A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [48]
5. Either serve cold, garnishing each portion with the snipped chives, or reheat just until the mixture steams; do not boil or the soup may curdle. Ladle into heated soup bowls and sprinkle each portion with the chives.
Variations
Yellow Squash Soup: Prepare the soup as directed but substitute 1½ pounds thinly sliced yellow squash for mirlitons and 8 finely chopped large scallions for the Vidalia onion; also add ¼ teaspoon finely chopped fresh (or crumbled dry) rosemary. In Step 2, cook only until the vegetables are soft—15 to 20 minutes—then proceed as directed. Serve hot or cold, garnishing each portion with a small sprig of rosemary instead of freshly snipped chives.
Cool Cucumber Soup: Prepare the mirliton soup as directed, substituting 1½ pounds peeled, seeded, thinly sliced cucumbers for mirlitons and 8 finely chopped large scallions for the Vidalia onion. Omit the bay leaf and use 3 large dill sprigs in place of the parsley. In Step 2, cook only until the vegetables are soft—15 to 20 minutes—then proceed as directed. Finally, increase the amount of buttermilk to ½ cup. Serve cold and garnish each portion with freshly snipped dill instead of chives.
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1775
After years of “taxation without representation,” the American colonies rise up against England and the American Revolution begins.
George Washington plants “Mississippi nuts” (pecans) at Mount Vernon.
Using the Cumberland Pass, Daniel Boone and 30 axemen hack through 208 miles of forest between Kingsport, Tennessee, and the Kentucky River, clearing a “Wilderness Trail” for Kentucky-bound colonists.
1776
The American colonies declare their independence from England but the Revolutionary War continues for seven more years.
Many in New Orleans sicken and die from eating spoiled flour.
1778
Louisville is founded and named in honor of Louis XVI. Thanks to its location on the Ohio River, it becomes a major port for goods and passengers steamboating down the Mississippi. Within 50 years, Louisville is Kentucky’s largest city; it still is.
1779
Thomas Jefferson imports pecan trees from Louisiana and plants groves of them at Monticello.
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COOL FLORIDA AVOCADO SOUP
MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS
When I was a teenager, my mother, father, and I piled into our pea-green Mercury and headed to Florida, where my older brother was working as an intern in an architectural firm. I was excited to be heading south (a first, since our relatives all lived in the Midwest), thrilled, too, to be adding three new states to my list. Still under the spell of Gone With the Wind, I yearned to see Tara-like plantations and fields of cotton. From Raleigh, it took us a day and a half to reach Florida; there were no Interstates then and the speed limit was only fifty-five on the open road. We lunched in Charleston, South Carolina, still sleepy, still poor, then drove on to Savannah for the night. Arriving just as shafts of downing sun filtered through tatters of Spanish moss, I thought Savannah the most romantic city I’d ever seen. It was down-at-heel then, even slightly decadent. By noon the next day we were in the land of oranges. What impressed me even more, however, were the avocado trees; every Florida yard seemed to have one. Back home, avocados were a “special order,” still my father the botanist made sure that my brother and I met them early on—sliced thin and drizzled with a not-too-tart vinaigrette. I never dreamed that avocados could be prepared any other way until I tasted a cool, ever-so-lightly curried soup on that first trip to Florida. This is my attempt to re-create that soup from those long-ago flavor memories. Note: Bright green Florida avocados are much larger than the dark-skinned Hass and Fuertes of California, yet they are more delicate and lower in calories. Indigenous to and cultivated in