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3 slices lean, smoky bacon, cut crosswise into strips ½ inch wide

1 cup frozen black-eyed peas, cooked and drained by package directions

½ cup firmly packed fresh cilantro leaves ¼ cup well-stirred tahini (sesame seed paste)

¼ cup water

3 large whole garlic cloves

½ teaspoon lightly toasted cumin seeds (see Note above), pulverized or finely ground in an electric coffee grinder

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

¼ teaspoon white pepper, or to taste

½ teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne), or to taste

1 recipe Fried Green Tomatoes or sesame crackers

1. Cook the bacon in a small, heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring often, for 8 to 10 minutes or until crisp; drain on paper toweling.

2. Pulse the black-eyed peas in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the drained bacon, cilantro, tahini, water, garlic, cumin seeds, salt, white pepper, and cayenne, and churn for about a minute or until smooth. Taste for salt, white pepper, and cayenne and adjust as needed.

3. Serve as a cocktail dip with crisply fried green tomatoes, which have been quartered, or with sesame crackers.

WHITE BARBECUE SAUCE

MAKES ABOUT 1½ CUPS

Even though I grew up in the South, I had never heard of—let alone tasted—white barbecue sauce until a little over five years ago when Gourmet sent me south to write about the Smokies. First stop: The Inn at Blackberry Farm near Walland, Tennessee. I arrived shortly before dusk just as a huge buffet was being set up around the pool. Exactly what I needed after a bumpy flight from LaGuardia to Charlotte, a change of plane, an even bumpier hop over the Smokies to Knoxville, then a forty-five-minute last lap over winding roads. On the buffet was a platter of crisp raw vegetables and alongside it a dip the consistency of sour cream. One taste told me that this wasn’t any dip I knew. “It’s white barbecue sauce,” chef John Fleer told me. I’ve subsequently learned that few Southerners beyond northern Alabama know white barbecue sauce. It’s a staple there, however, used to dress or marinate everything from chicken to fish. According to Chris Lilly of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama, white barbecue sauce was created by Big Bob himself back in 1925. Today, white barbecue sauce is as popular a table sauce in northern Alabama as ketchup is elsewhere. Every cook has a pet recipe for it: Some like it thick, others, thin; some keep it simple (nothing more than mayo, vinegar, salt, and pepper), others prefer to gussy it up. The recipe that follows—my own take on this Alabama classic—is only moderately gussied up. I like white barbecue sauce as a dip for crunchy raw vegetables but some Alabamians put out a basket of pretzels. I also often serve white barbecue sauce with cocktail shrimp in place of the proverbial red glop.

1 cup mayonnaise (use “light,” if you like)

2½ tablespoons cider or white wine vinegar (purists insist upon distilled white vinegar but I find that too harsh)

1 tablespoon water (more if you prefer a thinner sauce)

1 medium garlic clove, finely minced

2 teaspoons Creole or Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons prepared horseradish

1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, or to taste

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt, or to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a small nonreactive bowl, whisking until smooth. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed. Also, if you prefer a thinner sauce, whisk in an extra tablespoon or two of water.

2. Transfer the sauce to a 1-pint jar, screw the lid down tight, and store in the refrigerator. Stored thus, white barbecue sauce will keep for 5 to 7 days.

3. Serve as a dip for crisp raw vegetables, as a cocktail sauce for cold shrimp or other shellfish,

* * *

TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine

1704

With dowries from Louis XIV, 25 beautiful young French women sail into Mobile Bay. Hand-picked to marry marines at the French Royal Colony at Fort Louis de la Mobile, they give birth to the first generation of Alabama “first families,” who later gain fame for the tables they set.

1705

Robert