This Creole gumbo is heavy on the seafood, with only a subtle ham flavor. The red of the tomatoes and the green of the okra makes it appear vibrant and fresh. Photo by Stephanie Carter.

Everyone has their own way of making gumbo and everyone’s favorite is always his or her’s mama’s or grandmama’s version. I’ve always had a thing for the dark gumbos of Cajun country, mysterious and murky like the surrounding swamps, with a dollop of potato salad. Recently, I developed a Creole gumbo recipe for the Jazz and Heritage Station, WWOZ, and I discovered beauty in the subtleties of this variety. And, speaking of subtleties, it makes all the difference in the world to make your own shrimp stock with this one.

Traditional Creole gumbos typically differ from the Cajun gumbos in that they commonly include okra, tomatoes, and seafood. Africans brought okra to New Orleans and, most likely, the word “gumbo” evolved from the word for okra in the Central Bantu dialect of West Africa. According to New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and their Histories, Creoles were the first Louisianians to embrace tomatoes, and the ingredient made it into the Creole version of gumbo. Cajuns embraced wild game in their gumbos and stayed away from much seafood until the advent of refrigeration. The gumbo recipes in  Lafcadio Hearn’s 1885 book, La Cuisine Creole, demonstrate a preference for ham, rather than andouille, in 19^th century New Orleans gumbos.

Creole Gumbo (8-10 servings)

• 1 tablespoon salt
• ½ cup + 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 4 ½ cups fresh okra that you’ve sliced to ¼” thick (about 3 pounds of whole okra)
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 ½ cups finely diced celery
• 3 cups finely diced white onions
• 1 cup finely diced green bell pepper
• ½ cup sliced scallions, white and green parts
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• 4 cups chopped tomatoes*
• 8 ounce container of Louisiana claw crabmeat
• 1 ham hock
• ½ tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 2 quarts homemade shrimp stock (recipe follows)
• 2 cups water
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 pounds medium, Louisiana shrimp with heads and shells (reserve heads and shells for stock)

To serve:

• Plenty of cooked white rice
• Chopped scallions
• Chopped Parsley

*Use fresh, ripe tomatoes if they are in season. If not, use good quality canned tomatoes.

Place the salt in a little bowl next to the stove so that you can add it in increments. You’ll use it all by the end.

In a large, heavy bottom skillet over high heat, heat ½ cup peanut oil. Add okra and a dusting of salt. Fry until the ropey texture disappears. The okra will stick, but don’t let that scare you. Just scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon as you go. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a 6-quart pot over medium heat, make the roux by melting the butter and adding 1 tablespoon peanut oil. Sprinkle in the flour, stirring or whisking to blend it all together. Keeping the heat over medium, stir constantly, taking care not to forget about the roux sticking to the sides and bottom of the pot, until the roux is the color of a pecan.

Add the onions and some salt and increase the heat to medium high. Stir for about 1 minute. Do the same with the celery and the bell pepper.

Add the scallions, garlic, and a little more salt and cook for approximately 5 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan occasionally.

Add the tomatoes and some salt and stir until they nearly become a paste.

Add reserved okra and cook, stirring occasionally another minute.

Stir in ¼ of the crab and reserve the rest.

Add ham hock, Worcestershire Sauce, stock, water, bay leaf, and the rest of the little bowl of salt.

Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low heat.

Cook for an hour and a half.

Add the reserved crab and the deveined shrimp and cook 30 more minutes, being careful that the mixture does not boil.

Taste and adjust seasoning – adding Worcestershire, salt, or hot sauce – as you desire.

Serve over fluffy white rice and garnish with chopped scallions and parsley.

This will keep in the refrigerator for 4 days. It freezes beautifully.

Shrimp Stock (makes 2 quarts)

• 1 teaspoon peanut oil
• Heads and shells from 3 pounds of shrimp (devein the shrimp and reserve them for the gumbo)
• ¼ cup chopped carrot
• ½ cup diced onion
• ¼ cup diced celery
• 2 teaspoons tomato paste
• ½ cup Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth
• 3 quarts water
• 2 parsley stems
• 5 black peppercorns
• 1 clove
• 1 sprig of fresh thyme
• 1 whole garlic clove with skin still on it
• 1 bay leaf

In a 4-quart stockpot, heat oil over high heat until you begin to see a bit of vapor rise from the oil. Immediately add the shrimp heads and shells to the pot. Cook until they gain color, about 3 minutes. Stir often with a wooden spoon.

Add the carrot and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring often. Repeat with the celery and then the onion. Cook, stirring periodically, until the onion is translucent.

Add tomato paste and stir to coat the mixture in the pot. Stir for about a minute (the tomato paste will smell sweeter when it is done).

Keeping the pot over high heat, pour in Noilly Prat. With your wooden spoon, scrape any bits that have become stuck to the bottom of the pot. Allow the Noilly Prat to reduce until it is nearly dry, about 5 minutes.

Add the water and bring to a simmer.

Reduce heat to medium-low and add everything else (parsley, peppercorns, clove, thyme, garlic, and bay leaf).

Allow the stock to simmer, uncovered, for an hour and a half.

Strain the stock through a fine mesh sieve. You should have two quarts of stock.

Jeff Beachbum Berry at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and The Museum of the American Cocktail. Photo by Ashley Crumholt.

The Museum of the American Cocktail hosts events in New Orleans and Washington, DC on a regular basis. Visit the website for more information on these fun events.

The Museum of the American Cocktail’s The State of the Art event that took place a day before this year’s Tales of the Cocktail started was a perfect opportunity to interact with some of New Orleans’s best bartenders in a unique environment. The bartenders served up signature cocktails from their individual stations, which were situated in various locations inside the museum. Tasters imbibed amidst intriguing artifacts and the sounds of chatter and drink-making.

The atmosphere was palpably energetic, yet laid-back. Bartenders were eager to delve into details regarding the inspiration for or taste intricacies of their drinks. They were also completely approachable and willing to small talk. Socialization among attendees was also common, especially after they had been to a few stations.

The drinks were as charismatic and diverse as their makers; the beautiful presentation almost made me regret having to destroy them via digestion. Almost. In order to alleviate my guilt, I had pictures taken:

BEET AND COMPANY

By Christine Jeanine Nielsen

• 2 oz Barsol Pisco
• .5 oz amber agave nectar
• 1 oz lemon juice
• .25 oz beet juice
• egg white

GIN BLU

By Blake Kaiser

• 1.5 oz Hendrick’s gin
• .75 oz lemon juice
• .75 oz simple syrup
• 10 blueberries

TOMMY CARBONE

By Geoffrey Wilson & Steve Yamada

• 1.5 oz Pierre Ferrand 1840
• .75 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
• 1.5 oz Homemade Pineapple Shrub

ONE PARTICULAR HARBOR

By Tiffany Soles

• 2 oz Appleton Estate Reserve rum
• 1 oz lemongrass-ginger syrup
• 2 barspoons Perfect Puree Carmelized
• Pineapple Puree
• Sparkling Coconut Water

CAMPARI ALL NIGHT LONG

By Star Hodgson

• 1.5 oz Campari
• .5 oz Hendricks
• .75 oz Lime Juice
• .5 oz Lemongrass & Rosemary Syrup
• Pinch Habanero Lime Salt

THE SNAKE CHARMER

By Bazil Zerinsky

• 2 oz Hendricks Gin
• .75 oz Red Chile Demerara Syrup
• .75 oz Lemon Juice
• 2 drops Orange Flower Water
• Ginger Beer Float & a lemon twist

THE EXPENSE ACCOUNT

By Rhiannon Enlil

• 1.5 oz Plymouth Gin
• 1 oz Lime Juice
• .5 oz Becherovka
• .5 oz Honey Syrup (2:1)
• 10 drops Orange Blossom Water

I highly recommend that everyone attend at least one Museum of the American Cocktail event. If you are a college student, you will be amazed to discover that dive bars are not representative of drinking in the civilized world. If you are an experienced drinker, you will appreciate the opportunity to discuss drinks and bars with amazing bartenders and other attendees. If you are from out of town, you will get the chance to experience a piece of New Orleans’ affable culture without massive crowds. If none of these apply to you, the worst case scenario is that you end up trapped in a room with lots of alcohol, food, great people, and amazing pieces of Southern history.

