Published September 9, 2010
By Frank McMains

I have seen them come and go through the years like a Pyrex parade. Always the same clear glass pan, always cooling on the counter, then topped with foil and delivered by my mother to a house where death or illness has been a recent visitor. They are the traditional token of Southern concern, the casserole.

The contents frequently varied but one permutation on the condolence casserole became so ubiquitous that a cousin dubbed it Funerary Broccoli. When word of some tragedy reached our home my mother started cooking, and a week or two after the dish was delivered the empty container would return, anonymous among the house wares except for an oven crinkled piece of masking tape on its bottom that bore out last name. These are the little stitches that make up the fabric of friendship, and though they are themselves a symbol of tragedy I have to admit that more than once I looked forward to the feast that would follow the passing of distant relative.

It was no surprise then that after a recent surgery on my mother’s knee that our refrigerator rapidly filled with sympathy casseroles. Seafood stuffed eggplant, roasted vegetable soup, lime chicken, spinach madeline, now mostly presented in disposable plastic, but food for the sickly nonetheless.

My mother, hobbled by surgery, took her meals on the couch. My father or I would load down a tray with recently delivered food and deposit it in front of her. The process began to feel like feeding animals at the zoo, if the animals read New York Times bestseller fiction and watched Ellen. Humans seem to delight in role reversal and my dad and I are no exception. Of course, we wanted to repay my mom for some small portion of the meals she had lovingly prepared for us over the years, but I think the novelty of the process (and the lipid heavy casseroles) was what we really enjoyed.

At this point you may be wondering about the point of this blog post. Food as love is a rather over worked metaphor but there is no denying that cooking is an act of affection. High in the ranking of food as currency for caring is the casserole and, in the word of Anthony Curtis, a boy’s best friend is his mother. These points should all be relatively plain. But what struck me in thinking back over all these years of culinary exchanges is the vessel itself, the clear Pyrex dish. It is appropriate for celebrations and for mourning. Few other items work so well in such contrasting scenarios.

A person would not wear a black suit to an Easter Egg Hunt or pastels to a funeral but the casserole works well at any occasion. Perhaps plain glass is universally appropriate because of its anonymity, but it may be something more. A visitor bearing a warm pan of eggplant parmesan is always a welcomed sight because the food contained therein is tangible evidence that you are cared for.  Be it Christmas or a funeral, au gratin potatoes or pork chops with rice, the casserole is proof that some apron clad person out there is looking out for you at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until bubbling around the edges.

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Published August 18, 2010
By Frank McMains

Saving seasonal excess for leaner times has been an issue for people ever since the invention of pottery. Early people dried grain and stored it in crude pots, easing somewhat the feast and famine cycle of humanity’s budding agriculturalists. Later, canning and tinning solved the problem of spoilage and also how to transport abundant foodstuffs from their source to a hungry market. While putting up stewed tomatoes or pickled okra is a fine solution, when it comes to preserving aromatic vegetables, your best friend may be your freezer.

More than once I have balked at a sweet red pepper, priced at around $3 and coaxed to life in a western hothouse or flown in from Ecuador. Eating out of season carries financial as well as ethical burdens. Three dollars is no huge sum but it does seem lavish for a bell pepper. When you total up all of the transportation and growing costs associated with getting that pepper to you then a mid-winter dose of Capsicum annuum seems shamefully indulgent. All of this foodie hand wringing is just a long way of suggesting that there is a better solution.

In the heat of the southern summer most farmers are producing more peppers than they can ever hope to sell. This excess supply turns that cold weather luxury into a warm weather commodity. Quart containers of mixed, sweet peppers were selling at last weeks farmer’s market for around three bucks. When nature puts on a sale then buy low and eat in high style all winter. Many dishes call for an aromatic vegetable mélange as their base. The French call it mirepoix, down here it is known as the trinity, and in Latin American cooking it is called sofrito. Whatever the name or ingredients, this mix of potent vegetables is the heart of many soups, meat braises, sauces and bean dishes.

As much as I may be devoted to southern cooking I have never found celery to be an exciting ingredient, and I regard green bell peppers as poor relations to their sweeter cousins. So, when I am cooking or trying to put up vegetables for later use my base mixture tends to look a bit more like a sofrito than the hallowed trinity. Aside from a generous heap of ingredients, making a large batch of chopped aromatics is hastened by two things: a food processor and a few willing collaborators. I recently produced about 20 cups of the stuff after dragooning a few family members into service on a hot afternoon.

This sofrito recipe is a product of taste and convenience. I chose ingredients by their availability and my own preferences but the idea is flexible depending on your own whim. It also scales nicely should you prefer to store away more or less sofrito (or trinity or mirepoix) and should keep nicely in sturdy pint plastic bags for the entire winter. SOFRITO RECIPE...

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Published August 5, 2010
By Frank McMains

I live in an old house. It was built around 1895, well before central air or even wide spread use of electric devices like the ceiling fan. I wither at the thought of how hot it must have been during those early summers in my house. But, when the mercury is pushing 100 degrees outside even a modern air-conditioning system struggles to keep up with the outside temperature. For someone who likes to cook (and thus generate a lot of heat in the kitchen) this really cramps my culinary style. Any use of the stovetop, or more cataclysmically, the oven, is likely to render my house almost uninhabitable.

