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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PUBLISHER John T. Edge Mary Beth Lasseter [email protected] [email protected]

EDITOR FEATURESASSOCIATE EDITOR Sara Camp Milam Osayi Endolyn [email protected] [email protected] DESIGNERA MEAL AT THE REALGRAVY PRINT FACT CHECKERSOP IT DELLA’SRichie Swann PLACE THINGKatie King DRY [email protected] Engelhardt Matt Bondurant Regina N. Bradley GRAVY PODCAST INTERN GRAVY PODCAST Tyler Pratt PRODUCER AND HOST ISSUE #62 Tina Antolini WINTER 2016 [email protected] 15 48 FIRST HELPINGS CHARLOTTE IN THE LANDSCAPE FIVE TAMALES OF MY ANCESTORS Tom Hanchett and As told to Sara Wood 6 Eric Hoenes del Pinal by Jonathan Green WHAT WEALTH IS Rebecca Gayle Howell 42 52 SEARCHING FOR THE HARKERS 8 SOUL FOOD ISLAND ARETHE YOU MISSION TACO of the SouthernIN THE Foodways ONCE- Alliance is to document,WATERMEN study, LITERATE?and explore the diverseCHOCOLATE food cultures ofCITY the changingKeia American Mastrianni South. Gustavo Arellano W. Ralph Eubanks Our work sets a welcome table where all may consider our history and our future in a spirit of respect and reconciliation.57 CORN-FED 11 SFA membershipCover is photoopen to byall. Not a member? THE ROOTS OF AND BEYOND Join usKATE at southernfoodways.org MEDLEY Recipes FOOD INEQUALITIES [email protected] Ashanté M. Reese 662-915-3368 Kater Medley Kater southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 GRAY INER

FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR F st Helpings REGINA N. BRADLEY

ET T RIT REGINA N. BRADLEY, a native of Albany, eer le Georgia, is an assistant professor of ay Edly English at Armstrong State University in Savannah. She teaches and researches on post–Civil Rights African American literature, hip-hop culture, and race. At the 2016 Southern Foodways Symposium, she blew the audience away with a talk about the cornfields and cornbreads of her youth in Albany, an excerpt of which begins on page 38 of this issue. We caught up with Bradley after the Symposium to introduce ES SI her to Gravy readers. What are some of your favorite books to teach as an English professor?    GRAVY brings a new energy to our editorial What are you currently working on? marks my twenty-sixth con- mission, and we are excited to work I try to pledge allegiance to the Black South secutive issue as editor. Let’s together to improve and expand Gravy I’m currently finishing my first academic and our writers as much as possible. I T book, titled Chronicling Stankonia: love teaching Kiese Laymon’s novel, Long be honest: You need a break from me, in 2017 and beyond. OutKast and the Rise of the Hip Hop Division, and his collection of essays, How to dear reader. And given the circumstanc- In addition to Osayi, I am extremely South (UNC Press). In it, I theorize the Hip Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. es, I am happy to oblige. By the time you excited to entrust the spring 2017 issue Hop South, the cultural and generational Jesmyn Ward is always in the rotation, read this, I will be at home on materni- of Gravy to the capable-doesn’t-begin- shift that takes place with young black especially Men We Reaped. I’m teaching her ty leave, reading mysteries with my feet to-describe-it hands of guest editor Southerners after the Civil Rights novel Where the Line Bleeds for the first up and a quiet, sleeping baby snuggling Jennifer V. Cole. Following a long Movement. In particular, I focus on how time next semester, and I’m excited! the Atlanta hip-hop group OutKast is the by my side. That’s how it’s supposed to tenure at Southern Living, Jennifer now foundation of the hip-hop South and how What classes are you teaching in the spring? go, right? Just making sure. freelances for publications from Esquire they influence the cultural expression of Beginning with this issue, we to Fast Company to Garden & Gun to, younger black Southerners outside of the This spring I’m teaching a class on OutKast welcome a new associate editor to yes, Gravy. (“A Ghost in the Freezer,” arc of the Civil Rights Movement. and their impact on how we render ex- Team SFA. Shortly after Osayi from our spring 2016 issue, was the pressions of contemporary Southern black Which books, movies, and television shows identity. I am also teaching two sections Endolyn came to us as a writer (check most-read Gravy story on our website do you look forward to catching up on of a course called Ethics in Literature. My out her piece on Hoppin’ John in the this year.) When she’s not hosting bour- during the semester break this winter? focus for the course is the question, “What summer 2016 issue), we had an inkling bon-fueled gatherings on the front are the ethics of #BlackLivesMatter in lit- she was just the person we needed to porch of her Birmingham home, she’s When I’m not writing, I will make time to erature?” Some of the texts we’re reading expand our editorial team. Not to brag on a trip to Sicily, or Mexico City, or plunder Netflix:Black Mirror, Hemlock include Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Grove, and rewatching Marvel’s Luke Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, and or anything, but we were right. You’ll Cartagena. Follow her on Instagram if Cage. I also plan to catch up with my Damian Duffy and John Jennings’ graphic read more about Osayi when you turn you can handle the ensuing jealousy comics: Harrow County, Elf Quest, World of novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s phe- the page. Her thoughtful perspective and wanderlust. —Sara Camp Milam Wakanda, and Black Panther. nomenal book Kindred. L: Pableaux Johnson; R: RL: Lee ee Andrew Thomas dre Ta Pableaux alea Johnson Pableaux alea 2 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 3 First Helpings

