The Food of a Younger Land (22 page)

Although this mode of preparing leaf lettuce salad may have been brought from Virginia, it nevertheless is a dish introduced into America by German cooks.

I
n the whiskey Greek section near Wilmington in Eastern North Carolina, what is known as oyster roasts are located in the countryside. These are built similar to road houses except that only oysters and their trimmings are served. The oysters are roasted outdoors on tiers of an iron frame, underneath which is built the wood fire. The oysters are then dished up, taken into the house, placed in a trench-like trough built of plank on either side of the table, with enough space left at the edge of the table for plates. The guests shuck the oysters as they eat them, seated around the table, and toss the shells to the center between the two trenches where they fall out of sight to the ground underneath. The trimmings are: slaw, vinegar, salt, pepper, catsup, lemons, horse-radish.

GERTHA COURIC

W
hen oyster trucks from the coast begin penetrating Alabama’s interior, the residents of Eufaula start plans for one of their favorite winter festivities, the oyster roast. Large or small groups may assemble to take part. Or the roast may be the principal food at a family dinner. Custom, however, dictates the choice of accompanying viands.

Roast oysters are highly appetizing if properly prepared. First, the oysters are placed in a hot oven, where they are allowed to remain until they pop open. Then, a sauce made of melted butter, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper is poured over the whole.

The oysters are eaten from the shell, piping hot, and baked Irish potatoes, Cheese Creole, pickle, hot biscuit and coffee are included in the meal.

The recipe for Cheese Creole follows:

Chop onions, green pepper and celery fine. Add a can of tomatoes, butter, cayenne pepper and salt. Then add grated cheese. When the cheese is melted, add milk and eggs beaten lightly. Cook, stirring, until smooth. Serve on toast, topped with crisp bacon.

LOUISE JONES DUBOSE

T
he oyster roast has been a favorite way of serving oysters since the Indians lived in Georgia. Evidence of this fact lies in the many pieces of broken grill and banks of oyster shells that are found all along the shores and that apparently have been there for many years.

There are many ways of preparing oysters—on the half shell, in a chowder, stewed, and fried. But because of the informality of the occasion, the ease of preparation and the appetizing results there is still no more popular way of cooking the oyster and of entertaining large groups of people than the oyster roast. These al fresco affairs are held during the “R” months when the oysters are plump, plentiful and delicious.

Last year a visitor from a Midwestern state, while in Savannah for a few weeks, was asked if he had ever been to an oyster roast. He replied that he had not but would like very much to go, since he had never heard of one. He wanted to know what they were like and how an oyster was to be roasted.

Next day his host set about making plans with a group of friends for one of these delightful gatherings. The following Wednesday was decided on for the day. Since one of the men owned a place on Wilmington Island, he invited the crowd to have the outing there.

Wednesday dawned clear and cold, an ideal December day for the roast. There was much excitement as the men in overcoats and mufflers started out at ten o’clock. They wanted to be at the island early, so the visitor could watch every step in the preparation of the oysters.

Early that morning, Uncle Ed, an old Negro servant, and his son, Mose, armed with oyster tongs, had gone out on the river in a bateau to get the oysters. This is usually done at low tide when the choice oysters may be seen more easily.

Another son, Silas, had stayed behind to look after preparations for the cooking. Long pieces of sheet metal were stretched on bricks or logs a few feet from the ground, wood was gathered for the fires, and long tables placed about the grounds.

While the men were busy with the oysters, Aunt Jane and fifteen-year-old Sarah had prepared a savory sauce to dip them in as they were eaten. This sauce was made of about one pound of butter, melted, four quarts of tomato catsup, a small bottle of Worcestershire sauce, one cup of lemon juice, some good dashes of Tabasco, and salt and pepper. Bowls of the steaming hot sauce, crackers, pickles of all kinds and plain catsup were placed at intervals on the tables.