The only real remedy is cooking without really cooking and by that I mean preparing largely raw meals or using ingredients, like canned beans, where the heat generation is done somewhere else. One could always grill in this weather but the idea of standing over an open fire only to retreat inside and pant in the barely breathable 83 degree air of my dining room holds little appeal.

One of the advantages of preparing cold salads and ceviche and soups like gazpacho or Vichyssoise is that they themselves are cooling. Another is that, without as much heat, many of the delicate flavors of the ingredients are preserved. Most cold meals will require some heat, at some stage, but if we focus on dishes that are themselves cool then we can save ourselves a lot of sweating and also uncover some pretty dynamic tastes.

Here are a two low-cooking recipes that serve up beautifully cold. Trapped in a Victorian hothouse, these sorts of meals are a welcome antidote to the sweltering temperatures outdoors. Think of it as the difference between ketchup and salsa, two condiments made up of largely the same ingredients but one is cooked and the other is raw. The result could not be more different. When the heat is really pouring in outdoors then there is no better time to turn off the burner and experiment with fresh, cold and raw ingredients.

Speckled Trout Ceviche

Black Bean and Corn Salad with Hot and Sweet Chiles

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Published July 29, 2010
By Frank McMains

In what may well be the ultimate culinary story of one man’s trash being another’s treasure we have Ustilago maydis. On a menu in Mexico you can see it presented as Huitlacoche Crepes with Squash Blossom Sauce or in other elegant preparations—but to the United States Department of Agriculture it will always be corn smut. Ustilago maydis is a fungus that infects corn kernels; they swell and blacken as spores grow within the grain. In this country we regard the fungus as a blight on a valuable cereal crop but in Latin America it is a delicacy.

My aunt recalls her first introduction to huitlacoche at an upscale dinner party in Mexico City. She sipped a creamy bisque made with the corn smut, amazed at its flavor and subtlety she asked her hostess what she was eating. The hostess, something of a doyenne of Mexico City social circles, replied in a silky, pan-linguistic accent texturally equal to the rarified soup, that it was “a disease of the corn” and then went back to ladling the stuff into her mouth.

Huitlacoche is a disease of the corn, but that does it about as much justice as calling it smut. Some internet sources claim that there has been an effort to rebrand huitlacoche for the American market as a Mexican Truffle but you are more likely to see it show up a television show known for making contestants eat live grubs. To be fair, the canned version of huitlacoche is not attractive stuff and, like most canned foods, inferior to the fresh article. Herein lies the root (or perhaps the spore) of the problem. Locating fresh huitlacoche is not easy. A recent trip to one of our larger Latin food markets turned up no huitlacoche, but they did have fresh epoazote and pork belly, and it was also absent from the Saturday Farmer’s Market.

So, it may be some time before local home chefs are able to incorporate this earthy and delicious ingredient into their larder. The lesson here is that if a lot of people eat something then it is probably pretty good. Before anyone asks, no, I still have not tried pickled quail’s eggs. But, I’m going to get around to it, just as soon as I see someone serving them with Squash Blossom Sauce.

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Published July 13, 2010.

I don’t know where we went wrong or if saying we went wrong is even fair. But, somewhere along the way American food diverged from food pretty much everywhere else in the world. Some scholars think it was because of the industries created to feed the massive armies of GIs fighting in World War Two. Michael Pollan, the now much over quoted Jeremiah of modern eating, seems to indicate that the massive amounts of nitrogen, once used to make bombs and gun powder, had to be put to some use. It found new facility fertilizing the semi-arable lands of the American hinterlands.

The mid-west, spritzed with surplus war material, became the breadbasket of the United States. We drained the Colorado River to make California habitable and supply us with year round asparagus. And taken as a whole, these are largely good things. Our nation grew into the most powerful the world had known; our standard of living, even for a modest family, would have made a Roman emperor blush and all seemed well with the Pax Americana.

The problem was, our food was rotten. Not literally decaying but just bad, barely worthy of the name. Nothing makes this contrast more obvious than some time spent in Mexico. You know those goose egg sized green orbs laying amongst the Astroturf in the vegetable aisle and calling themselves limes. Well, they aren’t. They are some product engineered for color and size, because they sure as hell don’t taste like much. It should also be pointed out that they have somehow been neutered; their seeds unformed, someone decided that Americans could not handle seeds in their limes. This is just one widely acknowledged example of how we gave up all that is important about food, save a full compliment of vitamins and amino acids, for appearance in the grocery store.

Enough bashing of our food ways, I have not come to bury American eating but to praise it. Farmer’s Markets and backyard gardeners have been preserving what are now rather preciously referred to as “heirloom” varieties the whole time we were eating flavorless pulp. Delicious varieties of pears, apple, grapes (which also have seeds, by the way) tomatoes, cherries and all the rest of the occupants of the horn of plenty are available if we just start demanding them. And this does not come at some great expense. Modern American agriculture (if it stops growing so much damn corn) could feed us all with seasonal and flavorful produce.

Swallow hard now, these items will not be blemishless. Your nectarine may have a soft spot, your apple somewhat wrinkled, your carrot something other than radioactive orange. But, by all that is holy and special in this world they will taste much, much better.