Atlanta. One afternoon, a manager for ruining our anniversary.” She did MISSED called me into the office before my not want a response to her letter. I shift and handed me a typed letter, was so visibly upset at her accusa- CUES sent certified mail (return receipt!). tions that the managers, all white, DINING ROOM POLITICS She and two other managers averted actually apologized to me—maybe START AT THE HOST STAND their eyes as I read silently. rethinking their decision to show me The letter was addressed to the the letter at all. “We know who you by Osayi Endolyn restaurant owner. I recall that the au- are,” they said. thor was identifed on her letterhead Though these incidents took place as a New York lawyer. She complained years ago, I am still struck at how se- learned about the politics that I was rude to her and her husband rious grievances arose from innocent, of food and dining early. My first on a recent visit. I remembered these seemingly innocuous acts. I wonder I job was hosting at Red Robin in guests. The couple, celebrating their if a host of a different race would have Moreno Valley, California, sixty miles anniversary, had been about thirty received the same complaints. It’s a east of Los Angeles. At fifteen years minutes late for their reservation and loaded question. And I’ll never know old, I was the youngest employee in from Mexico, tried to assuage him, had not phoned to notify us that they the answer. the restaurant, a chain known for big and later expressed utter confusion were still en route. Another party was I do know, after several years of food burgers and endless servings of steak at the customer’s reaction toward me, seated in the prime, corner banquette and drink writing (and more recent fries. As we approached closing time a fellow black person. But even then, originally marked for them. When the work with the SFA), that we as a cul- one Sunday night, just two servers I got it. As a kid, my mom kept me couple arrived, I did have a flash of ture are more dialed into the subtle worked the floor, so I alternated in- flush with black history books and panic. The next available table was not implications of food and dining, who coming parties between them. flashcards. The man was likely old considered as nice for a special occa- fits in where, than ever before. One section was at the front of the enough to participate in the Civil sion. I paused to consider other op- Like many Gravy readers, I’m restaurant, while the other was adja- Rights Movement or at least share tions, but seated them promptly. intrigued by the opportunities for cent to the host stand in the bar area. tales of the Black Power Movement The woman read my flinch as a understanding and the potential mine- Things were going fine until I tried to that evolved from it. A bar area of precursor to a night of racist acts. fields in the culinary world—back of seat a party of African Americans up mostly black diners (in the context of She wrote that the black hostess was the house, at the bar, home kitchens, by the bar. I had just seated the front a dining room that looked the oppo- obviously offended by her, an Asian in food media, and the places in be- dining room. On paper, this was the site) triggered his frustration. The woman, and her black husband. That tween. I will use this space to explore right call. I guided the group toward man didn’t think I was racist. He felt evening, each time I circled the din- the unspoken codes, tacit agreements, a booth, and the man instantly shook like I was careless. ing room to assess the status of ta- and strange circumstances that sur- his head and backed away. He de- “You have to pay attention to these bles, an act of anticipation and timing face while eating in the South (and manded a seat in the front. things,” he admonished me. I bristled crucial to any host, she believed I sometimes beyond). I hope to ask new “Look around,” he said to me, jab- in the way that only teenagers can was sending passive-aggressive, anti- questions and provoke discussions. bing his finger toward the bar. “It’s show irritation—it wasn’t my fault that interracial signals. Mostly, I just want for us all to get to full of black people up there.” every other party had been brown- “By the way,” she wrote, “thanks know each other better. He was right. The bar was mostly skinned. I hated that he expected me black, and the front section was no- to play with the optics. Osayi Endolyn is the SFA’s associate editor. She has been featured on The ticeably less diverse. Where I had seen My education on this bumpy land- Splendid Table, and her work has appeared in Gravy, Atlanta magazine, an even distribution of server sales, scape of identity and dining continued Eater, and New York magazine’s The Cut. She earned a BA in French from he saw a segregated dining room. almost fifteen years later. I hosted at UCLA and an MFA in writing from SCAD. A California native, she lived in My manager, an unflappable man a fine-dining restaurant in Midtown Atlanta and now resides in Gainesville, Florida. Denny Culbert 4 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 5 V se

WHAT WEALTH IS by Rebecca Gayle Howell

When you eat the same food as your livestock, your animals, the beasts you rear from teat to trough—rear up for tender, the cut— when you chew in your mouth what you dump into theirs when you know their bodies are not today separate from your body, the noise-making heat, green flies all around, when the garden yard is stopped short by its wall of corn, its room of corn, tall as any useful man, tall as money’s gate, you know: your hand, rising up and opening, is the devil to which all this prays and in your dream you walk in past the gate, into the corn, taller than you, into its room, and it’s dark here, the husk ceiling its own shallow, unlit, selfish sun, and at your feet the path narrows into a limit that makes the leaves for a moment look like the ocean folding in on itself or the church women praising with their palm fans, the church women who knew once what to do, and so you put your god hand up and open to touch the fronds thinking they will know what to do, and they are sharp as the stained blade your daddy carried, sharp as the cut, and your blood hand is bleeding now, your face, bleeding, and you close your eyes and walk because isn’t this the way out?

Native to Kentucky, Rebecca Gayle Howell is a senior editor for The Oxford American. Her forthcoming book American Purgatory received The Sexton Prize and will be released in both the United States and the U.K. in early 2017.

Winter 2016 | 7 Kate Medley Kate Good Ol' Chico ARE YOU TACO LITERATE? LESSONS FROM STEVEN ALVAREZ by Gustavo Arellano

t’s not often that a finishing her doctorate in rhetoric notorious white supremacist and composition at the University I reminds me of Mexican food of Louisville. I met Steven years or my Latino friends. This fall, The ago, when he invited me to lecture Washington Post ran a story about at UK, and our wives hit it off last Derek Black, the son of Don Black, year. The Alvarezes are wonderful, founder of the influential racist brilliant people, and we spent website Stormfront. The younger hours catching up that day in document how Mexican restau- Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, Orders at Black has repudiated the ideas of Crossville, ending with those giant rants are changing the South— tutored Spanish-speaking students Santa Fe Grill, Louisville, his father, and the Post ran a photo Cancun platters. and how the South is changing at an elementary school in Goose Kentucky of a defiant, unrepentant Don as Shortly after, the two an- Mexican immigrants. Creek, South Carolina, did con- a sort of counterbalance. nounced that they were moving It’s not hasta la vista for Steven struction demolition for a housing The photo’s location caught my back to Sara’s native New York and the South, but hasta luego. “In program in Birmingham, and built eye: Crossville, Tennessee. I don’t City, where Steven earned his my research, I get to know folks, houses in Lexington, Kentucky, think of the city as a focal point PhD at CUNY. In 2017, he begins and I meet young families, and we with Habitat for Humanity. There, for racists. Every year for nearly teaching at St. John’s University become friends, develop confian- standing at a urinal in a honky-tonk a decade, my wife and I have spent in Queens. It’s a big loss for the za,” he tells me. “So the South bar, Steven realized the South was a comfortable night at the local South, as Steven has become an extends my community. I’ve more than the Faulkner novels he Holiday Inn Express off I-40 ambassador for Mexican food in learned so much in the friendships read as an undergrad. during our summer vacation. And el Sur. Thanks to him, I experi- I’ve made across Kentucky.” “A mexicano, doing his thing, every time we visit, we eat dinner enced the wondrous, carne He was able to gain that confi- started talking to me in Spanish,” at Cancun Mexican Restaurant, asada–filled burritos at Tortillería anza from other immigrants not Steven says. “We chatted for a bit, enjoying their generous margar- y Taquería Ramirez in Lexington, just because he’s Latino, but and I asked him if there were many itas, filling combo plates of cheesy which I documented for an SFA because he approached them with mexicanos in Kentucky. I remem- enchiladas and burritos smoth- oral history project. new eyes and an open mind. ber he said, ‘Pos’ bastantes, güero!’”1 ered in red sauce, and a salsa that Steven has recently taken aca- Steven is from the copper-mining Steven returned to Lexington in scorches. We’re usually the only demia by storm with his philos- town of Safford, Arizona, the son 2012, when he interviewed at the Latino customers, and we feel fine. ophy of “taco literacy”: examining of an immigrant from Sonora and University of Kentucky. During This year, we hosted dear friends, Latino immigrant communities a Chicano army veteran. Now his job talk, he dropped facts about Steven and Sara Alvarez. He’s an through the seemingly simple acts thirty-six, he was the first in his the Bluegrass State’s Mexican assistant professor of writing, rhet- of eating and talking about family to graduate from college. population that stunned the oric, and digital studies at the Uni- Mexican food. He’s lectured on In the summer of 2003, after crowd. “They had no idea there versity of Kentucky (and an SFA the subject across the country and graduation, he went to work for were undocumented students at 1 “A bunch,