The peanut soup at Hotel Roanoke. Image courtesy of Hotel Roanoke

The year 1940 was a defining one for Roanoke, Virginia. Amid the fear, dread, and uncertainty of World War II came the comfort of peanut soup and spoonbread. Since the Hotel Roanoke’s peanut soup recipe was developed that year by Chef Fred Brown, it has fortified stomachs and souls in the Regency Room of the hotel. Its companion dish, spoonbread, is one that has been served by Virginians for generations. In 1994, writer Donlan Piedmont penned a history of the hotel.  Those two dishes have defined the hotel so well over the years that Piedmont chose them for the title of his book:  Peanut Soup and Spoonbread. Marshall Fishwick, a professor at Virginia Tech, calls them “landmark dishes” in the book’s preface.

The history of the hotel is closely intertwined with the railroad legacy of Roanoke.  Norfolk and Western built the Tudor Revival style structure in 1882.  The property has gone through several changes of ownership over the years and is now operated by Virginia Tech.  A wall of “Hokie Stone” marks the transition from the hotel to the adjoining conference center, managed by the City of Roanoke. In fact, in order to arrange a calm and quiet night before home football games in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech’s Coach Frank Beamer brings his players over for a Friday night stay.

Hotel Roanoke holiday buffets are legendary. Reservations must be made weeks, if not months, in advance.  At Thanksgiving, the number of buffet reservations averages around 1,400.  Two constants on those buffets are the peanut soup and spoonbread. Until just a few years ago, the peanut soup recipe was a closely guarded secret. Despite its long culinary history, Chef Billie Raper says some diners are surprised to learn that soup can be made of peanuts. Raper, a Richmond native, describes spoonbread as “a moist, soufflé-like version of cornbread.”

After the edible history offered in the Regency Room, a walk through the hotel reveals links to Roanoke’s past at every turn. In October of 1935, Civil War veterans gathered on the lawn for a reunion. During World War II, military officers relaxed in the Pine Room. Along Peacock Alley are photographs of Miss Virginia pageant winners who have gone on to claim the title of Miss America.  For many years, the Miss Virginia pageant was held in the hotel.

At Christmastime, over 25 designer Christmas trees grace the building, during the Fashions for Evergreens event.

Of the 331 guest rooms, not one is the same.  Those rooms have survived fires, the Great Depression, and even closure.  But now, with tea dances in the Crystal Ballroom and peanut soup on the menu every day, the Hotel Roanoke is in full glory.

Peanut soup is served daily at the Hotel Roanoke. Image courtesy of the Hotel Roanoke.

Hotel Roanoke Peanut Soup

• ¼ pound butter
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 2 quarts chicken broth, heated
• 1 pint peanut butter (creamy)
• 1/3 teaspoon celery salt
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ cup ground peanuts

Melt butter in cooking vessel and add onion and celery.  Sauté for 5 minutes but don’t brown.  Add flour and mix well.  Add hot chicken broth and cook for 30 minutes.  Remove from stove, strain, and add peanut butter, celery salt, salt, and lemon juice.  Sprinkle ground peanuts on soup just before serving.

Serves 10.

……….

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Nevada Parker Derting’s Stack Cake
http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=2383

……….

World War I poster, via Wikimedia Commons

If you were ever to make your way to my apartment, providing you could negotiate the gauntlet of booby traps, you would first notice the fact that every available space that doesn’t have DVDs or guitars in it is filled either with food or with some item related to food preparation. My pantry would make even the most ardent survivalist recommend an intervention. I blame my Appalachian upbringing for my propensity to hoard canned goods, pasta, dry beans, rice, flour and cornmeal. I blame my irrational collection of condiments on a yet to be diagnosed mental disorder.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, there was a time in this country when there wasn’t a supermarket within a convenient drive from just about wherever you might find yourself (unless you choose to live out in the middle of nowhere, then that’s on you). There was a time, particularly in the South, when people produced almost all the food they were going to eat for the year during the growing season. They then found ways to preserve the bounty and subsisted almost solely on the abundance during the lean months, these being the days before televised football came along to fill all those empty hours.
Food preservation in the South was of the utmost importance from the moment early settlers realized that the farther they pushed inland from the established settlements, the less likely they were to encounter a store or even a Waffle House.(1) Early pioneers employed time-honored methods of drying, pickling and curing foods for the long haul. Unfortunately, those methods produced a relatively narrow diet without much variety of flavor. Human beings innately crave a varied and flavorful diet, the inexplicable success of Applebee’s notwithstanding.

Photograph of Food, Possibly Meat, Drying Outdoors. Author Unknown or not provided Record creator Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Aberdeen Area Office. Cheyenne River Agency. (1949 - ) Date 1932. Via Wikimedia Commons

As not only America began to grow, the world became larger and smaller at the same time and more people were experiencing the same dilemma. Though people had existed for thousands of years on sometimes little more than a staple grain and whatever they could catch and kill, the burgeoning market for new flavors and the intellectual challenge of making summer last all year fit perfectly into the spirit of the age. It was an era of exploration and expansion, accompanied by the transition from primarily agrarian culture to a more demanding industrial age. More and more people were not producing their own food, placing greater demands on the food supply. The solution was to be found in the workings of the Industrial Revolution itself.

The history of canning goes back to the late eighteenth century, when the French government offered a prize of 12,000 francs to anyone who could come up with an inexpensive method to preserve large amounts of food, mostly to supply Napoleon’s army.

A French brewer named Nicolas Appert noticed that food cooked inside airtight containers did not spoil, and thus developed a method for sealing food inside glass jars. The method, unfortunately, was not called Appertizing, even though that would have been pretty funny even then. It was decided that storing food in glass jars, while effective, was not practical for the intended military applications. Metal canisters, or cans, were invented to take the place of glass and thus was born the era of large-scale industrial food preservation. It is worth noting that the can opener would not be invented for another 30 years, by which time everyone was probably good and hungry even if they’d forgotten what was in the can to begin with(2).

Benjamin Nicolas Marie Appert, via Wikimedia Commons

Glass jar canning became the preferred method of home canning in America because using tin cans (or, more exactly, tin-coated steel cans) required complex machinery that remains beyond the means of most Americans, which also explains why bondage hasn’t really caught on despite the recent success of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The iconic Mason jar, named for its inventor, John Landis Mason, has achieved almost symbolic status in the South. Emblematic both of our resourcefulness and, at the same time, a stereotypical lack of sophistication, it has served as everything from multipurpose storage vessel to a drinking glass to a conduit for “untaxed whiskey.” It now also does duty as a kitschy accessory at the type of place  spells “country” with a K, as well as those growing up around large metro centers like Brooklyn, trying to create a sense of space and time.