So do it, lead the charge, eat in season and eat things that didn’t need a plane ticket to get to you. If eating in Mexico proves anything, it is that food can be wonderful if people care enough to demand that it be so. There is nothing particularly efficient about their transportation system down here. There are no economies of scale when it comes to growing local strains of avocado. They just asked for it and they got it, this is the market (and by that I mean the free market) at work. For our part, we have let the Invisible Hand spoon-feed us flavorless junk that no one but a corporate actuary or plant geneticist could care for, and it is high time we slapped that hand away and started eating real food. Trust me on this one, you'll taste the difference.

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The considerable delights of dining in San Miguel de Allende
Published June 29, 2010

Our neighbor to the south is all too often painted with a brush of smooth-melting yellow cheese and bottomless chips and salsa. Most Mexican restaurants in the United States serve a style known as Tex-Mex, really just shorthand for “with tortillas.” Mexican food is itself highly regional and thus hard to categorize. What can be said as a rule, is that Mexican food leans heavily on corn and beans (themselves almost nutritionally perfect in combination), fresh produce like squash, avocado and lime, and robust cuts of meat.

It has been twelve years since I visited the town of San Miguel de Allende in the central Mexican highlands. The core of the city is a colonial-era administrative square with fountains and churches and well-tended shade trees. The town I remember was full of wonderful food. Upon sitting down at any restaurant you were greeted with a basket of warm bolillos—a sort of crusty dinner roll—fresh herb butter and house-made salsa. Each meal stretched out with a sort of devil-may-care deliberateness.

San Miguel may be where I first fell irredeemably in love with food. In the years since, each time I have had the chance to visit a Latin American market, the wonder I first felt when confronted with all that produce and meat and haggling comes rushing back. Most of us now agree that the fresher the food the better. In these market stalls of beans, zucchini, chickens, butchered pigs and fresh cheeses, the word "fresh" seems woefully inadequate. It may be reductive to say it but, simply, I love eating down here. I love the smell of corncob-fired braziers heating oil to fry tortillas. The musky sizzle of carnitas lowered into bubbling fat, the street vendors with their boiled corn served with mayonnaise, lime and chili. Everything about the food of Mexico draws me to it.

In the decade or so since I last set foot in this mountain town, this former stop on the royal silver road named for a hero of the Mexican Revolution, my tastes and demands about food have changed a great deal. Coming back to all of this molé and salsa verde feels a bit like coming back to my alma mater. I look forward to eating and photographing and writing about what I experience down here. I will be sharing some of that here on Country Roads. If you are not already a student of the cuisine of Mexico then what is to follow may make you want to enroll.

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Published June 15, 2010.

I did pity the callers and listeners to the May 28th edition of NPR’s "On Point." Voices came in from Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They were all opining about the perfect tomato. It is an indisputable fact of both culinaria and climatology that the northern latitudes, while well suited to things like the production of maple syrup and cider pears, are hopeless when it comes to tomatoes. I am sure that certain mutated varieties of the tomato may strain out a passable fruit somewhere between Brattleboro and Boston. However, the dense-fleshed, seeping, lascivious, perfumed, crimson heart of summer that is the Creole tomato cannot thrive in anything less than the furnace-like conditions of the Deep South. This is not said triumphantly, merely as unfortunate fact (for them).

Oh that the vine-ripened, backyard tomato, later rested on newsprint laid out on the counter, could be shared or exported. The truth is that they don’t travel well and are best enjoyed when still radiating back some of the heat of our sub-tropical sun. And this is the essence of the perfect tomato. It is bottled lightning. It is a fist-sized supernova. It is a miraculous concentration of unrelenting sunlight. It is pure energy transformed into a sugary, aromatic, bafflingly complex yet sublimely understated globe of fleeting perfection. It is summer.

A member of the nightshade family, the tomato is a native of the sun-drenched and arid coast of western Peru. As with so many New World vegetables like the potato, chili pepper and most beans, the massive genetic diversity of the original, wild phenotypes make the tomato highly adaptable. Given some time and some planning they can be made to grow almost anywhere (including New England). For the tomato to really thrive they need sun, the more the better. Their jagged green leaves riot in the light, photosynthesis transforming a mealy, taut, green bulb of a fruit into the pendulous, scarlet bomb.

Happy, well-tended tomato plants are great producers. From this abundance has sprung up a long tradition of canning, juicing and other means of putting up tomatoes for future use. A jar of summer tomatoes opened on some brisk November afternoon is like unpacking seasons past. The metal on glass hiss as the ring comes off of the top of the jar and then the pop as the seal is pried free is a portrait painted in a sauce pan of hot days and sprinklers and the loam of a fussed over patch of tomato plants. By all means, put up your extra tomatoes. But while they are here and while they are fresh, eat them raw and eat them with everything.

Some recommended preparations:

I like a simple tomato sandwich. Thick slices of tomato on a sturdy white bread (although certain multigrains are also nice) with a generous slathering of mayonnaise (homemade preferred) and a touch of salt and freshly ground pepper is all you need. When the fruit is this good you don’t want anything to get in the way.  Another favorite preparation is a cross between a grilled cheese and the classic Italian Caprese Salad. If you have fresh tomatoes in the yard then you really should have basil out there as well. Grab some nice, big basil leaves and some easy melting white cheese like mozzarella (although I prefer Oaxaca cheese, if you can find it) and layer them, with a little salt and pepper, on the best crusty bread you can put your hands on.  The pain bordelaise from Forte Grove and available at the Farmer’s Market is prefect for this. Brush the outside of the bread with some good olive oil then slide it into the panini press or toast in a skillet just like a regular grilled cheese. When the cheese melts then you are done; you don’t want to wilt the basil too much or, heaven forbid, cook the tomatoes. Or, you could just eat them over the sink.

