A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [182]
4. Frost the pudding with the whipped cream, set in the refrigerator, slide a small baking sheet on top, and chill for at least 1 hour before serving.
Everybody knew something was bad wrong with Gaten…Wouldn’t even eat a spoonful of Everleen’s banana pudding. I could have eaten the whole thing by myself…They said Gaten was in L.O.V.E.
—DORI SANDERS, CLOVER
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MY DOUGHNUT STAND
The summer all the neighborhood kids had lemonade stands, I decided to sell doughnuts, mostly because I loved to watch them pop up in the deep fat and flip themselves over. I marvel now that my mother would let a ten-year-old work with 375-degree deep fat—especially since I had to stand on a step stool to see into the pot. But let me she did. My doughnuts were dreadful—leaden and greasy right out of the fryer. Eaten cold, they were a major Maalox moment. Still, deliverymen always stopped to buy a few. I made no money on the doughnut stand; in fact it bankrupted me. But the experience taught me how to plan and budget.
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AMBROSIA
MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS
Somewhere down the line Southerners lost their way when it came to making ambrosia. They filled it with canned crushed pineapple and, worse still, with mini marshmallows and maraschino cherries. In its purest form, ambrosia is nothing more than alternate layers of sliced oranges and freshly grated coconut. No empty calories here. In Mrs. Hill’s Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book (1872), however, Annabella P. Hill includes a somewhat more elaborate version. To quote: “Ambrosia is made by placing upon a glass stand…alternate layers of grated cocoanut, oranges, peeled and sliced round, and a pineapple sliced thin. Begin with the oranges, and use cocoanut last, spreading between each layer sifted loaf sugar. Sweeten the cocoanut milk, and pour over.” Here’s the recipe I like best. Note: To make pineapple fans, slice the peeled and cored fruit into thin rings, then cut each into wedges measuring about 1½ inches across at the widest point.
4 medium navel oranges, peeled, halved lengthwise, and each half cut crosswise into thin slices
1¼ cups unsweetened grated coconut (preferably freshly grated)
2 cups freshly cut pineapple fans (optional; see Note above)
½ cup superfine sugar
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
3 large mint sprigs (garnish)
1. Layer the orange slices, grated coconut, and, if you like, the pineapple fans in a medium-size glass bowl, sprinkling each layer with the sugar.
2. Pour the orange juice evenly over all, cover, and refrigerate for several hours.
3. Remove from the refrigerator and allow to stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Sprig with mint and serve.
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Heirloom Recipe
MRS. JULIA RENO PHILLIPS’S RECIPE FOR EGG CUSTARD
Over the years as I’ve traveled about the South, I’ve haunted tag sales, antiques shops, and bookstores, keeping an eye out for community cookbooks (there are now more than a thousand of them in my library). I’m partial to the typed, mimeographed collections because they’re intensely local and less likely to recycle the big food company recipes that proliferate in slicker volumes. There’s no putting on airs in these little pamphlets and often the quaint language of ages past surfaces as a sort of culinary time capsule. This old recipe (from Heritage Recipes, printed in 1971 by the Haywood County Extension Homemakers in the Great Smokies) shows what I mean. First an incentive: When Dr. Herbert Mease rode by in his covered buggy and hollered, “Julia, can you have a custard by the time I come back?”
Then to the barn and gathered six fresh eggs, then to the spring house for some good rich milk (2 cups). Beat the eggs well (no, not with an electric beater…she had none), but with a fork, but well; then add about four tablespoons sugar, not too much sugar, they will be watery; then grate some nutmeg generously. Have a tin pan ready and place