Because of the enormity of the task, canning was often a communal activity. To this day, a scant handful of community canneries exist in some parts of the South. Provided and maintained by the locality, they give ample space and basic equipment for heavy duty home canning. Friends and neighbors still gather to put up bushels of pole beans, tons of tomatoes, and enough jams and jellies to put an entire mid-sized metro area into a diabetic coma. My mother used to tell the story of a time when she was living in Kentucky and her mother from West Virginia came over so that they could divide the labor of making a large amount of jelly and jam. She went to the store to purchase a large amount of sugar for the task and was later visited by state “revenuers” making sure she wasn’t using all that sugar for making moonshine. She was the kind of person who, if she’d had the wherewithal, would have then gone right ahead and made a batch of moonshine just to stick it to the Man.

Photograph of a confiscated moonshine liquor still photographed by the Internal Revenue Bureau at the Treasury Department, Washington, D.C. Courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C., circa 1921–1932, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m of an age to remember having a canning room in the basement, and drawing from vast stores of everything from tomato juice I helped make, to wax-sealed drinking glasses filled with Mom’s damson preserves once made with plums grown in our backyard until my herbicidal father took down the trees in yet another step in his overall plan to clearcut our entire property. And every year, during the summer, I ponder doing some small-scale canning, putting up some pickled okra or having a go at my own damson preserves. And even though I have enough hillbilly cred to avoid being lumped in with the fad followers, the task remains sadly beyond the physical abilities of an arthritic humorist and a willing but essentially useless parakeet.

The thing that I miss the most, and the one that is hardest to find made “the way Mom used to make it” is chow chow, a type of relish introduced to the South by the Acadians (this was, of course, after they were thrown out of Canada(3) and headed to Louisiana for its Francophile leanings). Mom made chow chow as a kind of end-of-the-garden catchall, made with the same improvisational flair she brought to most of her cooking. Subsequently, no recipe exists and my memory is sadly lacking the details of her method.

Of course, the development and popularity of canning didn’t do away with the older methods of preservation such as pickling, curing and drying. Southerners were adept at all three. We pickled everything from okra to green beans to beets. Appalachians tended to cure more pork than we barbecued. And we dried everything from venison jerky to fruit leather to leatherbritches. As a kid I’d sit down on the front porch with a bushel of pole beans with my family and several neighbors, stringing and snapping the beans and then threading them onto long strands of fishing line.  These festive strings of organic decorations would then be hung out on the screened-in back porch to dry. Come winter, the dried beans would be slowly cooked with some fatback. Leatherbritches, also less commonly known as poke beans, were a staple on the holiday dinner table.

Leather britches, preserved and dried green beans.

Mom also pickled traditional Appalachian favorites like bread and butter pickles, sauerkraut, and corn. And as simple kraut and pickled corn may seem (three ingredients, and two of them are salt and water), there was still an element of old-time knowhow to the process. Mom making some pickled corn once that just didn’t turn out, it was mushy and awful. She were relating the story to my great uncle, who was versed in all the old mountain ways, and he asked her what day she’d made it. She looked at the calendar and told him. He consulted the almanac and informed her that the reason it had failed was because the sign of the moon on that day was in the bowels. For it to be successful, the sign of the moon needed to be in the shoulders or head. She consulted an almanac, chose a more favorable day, repeated the process exactly, and the corn turned out perfect.

Sad to say, most of the old ways are going if not yet completely gone. Canning and preservation are no longer considered survival skills for the average person, the old folkways largely relegated to the same dusty and neglected status as alchemy and quality network television programming. Though pickling-obsessed hipsters may prolong its demise, it’s only a matter of time before they grow out of this phase of their lives and move on to whatever impermanent fixation comes next(4). There is still a glimmer of hope, though, in the likes of young Southern chefs like Sean Brock(5) who keep some of the old ways alive. And in organizations like Our Beloved SOFAB and the Southern Foodways Alliance, who carry the flame by example, education, and documentation. Through their combined efforts, it is to be hoped that future generations may know that it’s just foolish to make pickled corn when the sign of the moon is in the bowels.

Still, each year on a brilliant October afternoon when a local orchard invites members of a nearby church come make apple butter on premises, I feel a sense of impending loss. The time-consuming process is fascinating to watch, the hours of stirring the apples in a huge copper kettle over an open fire, and the final product is well worth the wait. I take home a jar every year, determined to make it last till next year, but it never does. For one thing, it just goes so well on a hot biscuit that it almost feels like I’m depriving it of its created purpose if I don’t use it in such a manner at every opportunity. Also, because it makes me slightly wistful, seeing that plain Mason jar amid the array of factory-made goods in professionally-designed packages. And finally, because if and when the year does come that the ladies and the copper kettle don’t come back, there would be no sadder thing than a nearly-empty jar of the Last Handmade Applebutter.

(1) Over 1,600 locations to serve you.

(2) The shelf life of canned food is generally one to five years.

(3) Which, believe me, takes some doing.

(4) Let me suggest Chinese foot binding.

(5) Fellow Virginian and pork aficionado.

Moonshine is one of America’s oldest and purest native spirits. Just saying the word conjures up images of back country stills, bell jars, nooks in mountains, and men dressed in overalls with long grey beards. I once brought a jar of apple pie flavored Moonshine to a party, and as I offered it around, everyone involuntarily took a step back, as if being too close to the fumes was toxic. Then they all had to have a sip, just to see what it was really like.

Moonshining in America became much more popular in 1764, due to Britain’s Sugar Act that raised taxes on the importation of sugar, wine, and other luxury items. The increased price of sugar essentially  shut down the production of rum in New England (a really fascinating story that can be further explored in Wayne Curtis’s And a Bottle of Rum), made the colonists angry, and jump-started the production of other alcohols that didn’t require sugar or molasses from the Caribbean. What grew well in America? Corn! So corn was the base of the pure grain spirit that Americans began making. With the Revolutionary War and better taste, Americans quickly moved onto better spirits and moonshine crept back into the hills to become a vibrant part of the Appalachian area economy and culture.

The necessity of defying the tax collectors is the basis of most of moonshine’s identifying qualities. It was made using the most convenient source of grain: corn, and it had to be distilled and distributed quickly to avoid detection. Moonshine didn’t have the luxury to age in oak barrels or be triple distilled through various charcoal systems—it had to be out of the still and into the market as soon as possible. Revenue agents were constantly on the look out for illegal whiskey making, combing the forests for stills, and seeking out the small streams that would allow the stills to operate.

Moonshine still in Knox County, Tennessee, USA, photographed by TVA in 1936 as part of its Fort Loudoun Dam surveys. Via Wikicommons

Even with these stressful conditions, there were some moonshiners who distinguished themselves with an excellent product. In the book Illegal Odyssey: 200 Years of Kentucky Moonshine by Betty Boles Ellison, we get to see inside the lives of the people that made their living producing illegal alcohol. One Kentucky master, Wheeler Stinson, developed a reputation for making excellent whiskey in the backwoods of Wayne County. He used only copper barrels and connections for the still, created a true sour mash with sugar and meal, and used good quality corn right off the cob to get the best flavor out of the grain. His whiskey was popular enough that he was able to sell it wholesale to other moonshiners and leave the risky retail selling to them.

Ellison explores the various strategies of hiding the stills, the moonshiners’ relationships with the revenue agents, and how the production of illegal liquor allowed many people to make a living through the hard times. Jason Sumich points out in his anthropological study, It’s All Legal Until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians, “It was one of the few ways to earn cash in the subsistence-dominated mountain economy.” From Prohibition to the Depression and with the designation of many counties in the area as “dry,” moonshine was always in demand somewhere. As more jobs moved into the Appalachian area and booze became cheaper and more readily available throughout the rest of the country, making moonshine was no longer a viable option for many people, so private stills slowly began to disappear.