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Published June 8, 2010.

There is not much for a food writer to add to the growing mass of commentary on the Gulf Oil Spill. We all are increasingly aware of the profound effect it will have on our lives and the places that we love. Because the oil is creeping into the bountiful estuaries of the Gulf south it is now plain that much of the food that has defined Louisiana is now in existential danger. Who can say what the long-term effects on seafood and those who make a living harvesting it will be? But we all know that the situation is going to get very bad before the fertile cycle of nature reestablishes itself in the marsh. This sad awareness hangs over us all. 

A little better than a week after the Deep Water Horizon burned and sank into the water I drove down to Venice to take pictures, trying to bear some sort of witness to an event the scope of which most of us where yet to fully understand. Early reports indicated that the reek of oil had socked in everything south of New Orleans. Instead it was the familiar spring smell of ligustrums and further down the road salty brine that poured in through my open windows. Things did not seem like they could get that bad. The anxiety on the faces of the shrimpers and oystermen would soon change my mind about that.

I ate raw oysters on the raised deck of the Cypress Cove Marina as oil control boats strained against their moorings ropes in a stiff southerly wind. That wind was carrying the oil in toward the fishing grounds; the wind also carried the feeling that these might be the last Louisiana oysters I ate for a very long time. Tide and current has proven that feeling wrong, but only just. Much of the water near the mouth of the Mississippi has now been closed to fishing, but areas to the west are still open and clear. A woman selling shrimp at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market this weekend was quick to point that out. I had bought shrimp from her many times before. I never considered that she might be selling tainted food. Still, she seemed to need to reassure her patrons that these enormous, beautiful examples of the ocean's fertility were safe to eat.

At home, standing over my sink, peeling and cleaning the shrimp I was again struck by an ominous feeling that is an unhappy companion to cooking. The food we eat is often processed and packaged in a manner that makes it hard to imagine the steps and procedures that plucked it from nature and deposited it in our kitchens. When you buy your dinner, still as whole as it was when a net scooped it from the sea, and change money with the wife of the man who caught it, and you hear her pained reassurances, then all that abstract talk of annual catches and economic impact dissolves. You realize very deeply that something horrible has happened and that something very special is in real danger of being lost.

If it is possible to separate my desire to have a few memorable and superior meals before all of this bounty is lost then I think I can still honestly say that these were the best shrimp I have ever eaten. They were large pink monsters, around ten to the pound. Many of them were as big as my hand. They were true specimens.  It seems almost petty to launch into recipes and chipper superlatives about the meal that followed. So, I’ll just say that we would all be wise to enjoy them while we can. We would all do the whole fragile web of sea grass and tidal flats a closing honor by remembering the fine rewards the sea has given us. And we would all do well to hand over a few of our dollars to the kind and decent people who have made their lives in our marsh and in the process made living in south Louisiana such a special privilege.

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Published May 27, 2010.

I unwrapped the shiny foil from around my tacos al pastor and left them on the table while I went upstairs to send an email. I should know better. On the occasions that I find myself grabbing takeout I often end up stopping by my parents house to eat it. So frequently I only get to enjoy half of my lunch. Walking back to the table I passed my mother. She had hardly finished chewing before she said, “Those tacos are great, where did you get them?” One taco down, I was in no mood to share my information. But, I am prepared to let the secret out in this more deserving forum.

El Paste Dorado is one of those run-down and retasked buildings that had a former life as a drive-through or convenience store on Florida Boulevard. It is a tiny combination bakery, restaurant and grocery store. It is scrappy. It serves great Mexican food.

In recent years we have seen many tienditas and carnicerias pop up around Baton Rouge, but they have been concentrated on the south side of town. El Paste Dorado, named for a particular baked good from the owner’s hometown of Dorado, is a welcome addition to the central Baton Rouge roster of specialty eateries. In addition to their candy apple red tacos al pastor which sell for less than $2 apiece, they serve a great breakfast. Of note are their chilaquiles—a tomatillo-drizzled mound of warm corn tortillas with fried eggs, queso fresco and Central American-style sour cream. There are few better ways to start a day, or end a long and rigorous night, for that matter.

Inexpensive labor and cheap imports may be the most regularly trumpeted boons of globalization but I’ll take the tacos any day. Baton Rouge does not lack for tidy chain restaurants or well-tended local dining destinations. Places like El Paste Dorado are of a different sort. They are not trying to impress anyone, they are just trying to serve good and inexpensive food that reminds people of home. Stop in any morning and watch the Salvadoran roofing crews passing through to get lunch to go or drop by on a Saturday and take in a Guatemalan soccer game with some true fans. I love white table cloth spots and creative meals bristling with locally grown ingredients, but this is the sort of spot that reminds an eater of what food is all about. Our increasingly diverse dining landscape is filled with treats to be relished. Break out of your rut and have lunch at El Paste Dorado, but you might want to brush up on your Spanish, and consider grabbing a double order. Momma doesn’t like it when you show up empty handed.

El Paste Dorado
6166 Florida Boulevard
(225) 922-9485

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Published May 7th, 2010. 