Smith Symposium Fellow); she’s is doing impactful fieldwork to Delilah Snell Americorps. Steven cut trails in the University,” Steven says. “They white boy!”

8 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 9 Good Ol' Chico Social Justice

had no idea about the over-100 for Buzzfeed, Univision, NPR, percent increase in Mexican folks and El País in Spain. Hundreds for the previous decade.” of other media outlets picked up THE ROOTS OF He accepted the job and dove the story. into exploring his new home, The attention was career- FOOD INEQUALITIES specifically the area of Lexington changing. He’s now planning a BEYOND THE FOOD DESERT NARRATIVE nicknamed “Mexington” for its book that will focus on Kentucky, large Latino population. In the North Carolina, and Alabama, by Ashanté M. Reese barrio’s taquerías, bakeries, tracking each state’s Mexican markets, and restaurants, Alvarez communities back to their home- developed the idea for his taco land. Steven will continue the n april 15, 2015, i who killed him, Ferguson became literacy class. taco literacy course at St. John’s traveled from Memphis an important site and symbol of “Tacos can be read,” the profe and plans to educate New O to Ferguson, Missouri, in Black Lives Matter. Hundreds of says. “They carry social mean- Yorkers on Southern and Latino- solidarity with activist friends in protestors from St. Louis, Little ings—they are part of foodways Southern foodways. the Fight for $15 campaign. The Rock, Memphis, and other Mid- networks of people who conduct “I am thinking of organizing a movement is committed to raising western and Southern cities filled their rich lives in languages. writing program for college stu- the minimum wage to $15 an hour the intersection at West Floris- In the case of mexicanos in dents to engage them as a commu- and securing union rights for fast sant and Ferguson Avenues. A Kentucky, their foodways are nity coming to the table,” he adds. food and home healthcare parked white car, on which a bilingual. Their literacies com- “Maybe not to resolve their differ- workers. The choice to rally in protestor had handwritten no municate not only their identities, ences, but at least to hear one Ferguson was no accident. After justice no peace, i can’t but also their sense of place, and, another out. To communicate their the murder of Michael Brown and breathe, and be the change, I think most importantly, are a views, and to listen between bites.” the failure to indict the officer blocked the street. Someone had form of communicating care.” So why not continue in the The university approved the South? “In first grade, I told my course, officially titled “Taco teacher that someday I was going Literacy: Public Advocacy and to live in the Big Apple because I Mexican Food in the US South,” loved Ghostbusters. And then the for the spring 2016 semester. Ninja Turtles came around, and Students visited local businesses, I was done.” heard from restaurateurs, read No matter where Steven lives, articles on Mexican food (includ- we’ll always have Crossville. We ing my own), and wrote papers aren’t children of the South, yet that ranged from straightforward we love the region and seek to restaurant reviews to ethno- understand it and help make it graphic analyses of the Mexican better. So when I read the Wash- food scene at horse races. It ington Post article and saw the would have been just another picture of an angry Don Black, I cool college course if not for a thought: Our South is better than January article in VICE Munch- that. Optimistic, more inclusive. ies. The Q&A with Steven went The future. And filled with worldwide: He did interviews Mexican food.

Gustavo Arellano is the editor of OC Weekly and Gravy’s columnist. Images Michael B. Thomas/AFP/Getty A memorial gathering for Michael Brown at the Canfield Apartments in Ferguson, Missouri