In the past decade, several companies have begun to produce moonshine legally in Appalachia. Piedmont Distillers began production of Midnight Moon in 2007 with the help of a long time moonshiner, Junior Johnson. The recipe is supposedly handed down through generations of Johnson’s family in North Carolina, and Johnson himself was once arrested for lighting his dad’s still. Moonshine has come a long way in flavor from the depictions of eye-poppingly strong stuff of the past. During Tales of the Cocktail this summer, I had the pleasure of sampling a barbeque dinner paired with Midnight Moon cocktails at Boucherie.

Mildly apprehensive, I sat down to a full sampling plate of the seven different flavors of moonshine that Midnight Moon has to offer. Moonshine might not “take the top off your head” like it did in the descriptions Betty Boles Ellison caught, but it’s definitely still incredibly strong stuff. The flavors are quite intriguing, because they’re all literally just fresh fruit put into mason jars with pure moonshine. There’s Apple Pie, Strawberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, and Cherry – out of which I think the Cranberry was my favorite. The flavor was tart enough to cut through the alcohol without being overly sweet.

The rest of the dinner following the sampling of all the moonshines was definitely a bit of a blur. According to my camera, there was some amazing food, and I definitely know I was impressed at how well the mixologists and the chefs worked together to produce pairings that actually made sense on the palate. I know now that moonshine is a liquor that is not pure alcohol, and with the legality comes the luxury of triple distilling and a cleaner, safer flavor. While I’m not running out to buy a case right now, I can see that moonshine will probably be a big hit in the public. Not only is it a truly native product, but it embodies a sense of risk and excitement, race cars and deep woods stills, that vodka and similar drinks cannot compete with.

My favorite cocktail of the night was the first, not only because it was the first in a long night and it was incredibly refreshing on a hot July night, but because it showed just how much can be done with moonshine if we give it a chance.

Picnic Cocktail

Picnic

created by James Denio of Boucherie

• 2 oz Midnight Moon Strawberry Moonshine
• 1 oz Amestoi, Getariako Txakolina (semi effervescent white wine)
• 0.2 oz fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice (equal parts, cut with equal amount of water)
• watermelon (small and ripe)

Remove the seeds from the watermelon and puree until liquid. If necessary, add a small amount of fresh lemon and lime to get the watermelon to a near water-like consistency (a small amount of foam is normal). Freeze watermelon juice into an ice try.

Add ice, Midnight Moon Strawberry, lemon and lime juice to a mixing glass. Shake vigorously. Strain into rocks glass. Add white wine. Crush 1-2 watermelon ice cubes with the concave side of a heavy spoon. Add crushed watermelon granita to the drink and serve.

Further reading:

Night Shift Gone Legit By Tim McNally: http://www.myneworleans.com/Blogs/Happy-Hour/August-2012/Night-Shift-Gone-Legit/

Illegal Odyssey: 200 Years of Kentucky Moonshine By Betty Boles Ellison

It’s All Legal Until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians by Jason Sumich: http://anthro.appstate.edu/field-schools/papers/2007/sumich

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Nevada Parker Derting’s Stack Cake

An Appalachian Cake

http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=2383

Jill Sauceman's Stack Cake. Photo by Larry Smith.

Author Joseph Dabney calls it “the most mountain of desserts.” Dried apple stack cake is uniced, often unspiced. Its modest and optional frill is a scalloped edge. Its dominant flavor, Winesaps.

Stack cakes are products of Appalachian home cooking and are rarely found in restaurants. Most folks who lived in and around Hiltons, Virginia, along Clinch Mountain, from the 1920s to the ’70s probably tasted, or at least heard of, Nevada Parker Derting’s version of the age-old, meal-ending confection. She made them for holidays, birthdays, special guests, homecomings, or just at the request of a friend or neighbor with a craving.

“This is my grandmother’s very basic recipe,” says Jill Sauceman. “During the Depression, spices were hard to get in Scott County. Grandma used only those ingredients readily available to her, no cinnamon, no ginger. Her family grew to love the natural flavors of the sorghum and tart dried apples with no additional flavoring, not even a shot of vanilla extract. She’d often call the cake a molasses fruit cake or simply a molasses cake, and she pronounced the word ‘molassee.’”

Nevada Derting picked the Winesaps from her own trees, laid them on a cloth on the porch, and covered them with a wood-framed window screen to block out insects. In her younger days, she’d scatter them across her tin roof. When the apple pieces turned golden brown, she’d store them in sugar sacks stuffed inside lidded glass jugs which were then placed in a pie safe in an unheated room of the house.

With the popularity of home dehydrators, this process is easier today. It’s much better to make the cake with home-dried apples rather than those purchased at the store. The preservatives in the grocery store brands keep the apples white in color, producing a flavor much less rich than the home-dried variety.

Jill remembers watching her grandmother pour flour into a huge bowl and make a trough in the center. With her hands, she’d mix the ingredients, incorporating enough flour to make the dough the right consistency.

When the cake was assembled, always in seven layers, she’d remind the family to let it “season” a few days before it was sliced, to increase the moisture. Most mountain families whose women made these cakes pass down stories about children getting into trouble for cutting into the cake too early.

“I am the only grandchild to carry on the tradition of making the dried apple stack cake,” Jill notes. “And I always include instructions to keep it covered in a cool place and let it season for two or three days. I think Grandma would be proud.”

Ironically, it was the apple that eventually led many members of the Derting family away from the mountains. Their search for Depression-era jobs forced them to traverse the country, and they settled in Washington state, picking apples.

Photo by Larry Smith

Nevada Parker Derting’s Stack Cake

Scott County, Virginia

• 1 pound dried tart apples
• ½ cup sorghum
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• Approximately 4 ½ cups of White Lily flour, plus enough for flouring the board when rolling out each layer

Cover dried apples with water and cook over medium low heat until most of the water is absorbed and the apples break up when stirred.  If apples are not soft enough to break up, add more water and keep cooking.  If desired, add a tablespoon or so of sugar to taste.

Cool and run apples through a sieve or Foley Food Mill to produce a smooth sauce.

Meanwhile combine the remaining ingredients.  Dough should be the consistency of stiff cookie dough.

Separate dough into five to seven balls.  Roll each ball of dough to a 1/8- or ¼-inch thickness.

Cut in 8- or 9-inch rounds. (Nevada Derting used a pie pan with a scalloped edge to cut out rounds.) Prick each layer with a fork, making a nice design.

Sprinkle individual layers with granulated sugar and bake on a greased cookie sheet at 400 degrees until golden brown (about five to eight minutes, depending on thickness). (Mrs. Derting sometimes baked her’s in iron skillets.)

Cool and place the first layer on a cake plate.

Spread a coating of cooked apples over the layer, within half an inch of the edge. Stack the other layers, alternating cake and cooked apples and ending with a cake layer on top. Save the layer with the prettiest design for the top.

Store, covered, in a cool place for several days before serving.

……….

Miners' children playing. U.S. Coal and Coke Company, Gary Mines, Gary, McDowell County, West Virginia; 1946, photographed by Russell Lee; via Wikimedia Commons.

Mountain Mama Mia

When one thinks about the hardscrabble coalfields of southern West Virginia, the first thought that comes to mind is usually not Italian food. Unless one is eating Italian food while reading an article, such as this one, about the hardscrabble coalfields of southern West Virginia.  Because why wouldn’t you? Everyone likes Italian food, and many people enjoy articles about folks who generally have it worse than they do. It’s like a double dose of comfort.