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Thoroughgoing foodies have been wiping their collective mouths over one of the hot new trends in American eating, the food truck. Baton Rouge is often a few years behind the curve when it comes to embracing culinary innovation. However, many an envious palate have followed the likes of LA’s Kogi Korean BBQ Tacos or the Sprinkle Cupcake Van. Austin and New Orleans have food trucks, but until recently, most food in Red Stick has been of the sedentary variety.

How many new places have to open to indicate a local food trend? After its second week in business the Latte e Meile gelato truck could be seen as a 100% growth in the tiny Baton Rouge mobile food market. The bright red Ninja Snowball wagon beat them to it. They have been peddling sweet, shaved ice on corners around LSU and downtown for about a year. Jared Loftus of Ninja Snowballs says he and a few other savvy investors have a taco truck in the works.  We may be just a few four-wheeled kitchens away from a legitimate food revolution.

These are not the steaming aluminum commissaries of old. For some, the idea of a food truck brings to mind a cup of burnt coffee and a plastic wrapped tuna sandwich sold outside of some Rust Belt muffler factory. Modern food trucks are an entirely different creature. Freed from the fixed costs of a traditional restaurant, food trucks are often able to offer their fare at lower prices. The small size of the trucks imposes limitations on the number of dishes they can offer. In other cities this has not proven to be a detriment but instead has prompted fanciful fusion like the above mentioned Kogi. 

Something about the food truck excites owners and patrons alike. They bring out our youthful excitement for the ice cream man and then reward us with creative and delicious snacks. While many businesses have recognized the importance of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, food trucks have artfully utilized them almost from the beginning.

What better way to know where to pick up your next cup of Ponchatoula Sorbet than to check out the LeMGelato Twitter feed from Latte e Miele? A mobile restaurant with an ever-changing menu needs a way to quickly communicate their location and specials to their fans. Twitter in particular has proven to be the perfect match for these roving purveyors. Whenever a new tweet goes up from one of our two food trucks, the scratchy Mancini style jingle that signaled an approaching King Cone or Push Up plays through my head and I begin fumbling for change as I head for the door.

We in Baton Rouge may often find ourselves a few steps behind some innovations but mobility, the Internet and enthusiastic entrepreneurs are doing their best to close some of those gaps.  It does not hurt that as we move into another hot, southern summer, they are doing it with Technicolor snowballs and ice cream. The future never tasted so good.

Follow Ninja Snowballs on Twitter at NinjaSnowballs.

Follow the Latte e Miele Gelato Truck at LeMGelato.

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Published April 29, 2010.

My brother recently returned from a meeting of the American Society of Religious Scholars. He reported the both sad and charming site of a gaggle of swooning PhD students surrounding the owlish, ex-Servite monk, John Dominic Crossan as he made his way to the lectern to hold forth on the subject of 1^st century Assyrian papyrus manufacture or something equally arcane. One imagines Crossan could sweep through the will-call line of a performance by the cast of Jersey Shore without causing a single, tanned brow to be raised.  

Food writing may have a larger audience than early biblical studies but both are dwarfed by more popular subjects in the public consciousness. Perhaps it is our tenuous place in the market of ideas that makes us, the faithful remnant, cling so tightly to our stars. It is the loving dedication and unglamorous slog that makes attention to our little private passions so intense.

Sitting in the lecture room at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, surrounded by a self-selected population of culinary devotees, it is clear that the line between the aficionado and the true oddball is more muddled than a top-shelf Highball. This personal reflection washed over me as I realized I was two minutes into a high-minded diatribe on the New Mexican Green Hatch Chile. The star we were all there to hear, John T. Edge, looked at me with a mixture of pity and boredom, nodded as I wrapped up my incoherent spiel and, to the relief of all present, moved on to the next question. We say such dumb things in the presence of people we admire.

John T. was there to celebrate the publication of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s 5^th edition of Cornbread Nation and to promote the release of the Oxford American’s second food issue which he had guest edited. The OA food issue contains some the finest, most insightful and funny food writing you are likely to see this year. If there is a modern inheritor of the tradition begun by M.K. Fisher then you will find them somewhere within Cornbread Nation and the OA food issue. 

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum, located in the River Walk and impishly abbreviated as SoFAB, is a food geek paradise. Exhibits cover Louisiana’s hot sauces, the Spanish origins of Tasso, snow cones and a passel of other edible obscurities. In addition to their continuously displayed content SoFAB organizes almost weekly events for those given over to a slightly deeper than normal interest in grits or, say, the chilies of the southwest. Variations of the crab cake with cooking demonstration and tasting, the recently developed fragrant, hybrid rice called Jazzman, bitters and its use in southern cocktails: these are the sort of subjects SoFAB lays before the congregation of the hungry. 

We who love food-eating it, cooking it, writing about it, reading about it, dreaming deeply about it, also love our celebrities. On a good weekend food lovers of all sorts can sate themselves at SoFAB. On top of the levee, between the wide river and the humid city, there is a prime spot for enthusiasts of the tasty, local and authentic. However, if you happen to run into a luminary of the field, someone on whom you would like to make a good impression, then be sure not to say anything too stupid.

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Published April 22, 2010. 

Fans of locally grown produce can get a little testy as the winter drags on. If you try to buy most of your vegetables at roadside stands or our excellent Red Stick Farmer’s Market then the whole world may start to look a little like a cabbage even as the trees are budding out in early April. Happily, spring is here and with it come a variety of seasonal treats. The strawberries have been much fawned over and some growers even have red and yellow bell peppers but for the next few weeks my seasonally obsessed palate is focused on asparagus. Buddy Miller’s farm in Waterproof is so productive right now that at last Saturday’s market his cherubic face was barely visible behind a mountain of thin, delicate and soft asparagus.

