for “Half Pound Cake.”\u00a0 Anne Byrn<\/a>, the prolific “Cake Doctor,” has a new book on American cakes being released in a few weeks. She interviewed me about my Half Pound Cake, but all I could really tell her was that I wanted to use an historical recipe, but they all called for a pound of eggs, a pound of flour, and a pound of sugar. The half pound cake makes one cake in an average loaf pan. In the book, I wrote, “Recipes both old and new often call for a dozen large eggs, but I’ve found that the eggs not only weigh more than a pound, but also make a huge cake. I halve the cake. If the eggs are very fresh, I use four; if they aren’t freshly laid, I use five (fresh eggs weigh more). This half-pound cake is true to the older recipes with no chemical leavening.” Mikel made his grandmother’s version. It’s a bit sweeter than mine, but I spike mine with bourbon, rum, or sherry. He’s iced his three-layer version with caramel icing — Mrs. Florence H. Steele’s recipe from the Pamplico United Methodist Cookbook<\/em> (no date): 1\/2 cup butter, 1 pound of butter, and 1 cup of cream, cooked to the soft boil stage, cooled for 10 minutes, then beaten until thick enough to spread.<\/p>\n

There’s nothing new under the sun.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I’ve written extensively about Fruitcake. (A recipe appeared on November 14, 2007<\/a>.) Fruitcakes sporting day-glo cherries and dyed pineapple chunks are anathema to most, and understandably so. But I love a good fruitcake, drenched in bourbon or rum. In place of the glac\u00e9ed cherries and pineapple I use sun-dried fruits such as figs, dates, and cherries soaked overnight in spirits. My holiday fruitcake can be eaten immediately; it is delicious. I usually make fruitcakes at Thanksgiving, then drown them in liquor and put them in plastic bags in a cool, dark place, turning\u00a0 them about once a week so that the entire cakes are evenly soaked in booze by the time Christmas arrives.<\/p>\n

Scots with a rich heritage of baking and tea fare settled in the lowcountry, bringing with them recipes for their near-black Dundee cake. Traditional ingredients are flour, butter, sugar, currants, raisins, sultanas, candied citrus peel, almonds, and eggs. When I was researching the culinary history of the lowcountry, I came to the conclusion that the citron that is called for in older fruitcake recipes was not the Mediterranean citrus rind used today but the pickled peel of a melon known by the same name. I had never seen a recipe other than mine that called for preserved melon rind until I unfolded this piece of paper from Mikel’s grandmother’s recipe file.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Her recipe, from 1942-1943, is remarkably similar to mine, with nuts, watermelon rinds, figs, pineapples, cherries, and raisins. When making fruitcakes, you can use\u00a0 any dark fruitcake recipe for proportions; use whatever dried fruits and nuts you desire. I make one for my sister Sue that has nothing but apricots, because she loves them. I’ve been known to keep a fruitcake for a year, dousing it with bourbon or sherry every few weeks. I love making new discoveries in the kitchen, and I like to tinker with tried-and-true recipes such as my fruitcake every year,\u00a0 but I know that I am not inventing anything new. It’s all been done before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 16, 2016; Savannah, Georgia It’s been such a hot summer, the hottest on record nearly everywhere. I haven’t been cooking as much as I usually do, though I somehow manage to post a culinary image on Instagram or Facebook nearly every day. A video I posted on Instagram of me salting shrimp the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1594,1591,815,1593,18,1595,1589,1592,1588,256,1590],"class_list":["post-4607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-caramel-icing","tag-culinary-fads","tag-fruitcake","tag-half-pound-cake","tag-hoppin-john-martin-taylor","tag-mikel-lane-herrington","tag-pesche-alla-chicchera","tag-pound-cake","tag-sean-brock","tag-shrimp","tag-zabaglione"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4607"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4633,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions\/4633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoppinjohns.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}