A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [8]
4 whole allspice
4 blades mace
½ cup cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 to 3 small fresh dill or fennel umbels or sprigs of Italian parsley (garnish)
1. Place the oysters and their liquid in a large nonreactive pan and set over moderately high heat just until the liquid begins to bubble. The minute the oysters’ skirts ruffle, adjust the heat so the liquid bubbles gently, and simmer 1 minute longer.
2. Using a slotted spoon, scoop up the oysters, rinse, then place in a small, deep, heatproof, nonreactive bowl or crock along with the serranos, allspice, and mace. Set aside.
3. Add the vinegar, sugar, and salt to the oyster liquid, bring to a boil over moderately high heat, reduce the heat so the mixture bubbles gently, and simmer uncovered for 1 minute. Line a sieve with a coffee filter and set it directly over the bowl of oysters; pour in the hot pickling liquid. Once the liquid has drained through, cool the oysters for 30 minutes, then cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.
4. To serve, lift the oysters, serrano slices, and spices to a small glass or crystal bowl using a slotted spoon, and top with 1 cup of the pickling liquid. Garnish with dill umbels and pass with cocktails.
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COCA-COLA
“Gimme a dope.” To Southerners of a certain age, “dope” is still synonymous with Coke.
It’s no secret that the original Coca-Cola syrup, concocted in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, did contain cocaine. Marketed as a “nerve tonic,” it was just what Southerners needed during the Civil War’s agonizing aftermath.
Enter Atlanta businessman Asa Candler, who’d suffered from migraines since childhood. When a friend suggested that he try Coca-Cola, he headed to Jacob’s Pharmacy, where it was served at five cents a glass. The soda jerk spooned an ounce or so of Pemberton’s dark, secret syrup into a glass, then fizzed it with carbonated water.
Candler downed that first glass of Coca-Cola in 1888, emerged pain-free, and quickly wrote his brother of the amazing cure. In no time, Candler bought the recipe for Pemberton’s elixir (a blend of sugar, aromatic oils [cinnamon, citrus, and coriander], vanilla, and lime juice plus cocaine, and caffeine extracted from African kola nuts). By 1891 he owned the company, and by 1895 he’d opened syrup plants in Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
Convinced of Coca-Cola’s efficacy, Candler described it as “a medical preparation of great value which the best physicians unhesitatingly endorse for mental and physical exhaustion.”
He aimed to have Coca-Cola served at every American soda fountain. Early on he sent a barrel of his syrup to a friend in Vicksburg, Mississippi, who, instead of fizzing it in a glass at his soda fountain, bottled it. At first Candler didn’t object, but when others followed suit, he balked; bottlers were reaping huge profits. Unfortunately, he had no legal grounds to stop them.
Around the turn of the century, Coca-Cola began getting bad press because of the cocaine it contained. There were reports of people becoming addicted, of people “going funny” after drinking Coca-Cola (some soda jerks were known to double or triple the usual dose of syrup).
In 1901, or perhaps early 1902, Candler decided to remove cocaine from the Coca-Cola formula, which only he and a trusted colleague knew how to mix. He even asked a New Jersey laboratory to “de-cocaine-ize” coca leaves for him.
With Coke so successful, copy-cat colas began flooding the market. Candler’s next move was to make Coca-Cola America’s bold-face brand. No problem. He supplied every pharmacy with Coca-Cola glasses, Coca-Cola clocks, Coca-Cola calendars. He turned country barns into Coca-Cola billboards. He handed out coupons for free Coca-Cola. Then in 1916, the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, created the most distinctive Coca-Cola item of all: a wasp-waisted green bottle so unique a blind man could recognize it.
Soon after World War One, Georgia banker Ernest Woodruff and a consortium of