10 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 11 Social Justice

draped a United States flag over family histories, relived experi- their white counterparts. the roof. The driver honked the ences with the criminal justice Like Ferguson, many US cities horn continuously while protes- system, and listened to social bear residual marks from prejudi- tors chanted for black lives and commentary about the ways gen- cial lending, racial residential seg- shouted for fair wages. A protes- trification brought increased regation, disinvestment in city tor from Memphis recognized me commercial attention to their centers, and white flight. Super- and asked if I was alright. “This neighborhood, displacing elderly markets relocated many of their might get out of hand,” he said residents who could not afford to stores to suburban areas, where over his shoulder, as he jogged pay increasing property taxes. they believed they would be more toward a nearby McDonald’s. During my fieldwork, I walked profitable. What we know as “food As a trained ethnographer, I am alone on DC streets that I was deserts,” neighborhoods with at accustomed to weaving in and out supposed to fear. I entered slum- least 500 residents living at least of crowds, taking mental notes lord-owned apartments with one mile from a full-service grocery about the surroundings and con- cinder block walls and low light- store, are in fact products of the versations, snapping photos, and ing. I followed people and their At a protest for higher wages in sixty-year development of the sub- building relationships with those stories wherever they took me. Herald Square, Manhattan urban alternative to city living. As around me. I entered the field in But Ferguson was different. Not food access could move forward white people chose suburbs, the 2012 as a PhD candidate with the because of boarded buildings or with an understanding of, and economic landscape of cities anthropologist’s standard toolkit: crumbling infrastructure. Not commitment to, connecting dif- changed. In 1967, Federal Trade a recorder, a small notebook, a set even because of the crowd, though ferent forms of injustice. Commissioner Mary Gardiner of carefully crafted interview ques- I sometimes felt intimidated by In Ferguson, the intermingled Jones articulated a “revolution of tions, a host of neighborhood res- the sheer numbers. As I looked fight for racial justice with eco- rising expectations.” As consumer idents who vouched for me, and a around at protestors fighting for nomic justice reflected what I culture paraded new products, curiosity that drove participant dignity and economic justice, the learned in the field: People’s lived businesses—including supermar- experiences aren’t distinct aca- kets—made them increasingly out demic categories and rarely fit of reach for city dwellers. The one- PROTESTORS SHOW US HOW TO PAY into any one theory of human stop-shop model evident in sub- ATTENTION TO MULTIPLE ISSUES AT ONCE. behavior. Some of my research urban strip malls complemented THEY DEMAND IT OF US RESEARCHERS, participants in DC, like some res- middle-class white flight. ADVOCATES, AND ACTIVISTS. idents of Ferguson, live in the Today, we witness and attempt space where economic, food, and to eradicate contemporary food racial inequalities collide. They inequalities that are rooted in observation. According to my dis- lessons that my research partici- are not unlike many other African racism. They are intimately con- sertation committee, I knew pants taught me crystalized. The Americans across the country. nected to the same forces that enough anthropological theory and predominantly black crowd de- According to the Economic Policy produce over-policing and methods to conduct research. I was manded fair wages, shouting, “I Institute, the median household unequal neighborhoods. Urban, trained, but I was not prepared. work! I sweat! Put fifteen on my income for black Americans was predominately black communi- Early in my Washington, DC, check!” We yelled, “Black Lives $36,898 in 2015, compared to ties navigate systemic failures fieldwork, residents shifted my Matter!” with conviction. The $62,950 for whites. Even at the shrouded in illusions of personal research plans. They would tell chants alternated, signaling two neighborhood level, research has responsibility. They hope that me where they shopped and what overlapping movements. Protes- continuously demonstrated that dressing the part or working extra they ate, but they did it on their tors shared space and joined black middle-class neighbor- hours (or buying organic produce) own time, in their own ways. This forces. I questioned how I and hoods have lower home values can somehow atone for the effects

often meant that I learned about others who conduct research on via Getty Images James Leynse/Corbis and less access to resources than of racism on the body and spirit.

12 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 13 Social Justice CHARLOTTE IN FIVE TAMALES AIG CA GOGA by Tom Hanchett and Eric Hoenes del Pinal

   Detail from area has the fast- a mural on est-growing Latino Central W Avenue population? According to a recent Nielsen study, Charlotte, North Carolina, ranks fi rst, followed by Raleigh and Atlanta. This is the newest New South. A region that has reinvented itself again and A rally in New York City on August 9, 2015, the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown again since the Civil War is now in the midst of a newcomer revolu- tion, as people of every background These separate, but overlapping produce the fruit of inequality. move here from across the United population topped one million. Approximately justice-centered efforts are not in It is not enough to know where States and around the globe. 15 percent of new arrivals come from outside vain. When people put their bodies grocery stores are located or how Charlotte is one of the fast- the US. That’s a surprise to many of the folks on the front line, risking their people acquire the food they est-growing cities in America. In who grew up in this part of the South, which freedom in pursuit of a fairer choose. Food access does not 1990, Mecklenburg County, of historically attracted few immigrants. Today, world, they highlight the complex begin and end with the supermar- which Charlotte is the county business signs in Spanish, Vietnamese, and ways in which inequalities shape ket—it reflects societal ills that seat, was home to a half-million Arabic dot older suburban corridors such as neighborhoods, wages, job securi- manifest in several ways. Recog- residents. In 2013, the county’s Central Avenue and South Boulevard, signaling ty, and food access. On the ground, nizing this issue as part of racial a profound change in the region’s demographics. protestors show us how to pay and economic justice brings us in Signs on About half of the Charlotte area’s immigrants attention to multiple issues at once. conversation with researchers, Central hail from Latin America. Of those, half are from Avenue They demand it of us researchers, advocates, and activists who chal- Mexico, while the rest represent virtually every advocates, and activists. To create lenge our beliefs. If we are inten- country in Central America, South America, and a world in which everyone has tional, perhaps we will be one the Caribbean. Those numbers imply a rich array equal access to fresh, affordable, step closer to eradicating the of Latino cultures. Charlotte’s food scene oœ ers healthy food, we have to grapple roots from which inequalities in Mexican tacos and tortas, as well as Venezuelan with the roots of racism that the United States grow. arepas, Colombian empanadas, Salvadoran pupusas, and Cuban pressed sandwiches. Ashanté M. Reese is an assistant professor of anthropology at Spelman One item in particular, the tamale, oœ ers College, where she contributes to the new food studies program. She is insight into the diverse cuisines of Charlotte’s working on a book manuscript entitled Between a Corner Store and a Latino population. Many US diners are familiar

Safeway: Race, Resilience, and Our Failing Food System. Ozdel/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Cem ancett otos y om with tamales, but they might not know that this

