A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [243]
4. Pour the pepper juice into a deep, nonreactive 2-gallon kettle. Add the sugar, vinegar, lime juice, and, if desired, the hot pepper sauce. Bring to a boil over high heat, adjust so the mixture bubbles easily, then cook uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring now and then.
5. Mix in the liquid pectin and as soon as the mixture returns to a rolling boil, cook for 1 minute exactly.
6. Set the kettle off the heat. Quickly skim off the froth, then ladle the boiling jelly into the hot jars, filling each to within ¼ inch of the top. Tip: To avoid spills, use a wide-mouth canning funnel. Wipe the jar rims with a damp cloth and screw on the closures.
7. Process the jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (212° F.). Lift from the water bath; complete the seals, if necessary, by tightening the lids, then cool to room temperature.
8. Date and label each jar of jelly, then store on a cool, dark shelf for about a month before serving.
My nephew, Lee Bailey, thought my [pepper] jelly so good and so unique that he strongly urged me—fairly forced me, in fact—to start selling it…Now I put up about 400 jars a week.
—FREDDIE BAILEY, AUNT FREDDIE’S PANTRY
When one has tasted watermelons, one knows what angels eat. It was not a southern watermelon that Eve took, we know because she repented.
—MARK TWAIN
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
2007
Krispy Kreme introduces a new caramel-flavored, 100-percent whole-wheat doughnut. Coated with the original glaze, it weighs in at 180 calories—approximately 20 fewer than KK’s beloved honey-dipped classic. Not much, it’s true; still, this doughnut’s carbs come mainly from the whole-wheat flour used to make it, meaning that they are the more nutritious complex carbs. Coming next? A trans-fat-free KK doughnut.
After years of archaeological research and careful reconstruction, a faithful replica of George Washington’s distillery is up and running at Mount Vernon.
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The Language of Southern Food
The following are defined or discussed elsewhere: Benne Seed, Calas, Catfish, Cathead Biscuits, Chicken Bog, Chicken Mayonnaise, Court Bouillon, Cracklin’s, Cracklin’ Bread, Cymlings, Dumplings, Groundnuts, Hominy, Hoppin’ John, Hush Puppies, Jerusalem Artichokes, Key Limes, Limpin’ Susan, Maque Choux, Mayhaw, Mirliton, Muddle, Muscadine, Pine Bark Stew, Pressed Chicken, Red-Eye Gravy, Rock, Sally Lunn, Sawmill Gravy, Scuppernong, She-Crab, Shirt Tail Pies, Smithfield Ham, Sonker, Spoon Bread, and Sugar Cake. See the index for page numbers.
Alligator pear: What many Southerners call the avocado because it’s pear-shaped and its skin is alligator-like: pebbly, leathery, and green.
Andouille: This most beloved of Cajun sausages—smoky, peppery, and 100 percent pork—is integral to gumbos and jambalayas. It’s made throughout Cajun country but La Place, Louisiana, claims to be “The Andouille Capital of the World” and stages lively festivals to prove it.
Ash cakes: The simplest of corn breads and an old Appalachian favorite: Mix enough stone-ground cornmeal with water to make a thick mush, shape into cakes a little bigger than hamburgers, ease onto the hearth, cover with white-hot ashes, and bake until done. Brush off the ashes and serve as a sop for pot likker.
Awendaw (also incorrectly spelled Owendaw): A Lowcountry spoon bread made with grits. It’s named for Awendaw, a small community about halfway between Charleston and Georgetown directly north, where Indian and African cultures merged.
Baby backs: Spareribs cut from a very young pig. Q-masters I know say they’re too lean and flavorless for first-class barbecued ribs.
Batter bread: The Tidewater Virginia name for “spoon bread.” In some parts of the South,