What I’m saying is this…

When West Virginia asserted its independence from Virginia in 1863, mostly because  it was tired of being known as Virginia’s rustic backyard, it remained one of the most homogeneous^[1] states in the Union throughout the rest of the 19th century. While most of Appalachia had been populated by Scot-Irish settlers, various other groups had managed to find their way through the region by the dawn of the 20th century. Germans and Welsh immigrants settled to the north in Pennsylvania , while German-speaking Swiss found their way to Kentucky and Tennessee to the south. But the rough and seemingly useless mountains of the southern part of West Virginia were largely unaffected by outside influence, until the discovery of vast amounts of exceptionally useful coal. This brought the railroads into the hills and hollers to take that coal to the marketplace and thus opened up one of the last places in America where people still had sixteen or so kids just out of sheer boredom.

The problem was that mining and moving large amounts of coal required manpower, which was not abundant in the rough and sparsely populated hills. Everyone who wanted to live there was already there, and they tended to be both self-sufficient and well-armed. And at the turn of the 20th century, most otherwise untethered Americans were heading to the still-somewhat-wild West, to wait patiently for the motion picture industry that everyone was certain would spring up in the wake of Thomas Edison’s invention of the $8 tub of popcorn.

Young people walking on the railroad ties in Fireco, WV (near Beckley). In old coal mining communities, the railroads went through the center of towns. It was the railroads which made it possible to ship out the coal, the reason the towns were built. Fireco declined as the mines gave out. Photograph by Jack Corn, 1974.

The answer, then, was to look abroad. Europe was staggering towards a period of cataclysmic social and economic upheaval that would result in two World Wars and a seemingly endless succession of oddly-mustachioed dictators^[2]. Immigrants from Italy, many already experienced miners, found their way to the Mountain State to escape the disintegrating conditions of their homeland. (Luck for them, they also avoided the future embarrassment of having to ride around on ridiculous little Vespas^[3].)

Most of the influx into the coalfields came from southern provinces in Italy; predominantly Calabria, Campania, and Sicily. Campania is the province from which comes the most familiar red sauce Italian dishes, the ones most Americans associate with Italian food. Southern Italians brought a love of pork and fresh vegetables, which fit in perfectly with the native diet. Despite the initial culture shock, they found more familiar than foreign about their new home. Cornbread is not all that different from polenta. Guanciale and lardo bear more than a passing resemblance to hog jowl and fatback.

Italians and “hillbillies” were, in a sense, made for each other. Both cultures place a high value on family. Rural West Virginians place as much value on the quantity of food as they do the quality; Italians like to feed people until they say “basta.”  And both view food as the currency of emotion. A happy occasion? Calls for a feast! A sad occasion? Better make some food to take over to the house^[4].

Also, both cultures placed a premium on self-reliance. Coal mining, for the man actually doing the work, was not a get-rich-quick scheme. And there were no Walmarts back in the hills in those days^[5]. So both the hillbilly and his Italian co-worker fell back on age-old skills like keeping a garden and raising their own pigs and chickens where they could. Abundant wild game augmented the protein component of the diet. Calabrians had long been practiced at preserving their own foods, and the people of Appalachia had all but perfected canning and salt-curing as means of preservation. When all other things were scarce, a full pantry was looked upon as a mark of prosperity.

Cooking of Polenta on a Fogolar, a traditional fire oven (hearth) in Friuli, Italy. Photo by A. Brisighetti, 1930, via Wikimedia Commons.

As Italian immigrants distinguished themselves in all areas of American culture, beginning with the widespread appeal of Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra in the thirties, the general American attitude towards Italians became more accepting (as it had with the previous influx of Irish immigrants in the 19th century). Soldiers who had fought in Sicily during World War II brought back a love for the local cuisines they’d sampled there, and sought out Italian restaurants. That Neapolitan invention, pizza, which had thus far mostly been confined to ethnic enclaves in the industrial Northeast, began to spread out all over this great land and become as American as apple pie^[6].

My mother grew up in the 40’s and 50’s in a coal camp called Tams, in Raleigh County, West Virginia. The town no longer exists, it was wholly and solely owned by the coal company and disappeared with the local mine played out. The town was somewhat segregated, both by race and ethnicity, but my mother’s scrapbook from her high school years shows that most of her friends’ last names ended in a vowel, even if she called them “eye-talians” her whole life. Her home cooking, and her general philosophy on food, was a unique amalgam of Italian and Appalachian influence. While there was the familiar red sauce component, she also adhered to the shared ideal of making the most out of whatever you had at hand.

This philosophy was in evidence in the cross-cultural improvisation that she developed out of necessity, growing up in a town where the company store would be put to shame by a modern 7-Eleven. The large, juice-heavy locally available tomatoes were no comparison to the dryer, meatier Campanian San Marzanos her neighbors knew from the Old Country. My mother’s spaghetti sauce, ostensibly an approximation of a Bolognese sauce, was nearer in execution to an Italian-seasoned Cincinnati chili. Her lasagna was made with cottage cheese instead of hard-to-find ricotta. I will admit, I still occasionally make it that way just for the warm memory it provides, and to tick off pretentious foodies who refuse to eat even a wafer-thin slice of prosciutto unless provided with notarized documentation and an actual photograph of the acorn-fed hog from Parma that gave his life for it^[7].

Growing up, Mom’s homemade pizza was a Saturday night ritual. Spaghetti and lasagna were favorites in the weeknight dinner rotation, as were meatballs (served, as they should be, by themselves in an approximation of a marinara sauce). My aunt, who grew up in New Mexico, couldn’t understand why the only thing my hillbilly coal miner uncle would order in a restaurant was spaghetti. When I was still small enough to sit in the shopping cart, my mother would take me to the grocery store with her and as soon as we got to the cold cuts, would take a twin pack of Hormel pepperoni and give me a chunk to chew on as we shopped^[8]. I literally cut my teeth on pepperoni, which may go a long way towards explaining my lifelong loves of cured meats and spicy foods, and why I still experience a reflexive Pavlovian response whenever I pass the cold cuts section in my local Kroger. It may also explain why I occasionally like to put on a sleeveless T-shirt and talk like James Caan as Sonny in The Godfather, but it probably doesn’t.

Richard Hughes, miner, and his family eating. Panther Red Ash Coal Corporation, Douglas Mine, Panther, McDowell County, West Virginia. Photo by Russell Lee (NARA record: 2489414), 1946, via Wikimedia Commons.

By the early seventies, which is as far back as I can remember, little touches of Italian influence were outwardly visible in Beckley, by now my mother’s de facto hometown, to those looking for them. Calacino’s continued quietly serving pizza and Italian food as they had since 1934. King Tut Drive-In served a marinara and mozzarella topped pizza burger decades before hamburgers became culinary Mad Libs. The first “store-bought” pizza I ever had, a wonderfully thick and greasy bathmat of a heavily Americanized pie, came from a little joint called Capri Pizza. But there were no “Little Italys” to be found, even in a town that was surely big enough for a decent Columbus Day parade or at least a modest shrine to Dean Martin^[9].  And certainly not in tiny hamlets like Pineville, Matewan, Coalwood or Boomer, the combined populations of which would not be sufficient to account for everyone who got “clipped” during all six seasons of The Sopranos.