If you are already a believer in the virtues of local produce then these vegetables need little boosterism. However, if you are still unsure as to what all this foodie effusion over being a ‘locavore’ is all about then fresh asparagus just might enlighten you. Even if you don’t have much interest in the environmental side of eating local (reducing fuel consumption or supporting local agriculture, for instance) then the quality of freshly picked produce should more than quiet any doubts. The further food has to travel then the earlier it has to be picked. So, if your asparagus just needs take a trip down Highway 65 as opposed to a flight in from Lima, Peru then it can be harvested and sold at its peak. If you doubt that there is a difference then try a little of our locally grown asparagus, lightly grilled and dressed with a quick Hollandaise. Or, whip up a soup with some Louisiana lump crabmeat. A few recipes follow.

Winter’s cabbage doldrums may try even the most devoted farmer’s market fan, but eating seasonally available produce is its own reward. As the earth plods along on its annual trip around the Sun we are treated to a changing bounty of fresh vegetables. Soon the peppers will appear by the bushel, sweet corn and peas will tumble like an avalanche off of the farmer’s tables. Basil, tomatoes, peaches and squash will be there too but for these few weeks in early spring our winter long patience is rewarded with asparagus. If only we could use it in dessert.

Grilled Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce Recipe

Creamy Asparagus and Crab Soup Recipe

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Published April 12, 2010. 

They have been menacing me from the counter top for several weeks now. Unmoving, fixed orbs in an acidy brine, how many times I have thought of opening the jar and instead just had some crackers. These pint jars of pickled quail eggs have checked my normally boundless enthusiasm for southern foodstuffs.  They have stopped my culinary curiosity cold.

Like a child standing on the edge of the high dive I have tried to talk myself into eating them. I like eggs. I like pickles. So, I should love the two in combination. Many of my thoroughgoing foodie friends like them. What is there to be afraid of? Everybody is doing it. And yet, I have made it a good way into life without eating a pickled egg.
 
Maybe it is the memory of a murky gallon of pickled chicken eggs wedged between the payphone and revolver strapped cash register at Tabby’s Blues Box that gives me pause.  The presence of serve-yourself pickled anything is not usually the hallmark of fine dining. I have even tucked into a bowl of congee and hundred year eggs (supposedly cured with horse urine) in Beijing, but some unconquerable reticence keeps me from eating the eggs.
 
High acid solutions like vinegar prevent the growth of bacteria, thus the longevity of the gerkin and bread and butter dill. And when an acidic liquid is combined with protein a process called denaturing occurs making such delights as ceviche possible.  I know the basic food science of the pickled egg, but they still seem pretty unappealing.
 
Like cracklins or smoked sausage, pickled quails eggs are made by a profusion of local operators.  Jars upon jars of the things line the shelf above the meat cooler at the Best Stop in Scott. I have jars of them made in Columbia, Louisiana and from some place called Windy Hill Farms (perhaps not the most fortuitous name given pickled egg’s reputation for causing stomach upset).  They are all certified Louisiana products, the stamp is right there on the label, and they are all unopened.
 
When the Country Roads staff and I first discussed starting this food blog I even suggested that I could write about my first experience with pickled quail eggs. I have eaten the stuffed pig’s stomach the Cajuns call ponce, stir fried brains, jowls and other odd bits because I wanted to try them. Why now, when being paid for the privilege, do I balk at a little pickled egg?
 
It is a gloomy day in the career of a food writer when you realize that you have come face to face with the abyss and opted for turkey on wheat. There it is, pickled eggs are a bridge too far. It is important to know your limitations in this life and I guess I have discovered mine. Still, I may try them one day, but until then we will exist uncomfortably together, the eggs in my kitchen and I. With all that vinegar and red pepper, at least I know they won't go bad.

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Published March 31, 2010.

Some time ago my uncle asked me to participate in an auction for BREADA, the Big River Economic and Agricultural Development Alliance. He proposed that I cook a meal using ingredients from our excellent Red Stick Farmer’s Market (a BREADA project) in the home of the highest bidder. Happily for all, Peter and Linda Truitt won the auction and last night they opened their Saint Francisville home to me, my uncle, and six other diners for a seasonal meal. It did not hurt that Peter and Linda spend most of the year in Oregon and thus has some exceptional west coast wines to offer. The menu follows as well as a recipe for the vinaigrette that dressed the radish sprouts that were then topped with jumbo lump crabmeat tossed in a little mayonnaise and lemon juice. Thanks to the Truitts and to BREADA for making this wonderful night possible; we could not have picked a more pleasant time to be among the blooming Red Buds and Dogwoods of West Feliciana. See you at next year's auction!

BREADA Charity Auction Dinner Menu

• Roasted Winter Vegetable Cream Soup with Ginger and Chorizo
• Jumbo Lump Crab Meat on Radish Sprouts with a Molasses, Garam Masala Vinaigrette
• Blue Verain Honey Marinated Shrimp on Creole Onion and Fontina Polenta
• Cream Cheese Pound Cake with a Raw Strawberry Sauce and Belle Ecorce Goat Cheese

Molasses, Garam Masala Vinaigrette Recipe...