14 | southernfoodways.org W 2016 | 15 El S Latino

TAMALES AND urban area in her home country, Laura BISCUITS, followed by immigration to the Gonzales EICO Perez of Guerrero SIDE BY SIDE United States. Born in the south- Tamalería ern Mexican state of Chiapas, Laurita €‚ƒ„ †‡ˆ ‚€ƒ„‰Š‹€ , Perez learned her way around a convenience stores attached to commercial kitchen after migrat- MASA & rural gas stations serve breakfast ing north to the city of Monterrey, FILLING: biscuits with a slice of country fewer than 150 miles from the Cornmeal with chicken or pork ham, a hunk of sausage, or a Texas border. and salsa spread of livermush. At the Poplar Those skills have served her WRAP: Tent Marathon station oŽ Inter- just as she did in back in Mexico. well in the ten years she’s been in Dried corn husks state 85, at the edge of the Char- She prepares the masa, stu s it Charlotte. She began by running lotte metro, hot tamales share with slow-cooked chicken or a lonchera, or food truck, to serve dish comes in national and region- space with biscuits under heat pork, spreads it with a lightly the construction workers who al varieties. Move southward and lamps by the front counter. spiced salsa, and then wraps it in built up this growing city. It the wrappers change from corn The cashier, Anselmo “Chemo” a corn husk to make a neat, hand- wasn’t long before she was able husks to plantain leaves. Masa Bustos, tells a story of blue-collar sized bundle, which she then to add a second truck. In 2015, becomes moister, and fillings migration and adaptation. In 1999, steams for three hours. Perez leased a commercial vary—mole sauce in southern Bustos, who comes from the tiny Lurdes has also adopted the kitchen in a mostly vacant shop- Mexico, whole chicken legs in village of Tamácuaro, Guerrero, traditions of her new home. While ping center located behind a Guatemala. In short, tamales have Mexico, followed his brother to the tamales steam, she bakes the former McDonald’s restaurant. cultural geography. Their fl avors look for work in the Carolina biscuits and fills them with She hired several cooks to help, and compositions reveal the ways tobacco fi elds. He eventually took sausage, egg, or country ham. The in which this dish spread from a job as a kitchen helper at this Bustos’ journey from rural village ancient Mesoamerica through the gas station and worked his way to big city parallels that of earlier EICO rest of the continent. Charlotte’s up to cashier and then manager. Southerners who left Appala- hiapas tamales demonstrate how Latin To help Chemo combat home- chian mountain hollows to seek American cultures and foodways sickness, family members would their fortune in urban centers Chemo and Lurdes are changing—and being changed occasionally send videotapes of such as Charlotte. The old textile Bustos by—the South. important fi estas in Tamácuaro. mills have long since closed, but MASA & In one of these videos, the image fresh economic opportunities are FILLING: of a young woman caught his creating a nuevo New South. Cornmeal with eye. Calls were made, and he mole chicken WRAP: learned that her name was MASTER OF Green banana leaves Lurdes, that she came from a MOLE town called La Palma, about 250 miles from Tamacuaro, and that Œ Ž‘’“ and almost as an afterthought, she was single. They were soon spirit that drew the Bustos to installed a to-go counter and a talking on the phone, and their Charlotte also drives Tamalería half-dozen tables. long-distance relationship Laurita’s owner and namesake. Tamalería Laurita serves bloomed. Two months later they Laura Gonzalez Perez’s story, like Mexican staples from several were married, and Lurdes joined that of many Latino immigrants, regions, including tacos al pastor him in North Carolina. involves a two-step migration: and pozole. She o ers six kinds of Lurdes makes tamales each day, fi rst a move from a rural to an tamales, including spicy chicken

16 | southernfoodways.org W 2016 | 17 El Sur Latino

in the northern Mexican style, right.” As Perez expands her busi- As in southern Mexico, Guatema- pork tamales wrapped in corn ness and makes money to support lan tamales are sheathed in banana DOMINICAN husks, and two sweet dessert her family, she also honors the leaves. Inside is an entire chicken REPUBLIC tamales—one dyed a deep, sugary comida casera (home cooking) that leg cooked in red achiote gravy red, the other made with young, she grew up eating. and topped with strips of pimien- sweet corn. to and a single green olive. The The mole tamales are her real masa is wetter than most Mexican specialty, and a direct connection GUATEMALA tamales, and El Quetzal serves its MASA & FILLING: to her home state of Chiapas. tamales with tortillas or a hunk of Plantains, yucca, THE BEAUTIFUL seasoned ground beef From the Yucatán Peninsula bread on the side to help sop up or shredded chicken southward, in areas where Maya while mexicans account the masa and gravy. WRAP: Green banana leaves rather than Aztec culture dom- for more than half of Charlotte’s In early 2016, El Quetzal’s inated, tamales tend to be moister Latin American population, a owners opened Guate-Lin- and are wrapped in green banana growing array of Central and da—“Guatemala the Beautiful”— selection of Latino items, as well leaves rather than dried corn South American food cultures in another shopping plaza about as Asian, African, and US staples— husks. Perez prepares her mole thrive here, too. Charlotte now two miles away. Co-owner and from kimchi to fufu to Kraft Mac tamales this way, filling them boasts at least two eateries cater- chef Nora Guerra serves an ex- & Cheese. You can also buy ev- with chicken slow-cooked in a ing to the Guatemalan population. tensive menu of Guatemalan erything you need for tamales sauce made from ancho, guajillo, Panadería El Quetzal occupies dishes. Alongside tamales, the there: masa, corn husks, banana and pasilla peppers, plus choco- a slot in a small shopping plaza choices range from snack-sized leaves, spice packets for making late, peanuts, garlic, onion, built in the 1960s. Most drivers fried tostadas called garnachas, gravy, and even the big pots tomato, and black pepper. They might not give it a second look. to big bowls of pepián, a hearty needed to steam them. are savory and piquant with a But Guatemalans readily recog- pre-Columbian dish of poultry Many of the Compare locations hint of cinnamon sweetness. nize the quetzal—a bird with stewed in a sauce of tomato, to- also feature prepared food count- In Charlotte, traditions from flamboyant green and red matillo, pumpkin seeds, and ers or restaurants that operate separate parts of Mexico come plumage—as the symbol of their chiles. The success of El Quetzal semi-independently within the together. Though half a dozen em- nation. Inside, they know they’ll and Guate-Linda underscores the store. At the Compare on Ar- ployees now work in her kitchen, find a taste of home. pluralism now found in Char- rowood Drive in south Charlotte, “I have to make the mole tamales A long glass counter at El lotte’s Latino population. Dominican-born Pedro Mena runs myself,” she says in Spanish. “No Quetzal displays dozens of tradi- Bahía de Gracia, which sells one else gets the seasoning just tional baked goods, from mini- mangú (mashed green plantains), loaves of sweet, moist pan de elote SUPERMARKET chicharrón (meaty fried pork (cornbread) to crispy sugar TAMALES cracklins), and sancocho (beef GUATEMALA cookies called champurradas that stew), as well as a Caribbean Guatemalans nibble with after- compare foods is a chain version of tamales, known as noon coffee. Bulbous loaves of pan of nearly fifty full-service super- pasteles en hoja—“cakes in leaves.” francés (French bread) pair beau- markets that stretches across For this Caribbean take on tifully with refried black beans central North and South Carolina, tamales, a mix of plantain and yucca and the hard cheese called queso and as far away as New England. forms the masa. Plantain leaves MASA & FILLING: Cornmeal with seco. A crew of six bakers rolls Dominican immigrant Eligio Peña serve as the wrapper. The filling of whole chicken leg, out dough to keep up with the started it in New Jersey, then the pasteles is made from seasoned pimiento, green olive WRAP: demand. Many of El Quetzal’s moved to North Carolina to serve ground beef along with green olives, Green banana leaves customers buy bread daily. the state’s growing Latino market. onions, and red bell peppers; or The bakery also sells tamales. Compare carries an extensive shredded chicken flavored with