When the guests arrived, the visitor was full of wonder, as he thought an oven was necessary to roast anything. He walked over to Uncle Ed and inquired, “Where are the oysters cooked?”

“We just pours ’em out on dat hot tin, kivers ’em up wid wet crocus sacks so as to steam, an in ’bout fifteen minutes you see ’em pop open. Dey’s just right den, an you got to eat ’em right now. Dey ain’t no good cold.”

After a few minutes he saw Aunt Jane and Sarah bent over a big iron pot from which a savory steam was rising. Strolling over, he asked,

“What have you in the big pot, Aunt Jane?”

“Mister, dat sumpn’ you aint never had befo’ an I knows it. Dat gonna be shrimp pilau.”

“How do you make it?”

“Well, I aint got it done yit, but it comin’. I tell you fur as I bin’ an you can stay here an watch de res’ fur yo’sef.

“I cut me up ’bout one pound of good bacon in little pieces on fry dat down to git all de fat. Den I put me in six big onions, four bell peppers, and a little stalk of celery—all done chopped up fine.

“W’en dat git kinda’ brown lak, I dumps in six big cans of tomatoes all mashed up—Dat all in de pot now and it gonna stew down ’bout ten minutes.”

Over on a table nearby were a bag of rice and some raw shrimps which had been picked.

“Is that the way the shrimp look when they are caught, Aunt Jane?”

“No, suh. W’en dey come out de river dey in a shell wid heads, feets, and beards. I pull de head off, and squeeze de body through the shell, cose I washes off de sand and grit too.”

“Do you put in the rice and shrimp at the same time?”

“No, de rice come next, I washes it and washes it fo I puts it in. I gonna use twelve cups of rice, an when dis all cook ’bout fifteen minutes—I just kinda folds in my ten pounds of shrimps, make de fire low as I kin and let ’er cook ’bout one hour. After everything in de pot, I sprinkle in slow ’bout a big han’ full o’ salt, and some pepper—Fo it git good done ef dat aint ’nough, I adds some more. You doan never stir pilau while it cookin’. You must raise ’em up and down wid a long kitchen fork.”

Sarah asked her mother if they were going to have “hoe cake.”

“Chile, you know I’s gonna have hoe cake. I wouldn’t give dese w’ite folks no seafood widout a hoe cake.”

Turning to the man who was watching and listening she said, “Have you ever et a hoe cake?”

“No,” he said dubiously.

“Well I done mix up some corn meal dis mornin’ and set it aside. I mix as much meal as I want wid bilin’ hot water just so I can pat it out. I adds my salt and leave it set a w’ile. Jest fo it time to eat, I puts it on the greased griddle in cakes ’bout half an inch thick and browns both sides. We always has hoe cake wid our seafood and vegetable dinners down here whar we lives.”

The man asked her how in the world it had ever come to be called hoe cake, so she told him, “Well a long time ago befo’ dere was any stoves folks used to bake it on the iron end of a hoe set up before de fire. Dat why it called hoe cake—I didn’t live then but my mammy tole me ’bout it.”

By this time everyone was hungry and the steaming hot oysters were taken up in shovels and poured on the tables ready to be eaten. All had gathered around, each one armed with an oyster knife to open the oysters—and with a fork to take them out. Sometimes when the oysters are hard to pry open with the knife, the shell has to be chipped away. To do this, the handle of the knife or a piece of shell is used. Aunt Jane brought out the pilau and hoe cake in paper plates and cups of steaming hot coffee were plentiful.

The visitor soon found himself lifting the piping hot oysters out of their shells with as much ease as if he had had a lifetime of practice. The plump morsel, dipped in the spicy sauce and swallowed in one juicy mouthful, was a treat, he agreed, for the most jaded appetite. To his astonishment he put away several dozen oysters without even realizing it.

Late in the afternoon when they were ready to return to town, it was agreed that nothing could surpass an oyster roast for good things to eat and genuine fun. Aunt Jane was so elated when complimented on everything she had cooked that she tried to tell the visitor of all the good Southern dishes she could prepare.