Published March 17, 2010.

Any dish that rises to the level of a local specialty is going to generate a lot of opinions. South Louisiana has so many indigenous dishes that a conversation about how to make etouffee or gumbo or corn bread can sound more like a riot than a recipe swap. People often feel that their great-uncle’s method for making sauce picante is the right and only way to prepare the dish. They will brook no debate on the subject.

I take a different view; I do not think that there is any one perfect way to make a dish. This goes doubly for our local cuisine. It should be remembered that most of it is humble food, made from available ingredients and largely dependent on the season and the cook's resources. I would rather put aside strident entreaties about how things should be done and instead present what has worked for me.

Red Beans and Rice may be one of the most beloved dishes in our regional pantry, so I know I am treading on sacred ground here, but what follows is a general discussion of the dish. Or, it is a distilled, collective history, as I understand it. Any anecdotes, studies or genealogies of this staple of Wash Day are welcomed and appreciated.

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Published March 3, 2010.

Mine was a Thin Mint home. Occasionally, Trefoils would make an appearance and a box of Thanks-A-Lots once crossed the threshold but, in the main, Girl Scout Cookie season meant Thin Mints. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with a Thin Mint. They lack the milk sopping abilities of an Oreo. But as chocolate wafer cookies go, the Thin Mint is a reliable, if somewhat ho-hum, treat. My mother’s love of chocolate and outright disdain for coconut being what it was, Girl Scout Cookie season, for my brothers and I, was a steady diet of Thin Mints.

Several months ago, in a final act of rebellion against maternal tastes, I bought a bag of coconut cookies. The Red Stick Farmer’s market was busy with people buying their winter vegetables, live Lake Salvador Crabs and artisanal breads. I don’t eat a lot of cookies, but as I lugged my bags of greens and baguettes past a long table crowded with miniature cakes, brownies and other treats, I was drawn to the coconut cookies.

My mother had always been so strident in her disavowal of coconut that I had never known an Almond Joy; a macaroon never crossed my lips. But, there I stood, eyeing the small bag of pale, oval cookies all fringed with shaved coconut. The diminutive and grandmotherly woman behind the table (herself not much bigger than a Girl Scout) began to entice me toward sugary indulgence, as grandmothers will do. Before I could think to ask for a glass of milk, my cookies and I were already in the car. And that first sublime, nutty, chewy bite was my gateway into the world of coconut cookies and beyond.

It is Girl Scout Cookie season again and my confectionery world is much broader than ever before. So, it should be no surprise that when leaving the grocery store on a recent Sunday, I saddled up to Troop 101’s table of delights, hailed the little mint-green tagalong pusher manning it, and ordered one of everything.

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Published March 1, 2010.

What's your favorite Hubig's flavor?

Published February 22, 2010.

Lent is upon us. For many in south Louisiana that means some sort of fast. Traditionally, one tasty way of coping with the abstinence of Lent is Gumbo Z’Herbes or Green Gumbo. Often, meat is omitted from this lovely soup, but, if you feel like cheating a smidge, then add some smoked sausage or tasso (as we do below) to round it out. Gumbo Z’Herbes is just fine without any meat in part because it uses the wealth of ingredients produced in our winter gardens. This is the time of year for mustard and turnip greens, collards and spinach. So, whatever your method for surviving the 40 repast, look to prime seasonal ingredients for a great meal. All of these greens came from the Saturday, Red Stick Farmer’s Market and should be available for several more weeks. The Tasso came from Ronnie’s Boudin and Cracklin House on Florida Boulevard. Eat local.

Gumbo Z’Herbes

2  Large Bunches of Mustard Greens, soaked and hard parts removed
1 Bunch of Baby Spinach, likewise
1 Bag of Arugula, maybe 3 cups loosely packed
2 Garlic Cloves, minced
1cup Onion, chopped
1 Bunch of Green Onions, white portion removed and remains chopped
5 cups Water
¼ cup Dry Vermouth
½ tsp. Oregano, dried
½ tsp. Thyme, dried
¼ tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1lb Tasso, cut up to ¼ inch
3 cups Chicken Stock
1Tbsp. Olive Oil
1tsp. Salt
½ cup Brown Roux ( ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup vegetable oil, browned slowly)
Crystal Hot Sauce, to taste

Cook the tender portions of the Mustard Greens and Spinach in the water for about an hour or until tender. Remove from heat, retain the cooking water and allow the greens to cool while you prepare the Roux in a heavy pot. Remove the Roux and set it aside, and in the same heavy pot add the Olive Oil and render the Tasso for about 10 minutes. Add the Onion, Garlic, Green Onion, Arugula, Oregano, Thyme, Salt and Cayenne. Cook until the Onions are translucent or for about 15 minutes over medium high heat. Add the Vermouth to deglaze. Chop the now cooled greens into smallish pieces. Add to the pot along with about 2/3 of the retained cooking liquid. Add the Stock. Simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in the Roux, holding back any extra oil that may be on top. Cook for another 15 minutes then add the Hot Sauce. Serve over Popcorn Rice or an aromatic long grain variety like Jasmine Rice if you have it.