18 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 19 El Sur Latino

tamales, too, including Mexican That first year, hundreds of pupils in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Salvadoran varieties. At people of all backgrounds showed public schools are Latino. In Compare, Charlotteans from Latin up to dance to live music and Charlotte and most other urban America, Africa, Asia, and else- sample holiday foods, including the areas in the South, there is no where shop and eat side by side. Christmas tamales called hallacas. single Latin American neighbor- The Venezuelan hallaca requires hood. Instead, Latinos live and hours of chopping and simmering work across many parts of the city HALLACAS FOR to create a rich filling of beef, and alongside people from every CHRISTMAS chicken, and pork, plus raisins, corner of the world. olives, and bits of bell pepper. There’s a sense of fluidity, of ‚ƒ„ †‡ˆˆ‰’Š „‹‹Œ„† “For me, an hallaca is much possibility, of unexpected encoun- Parranda Navideña, a Christmas more than just a dish,” Arreaza ters. As Charlotte emerges as a celebration held each December says. “Every December, my entire global city, Latinos will continue since 2014, showcases the vitality family gathered to make them to reshape the South, and the L–R: Ofelia of the city’s Venezuelan commu- assembly-line style. My mom South will reshape what it means de Guerra, nity. It also suggests how elements made the filling, my brother the to be Latino. her daughter ENEUELA Arlette of Latino culture cross over into dough, my dad cleaned the plan- Guerra de the wider life of the city. Tamales tain leaves that you wrap them in, Historian Tom Hanchett is the Hurtado, and play a starring role. my sister tied the knot, and I was author of Sorting Out the New Elizabeth Castillo with As a youngster in Venezuela, in charge of putting special marks South City: Race Class & Urban an hallaca Tony Arreaza fell in love with on the ones that were spicy.” Development in Charlotte they made American funk guitar. When he That old family custom is be- (UNC Press). His column “Food immigrated to Charlotte as a teen- coming a Charlotte tradition. For From Home” appears regularly ager, a six-string and a wah-wah Latinos from other countries, the in The Charlotte Observer. pedal became his calling. He Venezuelan tamales are at once spoke little English, but hanging comforting and new—making and Eric Hoenes del Pinal, born out at the local community college eating tamales is part of the in Guatemala, is an anthro- MASA & FILLING: with his guitar in hand, he struck Christmas season in many Latin pologist and assistant professor A mural Cornmeal with up lasting musical friendships. American countries. For non- of religious studies at UNC- by Rosalia beef, chicken, pork, raisins, olives, Today, he plans festivals for the Latinos, an hallaca offers a new Charlotte. He’s been eating Torres- and bell pepper Weiner on city’s Latin American Coalition experience. For all, it’s a warm tamales ever since he Central WRAP: Green banana leaves and on weekends plays rock en part of a welcoming celebration can remember. Avenue español and vintage Latin pop that draws people of every back- with his band, UltimaNota. ground together year after year. green olives, green peppers, raisins, When Arreaza thought about cilantro, and carrots. The taste and organizing a traditional Venezuelan consistency evoke the Creole Christmas party, he wanted it to be (RE)MAKING culture of the Caribbean, where a bridge-builder. So he booked the CULTURE African infl uences are more pro- Neighborhood Theatre, an old nounced alongside Native Ameri- movie theater turned alt-rock more than half of latino can and European ones. In fact, the concert venue in the NoDa neigh- residents in the South are US cit- plantain traveled to Latin America borhood. And he spread the word izens. Many are young people, with enslaved Africans. throughout local Latino circles and born here during the past twen- Mena’s deli counter o ers other in the mainstream music press. ty-five years. Nearly a quarter of

20 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 21 We live in messy, in-between spaces. Take the Southern boardinghouse from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twen- tieth century. The women (and some men) running Southern boarding- houses lived in cities and small towns, near remote vacation spots and A Meal railroad-accessible resorts, temporary logging or railroad camps, and more permanent factories. They clustered around schools, courthouses, and business centers. Some keepers called themselves businesspeople; others at insisted they were just helping out extended family or friends. Lines blurred between boardinghouses and hotels, and also between restaurants, broth- els, cafés, taverns, resorts, and private homes. Owners, proprietors, and DELLA’S customers negotiated the uses of these flexible food spaces. The food was diverse, too. Ingre- Hargett St., dients for the boardinghouse table downtown were grown in the backyard or pro- Raleigh, PLACE ca. 1926 cessed in distant factories, prepared simply or in complicated dishes. Cooks chased culinary fashion or remained tried and true. Boarding- Local foodways and houses, and their foods, evaded easy definition. They were spaces of tran- sition and becoming, not quite one entrepreneurship at a thing and not quite another. One academic word for that is “liminal.” Liminal spaces are ones in which Raleigh boardinghouse definitions are in flux, new ways of being are tried out, and powerful transitions emerge. That is the by wonder and usefulness of boarding- houses to the Southern food story. keepers, lodgers, and diners emerge ELIZABETH ENGELHARDT The Federal Writers’ Project frequently in the FWP’s papers and (FWP), one of President Franklin transcripts. In 1939, Della McCullers Roosevelt’s New Deal arts programs, of Raleigh, North Carolina, told her sought to capture a portrait of ev- boardinghouse story to FWP docu- eryday life in the United States in mentarian Robert O. King. McCull- the 1930s. With that goal in mind, it ers ran a restaurant and gathering

GRAVY of North Archives Courtesy Carolina of the State is no wonder that boardinghouse space she called a boardinghouse. WINTER 2016 22 23 Raleigh branch of the African American– McCauley Hospital, a private hospital Royal Theater, which served African Lightner Arcade, a multiuse hub of owned Mechanics and Farmers Bank for African American patients American moviegoers from 1920 to 1961 African American life in Raleigh

