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1821

The U.S. buys Spanish Florida, which includes parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, for $5 million.

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SMOTHERED PORK CHOPS

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

Because today’s leaner pork tends to toughen and dry as it cooks, many beloved southern dishes have suffered. One solution is to use meat from hogs that haven’t been put on low-cal diets. This updated recipe is an excellent way to ensure pork’s succulence. The original says to cook the chops for an hour after they’re browned—a sure bet for dry, rubbery pork. I’ve slashed the cooking time by two thirds, and yes, the pork chops are done. Moreover, they’re supremely juicy and tender.

½ cup unsifted all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

½ teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crumbled

½ teaspoon rubbed sage

Four 1-inch-thick center-cut, bone-in pork chops (2 to 2¼ pounds)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, halved lengthwise, then each half cut crosswise into thin slices

1½ cups chicken broth or water (I prefer broth)

1½ cups converted rice, cooked by package directions

1. Combine the flour, salt, pepper, thyme, and sage in a pie plate, then dredge each chop well on both sides. Reserve the dredging flour.

2. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over high heat for 2 minutes or until ripples appear on the skillet bottom. Add the chops and brown for 4 to 5 minutes, turn, and brown the flip sides for about 3 minutes. Lift to a plate and reserve.

3. Reduce the burner heat to moderate, add the onion to the skillet, and cook, stirring now and then, for 3 to 5 minutes or until limp and golden. Blend in 3 tablespoons of the dredging flour, add the broth, and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 to 5 minutes or until the mixture bubbles and thickens.

4. Return the pork chops to the skillet, spooning the onion gravy on top. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, turning the chops at half-time, or until an instant-read thermometer stuck into the meatiest part of a chop registers 150° F. Taste the gravy for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.

5. Divide the rice among four heated dinner plates and top each portion with a pork chop and plenty of onion gravy.

I heard it said that the “architecture” of Atlanta is recocola.

—JOHN GUNTHER, U.S.A.

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OSSABAW PORK

It’s the pork of the past and it may be the pork of the future.

Weary of “the other white meat” from mass-produced hogs that have had the fat and flavor bred out of them, chefs are excited about the Ossabaw pork now being produced on a few boutique farms in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia. Unlike supermarket pork, its succulence and flavor closely resemble that of Spain’s prize Ibérico pork.

There’s good reason for this. Ossabaws, small feral hogs free-ranging on Ossabaw Island (second largest of Georgia’s Golden Isles), descend from the Ibéricos brought to the Southeast nearly five hundred years ago. Columbus introduced them to Hispaniola on his second voyage, in 1493, and De Soto loosed herds of them in Florida in 1539, reasoning that they would proliferate and provide meat for colonists to come.

And so they did, roaming the South and eventually intermingling with the English breeds introduced later. George Washington, a man who took pride in his hams, raised Ossabaws at Mount Vernon, allowing them to forage for acorns as did the Ibéricos of Spain (after all these years, they can again be seen in the Mount Vernon barnyard; a few have even been spotted in Williamsburg).

But the Ossabaw Island Ibéricos were isolated, thus these bristly, leggy, prick-eared, pointy-snouted, black or spotted hogs are a near DNA match. What’s unique about them is that their fat is mostly monounsaturated and nearly liquid at room temperature—an anomaly food chemists are studying. Is Ossabaw fat the new olive oil? Can it, like olive oil, actually raise the levels of “good” cholesterol and lower the risk of heart disease? So far no one knows.

While praising the texture and taste of Ossabaw pork, chefs complain about