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Published February 11, 2010

This soup owes a lot to the Cabbage Soup served at New York’s Vesleka in the East Village. But, it is also a function of seasonal and local availability as well as what you happen to have in your refrigerator. Cabbage is very forgiving and is also a great canvas for displaying other tastes and textures. So, don’t go out and buy a ton of ingredients; if you don’t have fiery hot, Korean pickled cabbage (Kimchi) on hand, then just throw in some sauerkraut. If you want to make the dish vegetarian then omit the heavily smoked Tasso and substitute some Smoked Paprika or a few tablespoons of Molasses. This should be uncomplicated comfort food that relies on what is easily available. All that said, below is the method for making a soup that is perfectly suited to combating the drizzly cold weather we are trudging through.

1 Large Head of Cabbage, cut into pieces no larger than 1 inch square
¾ cup Kimchi, chopped up and the liquid reserved
1lb New Potatoes. I used Reds but Yukon Golds would be nice
½ lb Tasso, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 Tbsp. Minced Garlic
1tsp. Dried Thyme
½ Tbsp. Dried Mexican Oregano, Mediterranean would be fine
5 Whole Allspice Berries
1½ oz Oloroso Sherry
12 oz American Style Lager, Bud works just fine
½ cup White Vinegar
1Tbsp. Salt, more to taste
1tsp. Ground Black Pepper
½ cup Heavy Cream (optional)
7 cups Vegetable Stock, homemade is better, Chicken or Pork works too
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil

First, heat the Olive Oil in a large Dutch Oven over medium heat. Add the cut up Tasso and brown the meat, then remove it. To the hot Oil add the Onions and sauté them until they begin to color. Add the Garlic and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the Sherry and Beer and deglaze the pan.

Any solid bits should release from the bottom of your cooking surface. The French call these brown lovelies Fond and they pack a lot of flavor owing to a process called the Maillard reaction.

Allow the mixture of alcohol and aromatic root vegetables to cook together for about 5 minutes, or until much of the liquid has boiled away. Add the Thyme, Oregano and Allspice as well as the Salt and Pepper, and stir to combine.
Now stir on the Potatoes and the Browned Tasso that you had reserved, also add the chopped Kimchi and about half of the reserved liquid (no more than a ¼ cup—this stuff is potent). Allow the mixture to return to a steady simmer then add White Vinegar. Many people are convinced that White Vinegar is good for little else than cleaning and canning. While White Vinegar does not have a broad flavor profile it does an uncluttered acid twang that is nice this dish. If you have omitted Kimchi in favor of Sauerkraut then you might want to go easy on the Vinegar.

Begin adding the chopped Cabbage. An entire head of cabbage takes up a lot of room once you take it apart so you may have to ease portions of the Cabbage into the pot and then wait a minute while it wilts down. This process will be aided by adding some or all of the Stock to the pot. Once you have incorporated all of the water allow the whole creation to simmer, covered and on low heat for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and the cabbage is also soft enough to eat.

Use an immersion blender to puree a portion of the soup but don’t go crazy. This soup is nicest when it has thickened a bit from the puréed starch of the potatoes but also has nice chunks of vegetable and Tasso.

Finish your creation with the cream but add it only after you have tasted the soup for Salt and spice. If you think you can take it, add a bit more of the Kimchi liquid. After you have added the cream and stirred it into your concoction, remove the pot from the heat. If you want to go light on the cream then top with some Sour Cream or Yogurt. A Poached Egg also works nicely in this soup, just be sure to poach it in another container and not to cook it too long. Lump Crabmeat would not be unwelcome.

This soup works nicely with a mildly fruity or sweet wine like a Gewürztraminer or Riesling and can be served along side other seasonal treats like Roasted Brussels Sprouts or a Pork Loin. But, this is a fusion dish. It will go well with a variety of things, grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Cakes, Lemon and Rosemary Chicken thighs—Go wild.

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Published February 8, 2010.

We do love our burgers. One count puts the annual consumption of burgers at over 100 for every man, woman and child in the country. It should be no surprise that a food this popular also generates plenty of opinions. Every burger eater out there seems to have a favorite place to satisfy their carnivorous craving.

Just down the road, in Baton Rouge’s Cajun neighbor, Lafayette's many fans of ground round point to the Judice Inn as the place to get that favorite burger. They have been open since 1947 so the staff knows their way around a patty. But, in an almost unheard of practice, you wont find ketchup on the premises. At the Judice Inn all the burgers are served with their eponymous sauce. Judice Sauce is slightly spicy and goes nicely with another one of their available toppings, grilled onions. They also proffer some nice, thick milk shakes, but we would not fault you for just pulling out the stops and ordering a cold beer.

A recent “editorial meeting” between Country Roads editor, James Fox-Smith, and myself was convened over a lunch of these tasty burgers. In truth, it was an excuse for a drive and a long conversation on one of our crisp, sapphire sky, winter days.

Light falls onto to simple diner tables from plate glass windows that look onto Johnson Street, coeds drop onto bar stools for a late lunch and food is parceled out with a friendly efficiency that has to be born from decades of feeding Acadiana. Like Baton Rouge’s Dearman’s or River Side Patty, the Judice Inn has a lived-in familiarity that seems to be falling out of favor in contemporary bistros and pan-everything fusion spots.

Take heart, there is no modernizing fussiness over at the Judice Inn. It is a tiny beacon of all that is good about southern foodways. They have found a winning and quirky recipe and never strayed. The small dining room is comfortable and unassuming, the service is prompt and they make a very fine burger. When you have found a good way to fulfill such a popular passion there is no reason to go changing.

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