The few beds she kept were mostly laundry, cooked in private homes, King, “As I was a good cook and there Great Depression, diners had less cash occupied by extended family. Mc- operated a café, and managed a hotel. was only a few places where [African to eat out, and roomers sought cheaper Cullers’ primary business was food. Over the course of her adult life, Americans] could buy meals, I accommodations. Women like Mc- She served meals for working folks McCullers successfully shifted decided to open a small café for them Cullers struggled, too, as the costs of in the heart of Raleigh’s African careers and adapted her business to eat in.” She was successful enough groceries and utilities went up. Dis- American business district. strategies according to new technol- in this fi rst venture to see her daugh- passionately, McCullers said, “Well, I Located in the 400 block of S. ogies, changing economic condi- ters graduate from high school and had to make a living somehow, so I Blount Street, “Aunt” Della’s place, tions, and the needs of her employ- to provide for her family’s needs. gave up the hotel and came over here as the establishment was called, was ers and customers, both black and A shift in Raleigh’s demographics in this little place and started my mere blocks away from Shaw Uni- white. Born Della Harris, she learned and restaurant landscape pushed boarding house.” Her decision to clas- versity, the fi rst historically black how to wash and iron as a girl. Later, McCullers’ second career change. sify the restaurant as a boardinghouse institute of higher education in the she learned to cook while working Greek immigrants arrived in Raleigh was a strategic one: The fee for acquir- South. In the 1930s, residents of the in the home of a white Raleigh and began opening hot dog stands. ing a restaurant license from the city neighborhood could fulfi ll all of their family. After her husband, John Mc- Soon, according to McCullers, they of Raleigh was greater than that for a needs on Blount Street or nearby Cullers, a brickmason, passed away, expanded their menus to cater to an boardinghouse, so McCullers made Hargett Street. There were general McCullers returned to the workforce African American clientele. Her own sure her establishment had beds in stores and gas stations, churches and to support her three young children. café could not compete. When a the back rooms. Instead of oŽ ering beauty parlors, doctors’ oŠ ces and The introduction of household neighbor built a hotel on nearby short orders, she served three fi xed a drug store. McCullers was born in appliances and automated commer- Cabarrus Street, McCullers leased meals a day, charging twenty-fi ve cents the neighborhood in 1874, married cial laundries drove McCullers’ fi rst it from him, installed a café, and ran a plate (or three dollars for a week’s in 1911, and widowed in 1916. When career change. As a result, she found both the eighteen-room hotel and worth of meals) and focusing on what King interviewed her for the FWP, that fewer white families were the café successfully until the stock she called “plain substantial grub.” she was sixty-four years old. Before sending their laundry out to African market crash of 1929. She described a typical menu

opening Della’s, she had taken in American washerwomen. She told of North Archives Courtesy Carolina of the State of North Archives Courtesy Carolina of the State As the country descended into the to King:

24 25 aes fro the aleih city irectory an he c folloin the listins in the irectory enotes an African Aerican resience or usiness incluin ella cCullers oarinhouse at nuer “For breakfast I’ll have fried salt herrings, mullets, sausage, pork chops, biscuits, cornbread and baker’s bread and coffee. I let them select whatever they want, but I do not serve them but one kind of fish or one kind of meat. For dinner I have cabbage, collards, blackeyed peas, stew beef, haslet stew, pigtail stew, pig ears stew, and water. I always have some kind of fresh fish for supper, pork chops, hog liver, coffee, and things like that. I fill their plates with as much food as I can get on them…I give them plenty of [cornbread] with their meals.”

A coal stove, “patched in several North Carolina, and they were places with tin, and held together by crucial to twentieth century food- wire,” King observed, was the only ways there, even if some of the pork kitchen equipment McCullers had McCullers bought at the store was to produce such a range of foods. most likely of Midwestern origin. While our first impression might be Adding regular fish dishes speaks to Hamlin Drug Co. on E. Hargett St., believed to be the oldest of quantity, a deeper look reveals the connections between Raleigh and African American–owned pharmacy in the United States that what McCullers called “plain” the rivers and coastal waters of hid a world of complex flavors, skill, eastern North Carolina. Collards are Greeks, because they don’t know how music, and community fellowship and transformation. consumed all over North Carolina, to fix vittles like collards, turnips, that took place there. McCullers had clearly developed but more so in the central and eastern haslet stew and the other things,” she McCullers was a skilled, modern an arsenal of economical recipes. Stew counties. When McCullers said she said, referring to to the dishes her businesswoman. And Della’s was a beef then, as now, was often a mix of gave her customers what they African American clientele favored. success. During the years she ran the leftover cuts bundled together and wanted, she knew what that meant. King observed that she had a “pic- establishment, she supported herself sold cheaply. Pigtails, pig ears, and pig Later in the interview, McCullers colo”—a nickel-fed juke box—with and a disabled brother and paid liver were all less desirable and less drew distinctions between what her “the very latest blues recordings” on school tuition for a grandson whom expensive parts of the hog. Haslet customers wanted to eat when em- it, a picture of Joe Lewis hanging on she hoped would become a doctor. stew was made from liver, lungs, and ployed versus when they were out the wall, and outdoor benches for Her liminal boardinghouse holds sometimes heart. She relied on hardy of work. She said she faced more people to gather. As a result, Della’s sophisticated stories of business vegetables with long growing seasons. competition from Greek restaura- was “the gathering place for Negroes acumen, community patronage, and McCullers shopped and cooked teurs when unemployment was high, during the evenings and on Sundays.” everyday foodways that brim with a wisely while pleasing her customers because people could eat “a ham- We can only imagine the laughter, sense of place and purpose. and giving them reason to return. burger and a cup of coffee” and be McCullers’ list was deeply respon- “all right for several hours.” Elizabeth Engelhardt is the John Shelton Reed Distinguished Professor of sive to the foodways of the Piedmont When her customers had jobs Southern Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and the chair of the SFA’s academic in which she lived. Hogs are still “swing[ing] a pick or shovel all day,” committee. She delivered a version of this article as a talk at the 2016

plentiful today in eastern and central then “that’s where I can beat the of North Archives Courtesy Carolina of the State Southern Foodways Symposium.

