A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [148]
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
¼ cup cold water
1 cup boiling water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon hot red pepper sauce
1 cup mayonnaise (use “light,” if you like)
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
½ cup coarsely chopped red bell pepper
½ cup coarsely chopped green bell pepper
½ cup finely diced celery
1 cup moderately coarsely shredded cabbage
1 cup moderately coarsely shredded carrots
1. Lightly coat a fluted, nonreactive 2½-quart mold with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Soften the gelatin in the cold water in a large heatproof bowl for 5 minutes. Add ¾ cup of the boiling water, the lemon juice, sugar, salt, and hot pepper sauce. Stir until the gelatin dissolves completely.
3. Blend the mayonnaise with the onion and remaining ¼ cup boiling water, then mix into the gelatin mixture along with all remaining ingredients.
4. Pour all into the mold and cover loosely with wax paper. Set uncovered in the refrigerator and chill for several hours or overnight until firm.
5. To unmold, dip the mold quickly into hot water, then invert on a colorful round platter. Tip: If the platter is wet, you’ll find the unmolded salad easier to center.
6. Cut into wedges and serve as is, or if you prefer, serve on a bed of colorful mixed greens.
* * *
TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1933
Harriet Ross Colquitt publishes The Savannah Cook Book, a spiral-bound paperback brimming with “receipts for rice dishes, and for shrimp and crab concoctions which are peculiar to our locality.” In his introduction, Ogden Nash rhymes, “Everybody has the right to think whose food is the most gorgeous, and I nominate Georgia’s.”
After nearly 20 years of pit-roasting barbecue for Goldsboro, North Carolina, businessmen, African American janitor Adam Scott turns his back porch into a small barbecue restaurant. Today a third generation operates Scott’s Famous Barbecue, now located on Williams Street and still drawing crowds. North Carolina supermarkets also sell Scott’s Famous Barbecue Sauce.
Prohibition ends—but not in much of the South.
1934
The “new Chero-Cola” debuts as Royal Crown Cola and is an immediate hit. In no time, the favorite fast-food southern lunch is “a MoonPie and an RC.”
As a substitute for absinthe, banned by the U.S. in 1912 because of the harmful effects of the wormwood it contained, Legendre & Company of New Orleans develops a look-and taste-alike anise liqueur called Herbsaint.
* * *
SHRIMP ASPIC
MAKES 6 SERVINGS
One of my best New York friends was fellow Southerner Anne Mead, who grew up in Dillon, South Carolina. Like me, she lived on Gramercy Park; like me, she loved to cook; and like me, she wrote a cookbook. Called Please Kiss the Cook, Anne’s is a collection of family favorites, the recipes her doctor husband and two sons like best. Most recipes are southern (no surprise here), among them this refreshing aspic, which her mother liked to serve at bridge luncheons on sultry Dillon days. Note: I heat the tomato juice by microwave in a large measuring cup in which I can also make the aspic. Saves on dishwashing. Tip: For better flavor, use fresh shrimp, not frozen or canned.
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
½ cup cold water
2½ cups tomato juice
1 tablespoon finely grated yellow onion (a Microplane is the tool to use here)
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne)
1½ cups finely diced cooked, shelled, and deveined shrimp (about 10 ounces cooked, shelled, and deveined shrimp or 25 to 30 medium-small; see Tip above)
½ cup finely diced green bell pepper
½ cup finely diced celery
6 iceberg lettuce cups
1. Spritz a decorative, nonreactive 6-cup ring mold with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
2. Soften the gelatin in the cold water in a small ramekin.