The melding of complementary cultures in the southern coalfields of West Virginia may not have produced as visible an imprint on the landscape as it did other places, but the effects continue to resonate through the lives of those who trace their heritage to that region. I feel it every time I cut up raw garlic on my bowl of brown beans, or instinctively scrutinize the gluten structure of a pizza crust to determine whether or not it’s going to be a decent pie. I feel it when I deliberately bypass my hoard of canned San Marzano tomatoes in favor of a can of Del Monte diced tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce Mom’s way.

Perhaps the most lasting product of the influence of Italian culture in West Virginia is the pepperoni roll, which is widely considered to be the state food. Theoretically a variation of the stromboli, it is in its simplest form nothing but pepperoni wrapped in soft, yeasty dough and baked. It represents a confluence of both the Italian appreciation of simplicity and their artistry with bread and cured meats, and the hillbilly’s deep and abiding love of double-barreled loads of grease and carbs. A match made in (almost) Heaven.

……….

You may also like:

Food Festivals Old and New

http://southernfood.org/okra/?p=1539

[2] Don’t forget Franco.

[3] No one looks cool on a scooter. No one.

[4] But for God’s sake, no more potato salad.

[5] Though, oddly enough, there was a Starbucks. And several Subways.

[6] Which is actually British.

[7] His name was Primo. He enjoyed springtime.

[8] This would probably be considered child abuse by today’s standards, but I turned out fine. More or less.

BRENT ROSEN

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Free the Hops

How a small grassroots movement brought craft beer to Alabama

Photo courtesy of FreeTheHops.org

In August 2012, consumers in Alabama will notice something new on the shelves in their grocery and specialty food stores. Starting next month, beer will be available in containers up to 25.4 oz, allowing for the sale of 22 oz and 750 ml bottles of beer. Craft breweries use these large format bottles to showcase seasonal, unique or limited-time offerings. While in most states, purchasing these beers requires nothing more than a trip to the store; in Alabama, an act of the legislature was necessary before these beers became available. This act, known as the Gourmet Bottle Bill, represented the culmination of over seven years of diligent work by Free the Hops.

Free the Hops is a grassroots, non-profit that began in 2004. The founding members of Free the Hops wondered why the craft beers they had seen and enjoyed in other states were unavailable locally, and were surprised to discover that the unavailability of craft beer was the result of antiquated Alabama laws. At that time, a typical grocery store beer department dedicated 90% of its shelf space to the MillerCoorsBudweiser three-headed monster; craft beer of any kind was simply not for sale. Free the Hops started with a simple mission: to bring high-quality craft beers to Alabama. What began as a passion project for a few people in Birmingham ballooned into an organized political interest group with more than 600 members, 89 business sponsors, and thousands of newsletter subscribers and twitter followers (@freethehops).

U.S Prohibition - disposal of alcohol

The story of Free the Hops is bound up with the history of alcohol regulation in America. In January 1919, decades of pressure from progressives and members of the temperance movement resulted in the passage of the 18th Amendment, ushering in the era of prohibition. After remaining sober for 13 years, the people of the United States came to their senses, and prohibition was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

However, the second section of the 21st Amendment provided: “The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.” This section was interpreted to mean that the individual states retained absolute control over the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages. In essence, section two represented a compromise; alcohol would be legal, but subject to regulation at the state and local level. Thus, many states continue to have dry counties, Alcoholic Beverage Control Boards, and restrictions on where and when alcohol can be sold, despite federal law that makes the purchase and consumption of alcohol legal throughout the United States.

Alabama took full advantage of Section 2 of the 21st Amendment and created a number of laws in the 1930′s designed to limit the pernicious influence of alcohol on the state’s hapless residents. Beer drinkers in particular were impacted by laws that limited the alcohol content of beer to less than 6% and the size of beer containers to less than 16 oz. These restrictions were designed to prevent intoxication, as weak beer in small containers would, at least in the eyes of our ancestral legislators, limit people’s ability to get drunk. The effectiveness of these laws, and their logical underpinning, was always questionable, but nevertheless they remained in effect long after other states dropped these sorts of restrictions. The effect of these restrictions was obvious to anyone interested in quality beer – it simply was not available in Alabama.

Craft breweries that wanted to open within Alabama’s borders were further burdened by regulations regarding on-site brew pubs. Breweries in Alabama were forced to choose between selling their beer on the premises of the brewery or through a distributor. There was no “all of the above” choice available. In addition, if the breweries chose to sell their beer on-site, the brewery was required to be located in a historic building, in a county that had been “wet” (meaning alcohol was available for sale) before prohibition, and the location had to include a restaurant that seated at least 80 people. If the brewery chose to go in the other direction, and sell off-premises through distributors, the brewers would be unable to have public tours or tasting rooms at their facilities. This presented a real dilemma for Alabama craft brewers, as choosing either option foreclosed the other and eliminated a major source of revenue that was available to brewers in other states. The end result: as late as 2004, there were no independent craft breweries operating in Alabama.

Terrapin Golden Ale. Photo by Speed-Light on Flickr

Free the Hops started its grassroots lobbying efforts focused on three main goals: to change Alabama law limiting alcohol content of beer to less than 6%, to modify the laws that prevented craft breweries from selling direct to the consumer through brew pubs, and to increase the legal size limit on beer bottles and cans from 16 oz, allowing for large format beers to be sold in the state. From the outset, Free the Hops had no ties to the alcoholic beverage business. Instead, architects, doctors, lawyers, accountants, administrators and tradesmen came together to make Alabama better and more competitive.

When Free the Hops approached the state legislature suggesting updates to the beer laws, the biggest obstacle was the legislator’s lack of education. Initially, the legislature did not understand Free the Hops’ goals. One legislator believed that if the 6% maximum alcohol content was increased, InBev (it is very hard for a native St. Louisan to write that) would flood the Alabama market with 80% alcohol Bud Light, exponentially increasing drunk driving and underage drinking. FTH had to explain that InBev (cringing still) was not about to change the formula of Bud Light to corrupt the people of Alabama. Instead, micro-breweries like Great Divide and Terrapin would be able to enter Alabama and provide more choice for Alabama beer drinkers.

Another argument that Free the Hops routinely heard was that changes in the beer laws would encourage underage drinking. This concern highlights a lack of understanding about what craft beer is and who craft beer is for. As anyone with underage drinking experience can tell you, Milwaukee’s Best, Natural Light and Keystone are normally found at high school and college parties because they are cheap and sold at gas stations and convenience stores by disinterested clerks worried more about getting robbed than in checking ID’s. Free the Hops had to explain that a six-pack of many craft beers cost almost as much as a case of the above mentioned beer, and craft beers are sold mainly in specialty and grocery stores that implement strict age checking policies.

The group hired a dedicated lobbyist who worked in Montgomery during the legislative session. Free the Hops’ lobbyist built relationships and educated the legislators about the impact on Alabama’s economy and on consumer choice that changes in beer regulation would create. The legislature needed to understand that Free the Hops wasn’t about derelicts and drunks enjoying King Cobra, but a dedicated group of professionals that wanted to put Alabama on an equal footing with other states that had embraced the craft beer movement.

The group’s passion for the project turned out to be its greatest asset. Free the Hops was a small army of beer enthusiasts ready to reach their state legislators by phone, email and twitter whenever a Free the Hops sponsored bill was up for a vote. Free the Hops so blanketed the legislature that receptionists at the legislator’s offices started answering the phones by asking “are you with Free the Hops?” any time a Free the Hops sponsored bill was up for a vote. Many legislators have stated that Free the Hops is the best organized and most effective grassroots group in the state, and this tight organization eventually paid dividends.