“Nex time you come I gonna make you some crab stew and some oyster chowder like only me knows how to make. I also gonna make you some rice spider bread. I makes dis out of flour, rice an’ eggs, an’ cooks it in a spider.”

“What in the world do you mean, Aunt Jane, by cooking it in a spider?”

She laughed and said, “I knowed dat would git you. A spider is a old time skillet but it got straight sides and stan’ on three legs. Dat why it called a spider. De hot ashes could be raked under it so de bread git hot through.”

As the party drove off up the road, all the Negroes stood waving good-bye with one hand while in the other they clutched the pieces of money which the men had given them.

Columbia, S.C.

October 9, 1941

LOUISE JONES DUBOSE

R
eceipts for fish stew are as numerous as the club houses on the Little and Big Pee Dee rivers and all their tributaries combined. In any receipt that might be given there is something found to bring out violent objection, which might develop into a physical dispute. On one thing everyone has agreed and that is, that a person must have fish before he has a fish stew, though somebody said the Pee Dee fish stew is so hot that, if you have no fish, you might use pine bark and nobody could tell the difference. Certain fish stews are sometimes called pine bark stews but the origin of the name is lost in folklore.

A Pee Dee fish supper has a very particular place in South Carolina gustatory annals. A guest invited to a fish stew will find three huge iron pots over bright coal beds of hard wood embers. One pot will be full of black coffee, another of rice cooked dry so that each grain can stand separate, the third pot will contain the fish stew. Only an hour or two previous the supper was begun. The rice takes much longer to cook than the stew, so it was well on its way before the latter was started. The rice was dumped into its big iron pot, covered about one and one-half inches in cold salted water, and allowed to steam until it became dry over the slowly burning fire.

Cooking a fish stew requires art that is to be learned only by experience. “Taste as you go” is the watch word, and before it is all done it must be hot enough so you can “hiccough and cry at the same time.” Assuming that the blue or channel catfish have been caught and dressed, you will take about one pound of fat-back or salt pork to three pounds of fish, render the fat-back, or fry the grease out, and remove the meat. Into the boiling grease pour chopped up onions, about one and one-half large Spanish onions to each pound of fish. After the onions are brown, stuff each fish with them, put the fish into the large iron pot, fill in spaces between fish with additional onions and if any grease remains pour this over them with the bits of pork, then barely cover with water. This mixture should cook about ten minutes until the fish begins to come to pieces. Then with salt, tomato catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco or red pepper begin to season to suit your taste and in order to preserve your reputation as an artist with fish stew. Proportions of these last condiments are individual matters and you must always remember the secret of success is to “taste as you go.”

Sometimes there might be cornbread, though if the gathering approaches the hundreds in attendance there will be lightbread from a bakery. Corndodgers on the Pee Dee become redhorse bread in some other sections. To make the latter, small pieces of raw onions are cut into thin cornbread batter, with flour added by some cooks, and dropped a spoonful at a time in boiling fat. The results are small, brown, crisp corncakes. For the less enthusiastic guests, the cornbread is cooked without onions. Sometimes pickles are served but the old timer looks askance at such additions. The flavor of the fish stew is good enough for him.

President Taft in 1909 was guest of honor at a Pee Dee fish stew in Florence, South Carolina, and he pronounced it good.

T
here are marble palaces up above, they say, for the good Negro who dies, but in Mississippi such birthrights could be bought at a premium with a good fish fry and nothing sought in exchange. There is always a cook working for one of the contractors on the levee whose ability to cook catfish compensates for whatever other shortcomings she may have.

If she is justly famous up and down the river for her fish fries she can supplement her cook-wages by pitching frequent Saturday night fish suppers, as they are elegantly termed along the levee. Connection with an outside bootlegger makes the venture even more profitable and if she can get in on the all-night dice game she does right well.