Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [55]
4. Pour the cornmeal batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown and puffy and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Serve immediately.
Southern Belle
Off State Highway 78 in central Kentucky you’ll find Boone Tavern, a century-old restaurant and hotel. Situated on the campus of Berea College, the establishment earned wide acclaim under Richard T. Hougen, who managed it from 1940 to 1976 and popularized such dishes as Pork Chops the Tricky Way, Chicken Flakes in a Bird’s Nest, and Kentucky Chess Pie. But the most popular item at this Southern institution is the spoonbread, a creamy corn bread soufflé (pictured, held by a waitress) that’s been served before each meal for more than 60 years. And while the building has undergone an overhaul, Bruce Alcorn, a Boone Tavern cook who, along with fellow old-timer Rawleigh Johnson, has been making the custardy pudding for decades, assures us that the spoonbread has not: “Me and Rawleigh made it back then, we make it now; nothing’s changed.”
Randy Evans’s Southern Peas
Randy Evans, the executive chef at Brennan’s restaurant in Houston, grew up on slow-cooked Southern peas, also known as field peas or cowpeas. He recommends simmering them along with a ham hock, carrots, celery, and chopped onion and serving them with corn bread to sop up the smoky-sweet liquor that accumulates during cooking.
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 rib celery
1 small carrot, peeled
2 cups fresh or frozen Southern peas (such as zipper creams, blackeyeds, or butter beans)
2½ cups chicken stock
1 small smoked ham hock Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Corn bread, for serving
Serves 4
1. In a 4-qt. saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.
2. Cut the celery and carrot in half and add both to the pan along with the peas, stock, and ham hock. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until tender and creamy, about 1 hour. (The time depends on the type and size of the peas; cook smaller peas about 50 minutes and larger ones about one hour and 10 minutes.)
3. Remove the ham hock, slice the meat from the bone, and chop; return the meat to the pan and discard the bone. Season the peas with salt and pepper and serve with corn bread.
Lovely Legumes
There are dozens of varieties of Southern peas (which mostly fall into the genus Vigna unguiculata), but we’re especially fond of the five shown here, for their versatility, distinctive appearance, and flavors. The zipper cream, developed by a Florida agronomist in 1972, gets its name from the fact that the peas can be whisked from their hull in a zipping motion. Though not in the same genus as Southern peas, butter beans have a similarly luscious texture and taste and are often lumped into the Southern-peas category; we like the speckled variety. The light-hued, unblemished surface of cream peasaccounts for the name, though the moniker is often attributed to the cooked peas’ butter-soft texture. The pink-eyed purple hull has a red spot at the center of each pea, and an earthy taste. Crowders have a squarish shape, a result of their being densely packed inside the hull (hence the name); brown crowders (shown), which have a deep, earthy flavor, are most prevalent in the South. Fresh-frozen Southern peas are available all year in supermarkets across the region, and can also be ordered online through websites like southwesternproduce.com. In the summer, you can find them fresh at Southern farmers’ markets.
(Top to bottom) Zipper cream, butter beans, cream peas, pink-eyed purple hull, crowders
Baked Goods and Sweets
Dietmar Muthenthaler, the head chef of Demel, the legendary pastry shop in Vienna, Austria.
Everyday ingredients can undergo remarkable transformations. Sugar becomes caramel, butter becomes butterscotch, egg whites become meringue. The metamorphosis from simple to sublime is the product of forceful