After four years of lobbying, in May 2009 then Governor Bob Riley signed legislation allowing an increase from 6% to 13.9% alcohol by volume for beer. This legislation allowed a host of new beers to enter the Alabama market, with craft beers from Oregon and Colorado and Georgia, and imports from Britain and Belgium now available state-wide (at least in wet counties. Sorry Cullman). Soon store shelves in Piggly Wiggly’s and Publix’s that had once been 90% MillerCoorsBudweiser were 70% craft beer, and bars throughout the state are now lined with refrigerators full of the best beer available, regardless of alcohol content.

Free the Hops followed this success with a proposed Brewery Modernization Act. This act would cut through the red tape that made it nearly impossible to operate a brewpub in the state of Alabama, creating new opportunities for craft breweries to open and flourish. Before Free the Hops proposed the Brewery Modernization Act, there were exactly zero brewpubs in Alabama. June 2011, Governor Robert Bentley signed the Brewery Modernization Act into law, and within months tap rooms were opened by Good People and Avondale breweries in Birmingham, and by Back Forty Brewing Co. in Gadsden, Alabama, with more tap rooms to come. This legislation was not just good for Alabama beer lovers, but also for Alabama’s economy, as tourists will be encouraged to visit Alabama to try their favorite brews.

Free the Hop’s third goal, increasing beer size from 16 oz to 22 oz, was accomplished in the last legislative session. Prior to this act’s passage, non-keg beer in Alabama could only be sold in 12 oz bottles or in cans up to 16 oz in the major metropolitan areas of Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile. This prevented breweries like Rogue or Chimay from selling their large format options in Alabama, limiting choice for Alabama beer consumers. Free the Hops had proposed the Gourmet Bottle Bill over the last few legislative sessions that would allow for these special large format beers to enter the Alabama market. The bill finally passed the Alabama legislature and was signed into law by Governor Robert Bentley last May. With the passage of that bill, Alabama consumers now enjoy a full range of craft beer in Alabama. Free the Hops had completed all of its major goals.

So what does the future hold for Free the Hops? I spoke with the group’s president, Gabe Harris, shortly after the Gourmet Bottle Bill passed, and he informed me that Free the Hops is not about to shut down. The group’s leadership will meet later this summer to discuss its future agenda, and the Alabama Brewer’s Guild, made up of the 12 Alabama craft breweries and their allies, will work with Free the Hops to determine the next steps for craft beer advocacy in Alabama.
One obvious issue is that tap roomscan be operated in only 11 of Alabama’s 67 counties  even with the passage of the Brewery Modernization Act. An expansion of that list would make it possible for more enterprising beer lovers to open their own breweries in those parts of the state.

Another related issue is home brewing. Currently, home brewing is not legal in Alabama. While Free the Hops has not taken this issue on directly, it has been incredibly supportive of the Alabama Home Brewers Association, which has been working for four years to legalize the hobby of home beer and wine making. Free the Hops realizes that the future of craft beer in Alabama is in home breweries. All brewers begin as home brewers — like kids with a chemistry set that eventually become scientists. Home brewers start small, but their eventual products are the next generation of Alabama craft beers. The criminalization of home brewing keeps people from legally enjoying something of their own creation, something that could eventually become a functioning Alabama business. Perhaps Free the Hops will put its highly effective grassroots organization behind the legalization of home brewing now that it has achieved all of its own major goals.

Regardless of the Free the Hops’ next steps, the lesson of Free the Hops is clear: if something is wrong in your community, you have the power to change it. Free the Hops began as the dream of a handful of people in Alabama. Eight years later, the efforts of that handful of people completely changed the beer landscape of the state. If Free the Hops can change the beer laws in Alabama (of all places), imagine what you could do in your own community.

……….

You may also like:

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JIM CARTER

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Ronnie's Ribs

Recently we tried two of the newest restaurants on the South Carolina Barbeque Association’s 100 Mile list – Cannons and Ronnie’s Ribs.

Cannons, like many of the best South Carolina barbeque restaurants, is out of the way.  You have to know where they are and don’t rely on your GPS to get you there.  Cannons is in Little Mountain, South Carolina, self-proclaimed as the heart of the “Dutch Fork.”  It is small- only a handful of tables in a trailer.  However, they prepare barbeque in the most traditional South Carolina way.  They split their own wood.  They make coals from the wood in a separate vessel (okay, an old barrel).  Then they put the coals under the meat to cook the barbeque and the result is delectable.

I was passing through on Thursday morning just after they opened for the weekend.  The owner’s brother brought out my “to go” BBQ sandwich with slaw (how else to have a South Carolina barbeque sandwich?).  He said, “I’m giving you a fork, because you’re going to need it.”  If you notice the picture below of the typical Cannons sandwich, they didn’t make this for a photograph. And it tastes even better than it looks.

Cannons barbeque sandwich

The next day Melinda and I visited Ronnie’s Ribs in Elgin, South Carolina. The Barbeque Association says Ronnie’s may have the best ribs in the State.  We ordered the “to go” special with ribs, pulled pork and all the sides.  We were impressed, all good.  They are especially proud of their baby-back ribs and sauce.

Ronnie’s brother, Nathaniel Timmons, says only his brother knows what is in the sauce.  I named off the typical ingredients in a South Carolina mustard sauce and he said, “yes, but, it is the proportions that matter”; so true.  They cook the ribs at about 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  They don’t time the cooking process.  Keith Anderson, the pit master, judges when they are finished by touch.

So, to all you magazines that ignore South Carolina mustard sauce style barbeque, get with it.  Come on to South Carolina and write about one of the pillars of the barbeque culture in the United States.  Barbeque is taken seriously here and has been for a very long time.

Cannons BBQ

1903 Nursery Road

Little Mountain, SC 29075

803-945-1080

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cannons-BBQ-More/115793925109341

Ronnie’s Ribs

2435 Main St. Elgin, SC 29045

803-438-8522

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ronnies-ribs/143967912307744

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The air was thick with lamb and twang, cigarette smoke mingled with fog, light from a passing pick-up cut a harsh beam through the incandescense spilling out from doors and windows. Late as usual, dozens mingling already, beer and wine in hand, standing in circles or sitting on the seats and arms of broken old wicker furniture. The Yellow Hammer was no longer open for business, but the Waverly, Alabama restaurant was packed. The evening marked the official kick-off party for the Old 280 (Waverly) Boogie.

The Boogie celebrates tranquility. At one time, State Highway 280 bisected the city of Waverly, a noisy mess of a road connecting Auburn to Birmingham with Lake Martin in between. When the highway department re-routed the road, residents celebrated with a street festival, all 200 or so of them boogeying in the now empty streets. The festival has since become an annual institution: music, food and arts, with Standard Deluxe, Waverly’s tent-pole resident, providing the inspiration and the advertising.

The Friday party gave guests an excuse to get a head-start on the festivities. Rob McDaniel of SpringHouse cooked an entire lamb sourced from Randall Farms outside of Auburn, and our hosts for the evening, the Sims family – Waverly residents and Wickles Pickles owners, provided jars of every variety of their pickled delights for sampling. The Back 40 Beer Company played an equally important role, providing refreshment and liquid dance-floor courage.

Despite its rural location, the Yellowhammer demonstrates the best in urban renewal. The Yellowhammer’s transformation from restaurant to event-space was another in a long line of re-purposings. Originally, the building hosted one of the earliest car dealerships in the state of Alabama. The Yellowhammer wears this ancestry with retractable garage doors, multiple ramps and vaulted ceilings. Since the dealership moved, the building has been a number of things, most recently a nearly secret destination for fine dining. Over the years, the building earned its weathered, sun faded, cracked patina from years of exposure to Alabama’s unpredictable and extreme climate. The spot is classic, beautiful, a relic that feels current.

