Twain's Feast - Andrew Beahrs [29]
Certainly some ex-slaves thought of both raccoon and possum with affection. “Oh! I was fond of ’possums, sprinkled with butter and pepper and baked down ’till de gravy was good and brown,” one remembered. Another, Anthony Dawson, had liked raccoon better: “Sometimes de boys would go down in the woods and get a possum. I love possum and sweet-taters, but de coon meat more delicate and de hair don’t stink up de meat.” But whether they preferred possum or raccoon, it’s impossible to know how the slaves on the Quarles farm felt about the hunts they led. Did they resent the loss of sleep? Did they feel the excitement Twain had? Sammy liked and admired some of the slaves; but of course he’d never be their confidant. They had their own secrets, their own paths.
Among the paths Twain couldn’t see was the one leading back to the source of many of his favorite Southern foods. The roots of the slaves on the Quarles farm can’t be traced as easily as can those of people living on the rice plantations of South Carolina or Louisiana, many of whom were enslaved and brought from specific rice-growing areas; some of those on the Quarles farm had probably lived in America for three or more generations. But whatever the ancestry and origin of the slaves there, by the time Sammy came to the farm they were cooking a thoroughly creolized cuisine—one with perhaps its deepest and most important roots among the incredibly diverse cultures of Africa.
POSSUM ROASTED
Chill thoroughly after scraping and drawing. Save all the inside fat, let it soak in weak salt water until cooking time, then rinse it well, and partly try it out in the pan before putting in the possum. Unless he is huge, leave him whole, skewering him flat, and laying him skin side up in the pan. Set in a hot oven and cook until crisply tender, taking care there is no scorching. Roast a dozen good sized sweet potatoes—in ashes if possible, if not, bake them covered in a deep pan. Peel when done, and lay while hot around the possum, turning them over and over in the abundant gravy. He should have been lightly salted when hung up, and fully seasoned, with salt, pepper, and a trifle of mustard, when put down to cook. Dish him in a big platter, lay the potatoes, which should be partly browned, around him, add a little boiling water to the pan, shake well around, and pour the gravy over everything. Hot corn bread, strong black coffee, or else sharp cider, and very hot sharp pickles are the things to serve with him.
—MARTHA MCCULLOCH-WILLIAMS, Dishes & Beverages of the Old South, 1913
Frank Wolfe has been growing rice in Gillett for more than forty years; he’s been attending Coon Suppers for even longer. By 6:30 A.M., when Frank drives me out to the Harris place from the Rice Paddy Motel where I’m staying, about a third of this year’s six hundred pounds of cut-up raccoon is already boiling furiously in huge outdoor pots. The sky is clear, and it’s cold but not freezing—lucky, since the supper goes on rain or shine, and the only real question is how miserable the cooks will get during the next two days. Beyond the kettles the rice fields lie green and dormant.
The pots are just outside a thirty-yard-long, sheet-steel-covered farm shop. There are fifteen members of the Gillett Farmers’ and Businessmen’s Club here, aged twenty to probably eighty; whatever their ages, they wear tan coveralls and hats reading RICELAND (a farmers’ co-op up north in Stuttgart) or MARTIN FLYING SERVICE (a spraying operation—Frank openly snorts when I ask about growing organic). They stand around the kettles or make runs into the farm shed, returning with shovels and dripping sieves.
Except for a stretch in the army and the winters he spent making a few extra dollars drilling water wells in Haiti and Bangladesh, Frank has lived here for most of his seventy years. He’s been to almost every Coon Supper since their official