The Yellowhammer, classic in every sense

That night at the Yellowhammer attendees spanned generations, grandparents, parents and children – eating, drinking, dancing – celebrating together. Sitting in what once served as the main dining room, munching on lamb and butter beans covered in Wickles hot pepper relish, listening to a duo banging out Americana music with an abbreviated drum set and guitar, one realizes the cultural ascendency of Alabama. Pop-up restaurants, local food, folk-infused indie rock, weathered, timeworn buildings: these form the fabric of Alabama, enjoyed without self-importance or an ironic filter.

This is the Alabama emulated across the country, a place where community is valued. This is the Alabama of the Front Porch Revival, but don’t worry. They are willing to share.

In May of 2011, three separate tornado systems crossed the state of Alabama, bringing destruction throughout the State. The Tuscaloosa tornado received the heaviest coverage, especially because of Alabama’s National Championship football team, but communities across the state suffered deeply. Chef Leo Maurelli, then at the Hotel at Auburn University, wanted to help. Chef Leo reached out to his entire network – chefs, brewers, cheesemakers, farmers, producers – to put on an event called Chefs to the Rescue. There were 24 chefs, breweries and wineries that participated, and 100% of the funds raised were donated to the tornado relief effort.

At the close of the event, Chef Leo and the participants looked around and realized an incredible team was assembled. The chefs, the breweries, the winemakers, all came together under one banner, while still representing their own restaurants and businesses. This gave Chef Leo an idea: what if the membership didn’t treat the tornado relief event as a one-off? What if there was a supportive group of like minded chefs, brewers, and producers who could support each other’s initiatives, spread the word about each other’s projects, come together for more events in the future, and overall promote Alabama food and culture?

Chef Leo took his idea to Tasia Malakasis of Fromagerie Belle Chevre and to the Back Forty Beer Co for feedback. The initial concept was to continue their mutually beneficial support, as Chef Leo used Belle Chevre cheeses in his dishes and featured Back Forty beer at beer dinners, but with an eye to further promoting each other with special events. Soon Chef Leo contacted more friends, and eventually Chef Rob McDaniel, Chef David Bancroft, Chef Graham Hage, and the Sims’s from Wickles Pickles joined the effort. During their initial meeting at SpringHouse the group came up with a name: The Front Porch Revival.

The SpringHouse dinner, and the discussion, the drinks and the dreams exchanged, made it evident that the idea behind the Front Porch Revival belonged to none of the members individually. The Front Porch Revival, while made up of unique individuals and businesses, shared a unity of purpose. The members decided to pool their resources and networks, allowing them to promote talented artisans to a wider audience. Their collective strength would be used to highlight Alabama’s food and culture innovators.

When people, both inside and outside of Alabama, think of Alabama food, two names come to mind: Chris Hastings and Frank Stitt. They are the godfathers, originators of Alabama’s food scene. The Front Porch Revival is about what’s next.

The Front Porch Revival during a lull at the Gadsden party

The inaugural event in Gadsden, Alabama demonstrated the value of the Front Porch Revival’s combined network. Gadsden is a medium sized city (by Alabama standards) of about 37,000 in North Alabama. The Back Forty Beer Co. calls Gadsden home, headquartered downtown in an old warehouse fitted with modern brewing equipment. On March 31, 2012, Back Forty turned its building into a carnival of beer, food and music. FPR’s chefs cooked whole hogs, boiled crawfish, inserted fresh Alabama corn into classic Mexican dishes, provided samples of artisanal goat cheese and garnished many of the dishes with selections from Wickles Pickles. None of the members knew what to expect when the festival was announced, and early in the day there was anxiety about the turnout.

There was no reason to worry. The event opened at 1:00 p.m., and all of the 500 or so tickets were gone by 2:30. The brewery was packed, lines forming at each of the food stalls where the chefs explained that almost all of the ingredients for the dishes were grown or raised sustainably in Alabama. When the rain came, as it often does in March, everyone piled inside the taproom and rode out the storm drinking more of Back Forty’s beers in pint glasses, stickers proclaiming the beer “liquid folk art” littering the room. The event successfully showcased the members while also providing a helluva party for the people in Gadsden.

The rain didn't stop the show with bands playing inside the breweries warehouse

The Front Porch Revival brought the spirit of the Gadsden event to Montgomery a few months later for the Alabama All-Star Food Festival. The Food Festival invited chefs and restaurants from around the state to participate, with each participant preparing a small dish for the festival-goers to sample. In all, around 30 chefs and restaurants participated, serving everything from shrimp and grits to ice cream. The participants submitted the ideas for their dishes in advance, allowing the festival organizers to pair the participants with local farmers and producers who provided ingredients for the dishes. Many of the farmers and producers attended the festival, amazed that people were actually interested to hear about their farms and ranches. It was a great way to connect festival-goers with the people who really produce their food.

The All-Star event featured many of the members of the Front Porch Revival. Chef Leo and Chef Hage, of Zazu in Auburn, manned the Front Porch Revival stall, serving a dish of andouille sausage and cole slaw with a corn muffin. Meanwhile, Chef McDaniel and Chef Wesley True, of True and Midtown Kitchen in Mobile, hosted a cooking demonstration where they prepared dishes made entirely of Alabama ingredients. Back Forty was on hand, providing samples of Naked Pig, Kudzu, Truck Stop Honey Brown and Frecklebelly to the thirsty masses.

The rain didn't stop the show with bands playing inside the breweries warehouse

The event successfully raised money for the Hampstead Institute, The Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network, and the Montgomery Area Food Bank. The event also successfully showcased the talents of the Front Porch Revival. The Montgomery Advertiser ran an article about the best eight bites at the event, and, of the eight, the Front Porch Revival was involved with three: Chef McDaniel made a salad with poached Alabama shrimp and vinaigrette dressing, Chef True prepared a desert of roasted tomatoes and strawberries with zucchini cake and balsamic ice cream, and Belle Chevre was also recognized, as a mousse made out of their goat cheese topped a Beet and Lavender Gazpacho prepared by the chefs from Montgomery’s Roux restaurant. Building on the momentum of the All-Star food festival, The Front Porch Revival will be back in Montgomery hosting its own event in late summer.

If the windows are the eyes of the house, and the kitchen is the heart, then the front porch is the house’s Internet connection. The front porch does everything that facebook does: you can connect with friends, exchanges news, publicize events, traffic in memes; but without being filtered through a keyboard and a screen. The front porch offers access to reality, and nothing about sitting in a rocking chair and visiting with your neighbors is virtual. Yet today, even in the South, many people spend most of their outdoors time on their back porches, if they even go outside at all. The back porch provides access only to invited guests, an area closed off to the wider world.

The Front Porch Revival’s name doubles as its mission. Too many food artisans and producers end up in their own little worlds – their back porches – apart from each other, focused on their own businesses, brands and identities. The Front Porch Revival brings the people back out front, making beneficial collaboration possible while allowing the neighbors to see all of the incredible things going on in Alabama’s food and cultural scene. The Front Porch Revival focuses on the future, a future where like-minded people working together can showcase their talents, seek out other talented people to promote, and emphasize the pleasures of eating, drinking, and living in Alabama. A new generation of Alabama chefs, artisans and producers is coming. If you don’t already know who they are, the Front Porch Revival will make certain that one day soon, you will.