The King-McCullers interview is archived in the Federal Writers’ Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, 28 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I tried to get inside moonshine any way I could

by THE LIQUOR STORE DOWN THE MATT street from my house in Oxford, Missis- sippi, is slowly vanishing, bottle by bottle. BONDURANT When stock is depleted it usually isn’t replaced. The land behind the store has been cleared and leveled—like a lot of THIS PAGE: Oxford recently—and a new mixed-use Checking corn mash before distillation shopping center is coming soon. There’s no more wine to speak of, and all that’s left in the vodka section are dusty bottles of expensive European stuff that’s qua- druple distilled and made with elderber- ries gathered above the Alpine tree line. Sometimes, just for fun, I peruse the “specialty” whiskies, the new fad of clear corn liquor in mason jars and faux clay jugs, often with names that play on “moon” or “corn” or Southern-hick ste- reotypes, making claims to authenticity. The real thing, they say. It shouldn’t mean anything to me; the people putting this stuff out aren’t taking bread from my children or restricting my artistic ambi- tions. Yet the sight of it on the shelves gives me a jolt of irritation and a linger- ing hint of something like regret. The first time I smelled pure corn liquor I was nine years old. A pack of us kids were out in the cornfield that night, racing through the tall rows trying to scare the shit out of each other and herd

A | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 31 The author’s grandfather Jack Bondurant, ca. 1930s disappear, returning an hour later, labor of pulling tobacco. When I was a bleary-eyed and grinning. I remember kid, I spent my summer making mix tapes, mason jar filled with clear liquid. “White seeing my grandfather, then well into his going to swim-team practice, and at- lightning,” he said. eighties, leaning into the trunk of his tempting to hack into business main- He opened the jar and told me to take Oldsmobile in a gravel parking lot, frames with my Commodore 64 comput- a sniff. It was like putting my face into a pouring liquid into a plastic cup. er via a telephone modem. It would be campfire. The heat seared my nostrils It’s the smell that gives it away—pure hard to find a larger generation gap in and erupted through my skull, the second corn whiskey is an olfactory sledgeham- twentieth-century America, and for this dose of brain damage I received that mer. You have about a second before the reason I’ve always considered myself evening. He took a sip, then dared me to. heat of the alcohol burns away any dis- lucky. But the break is about more than For a few minutes we swapped the jar, cernable aroma, but in that first instant just time. We are the branch of the family taking tiny sips and going into exagger- there is the unmistakable, unadulterated without a Southern accent. My sensibil- ated hacking and coughing fits like some fog of rotting corn mash, the heated stew ities are more East Coast, closer to New kind of vaudeville act. I thought the sole of fermenting sugars and enzymes. None England than the South. I prefer chowder purpose of it was for a dare—how much of my relatives ever called it that. White to gumbo, Melville to Faulkner. miserable suffering could you endure? mule, rotgut, wildcat, stump whiskey, My wanderlust hasn’t helped much. Why else would you want to drink some- white lightning, or just plain white, but In the last twenty years, I’ve lived and thing like that? not moonshine. And they ought to know, worked in four different states and two Over the next twenty years, I caught as the Bondurants of Franklin County countries. As a professor, I’ve had teach- regular glimpses of untaxed, homemade remain one of the most notorious moon- ing jobs at four universities, making me some unwary loser, usually me, into the corn liquor. On the day after Christmas shining families in Virginia history. The a sort of journeyman academic, a Moses high-tensile strands of electric fencing at in Franklin County, we used to shoot real thing. Malone or Bobby Bonilla of English de- the perimeter that were nearly invisible skeet in a sloping pasture that ran down We were the branch of the family that partments. I’ve published three novels in the darkness. This was at my uncle to a muddy creek. The men drank eggnog left. When the Korean War started, my so far, one set in London and Egypt, one Howard’s place in Franklin County, Vir- and white lightning, and as the day went father and a buddy flipped a coin to see set in Virginia, and one set in Ireland ginia. The adults were sitting around the on, things got a bit loose. I remember my which service they’d join. My father lost and Vermont. I have a child born in New television, quietly digesting the evening father, a teetotaler his whole life, telling and spent the next couple of years at a York, one in Texas, and now one in Mis- meal of chicken hash, green beans, and me to stand behind the pickup trucks Navy base in French Morocco, Africa, as sissippi. It is clear to me that I am a man cast-iron skillet cornbread, the crust while my cousins tossed clay pigeons a crewman on training aircraft. When he of no place. made from super-heating the lard till it like Frisbees, four or five men working was discharged from the Navy, he hitch- smoked, the inside white and slightly their pump shotguns at the same time, hiked from Norfolk across the state to sour. My father and his brothers and the crisp winter air thick with the scent Franklin County in his Navy dress whites, ALL THROUGH MY CHILDHOOD, sisters would crumble a hunk of it into a of gunpowder, lead, and whiskey. At Dixie-cup hat akimbo, wearing the mad my family made the requisite visits to glass of fresh buttermilk, spooning it out family gatherings, men would suddenly grin of the free man. He got a ride with Franklin County during the holidays and like ice cream. “I’ll have just a light meal,” a couple of young women on their way summers, and my cousins took great my dad used to say, “a light brown meal.” home from college, driving a convertible delight in exposing my naïveté about I was a small child, and that night on Chevy. They took him as far as Roanoke, agricultural practices and rural life. I also a dead run the wire caught me neck high, He opened the jar and and I imagine that my father, hat in hand, heard the stories of how Grandpa Jack a 4,000-volt shortcut to my brain. A bit told me to take a sniff. watching those ladies roar away in a was once the moonshine king of the later I stood in the kitchen with my It was like putting my cloud of dust, began to think that college county. This wasn’t hard to accept. My cousin Andrew, holding a rag filled with face into a campfire. seemed like a damn good idea. Grandpa Jack was a flinty character ice to my neck. I looked like I’d been He eventually earned a master’s degree straight out of a Larry Brown story; stoic, garroted with a jellyfish. The adults had The heat seared my in engineering and settled in the suburbs silent as a stone, physically imposing, gone to sleep and the house was quiet nostrils and erupted of Washington, DC, where I was born and and with an accent that was nearly im- enough to hear the roaring cicadas in the through my skull. raised. As a child, my dad went barefoot penetrable to my ears. He would stare at trees. Andrew dug around in a bottom all summer and and worked the fields on me over the breakfast table, slowly mas-

cabinet and produced a half-gallon Collection Earl Palmer College, Photo courtesy of the author; PREVIOUS SPREAD: Blue Ridge Institute & Museum of Ferrum THIS PAGE: the family farm—the endless, backbreaking ticating a biscuit, his eyes glazed over,

32 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 33 Men leave their still site formed the Bondurant Brothers, the with pieces of the still. infamous crew of moonshiners in Frank- Virginia Blue Ridge, lin County, Virginia, the “Moonshine ca. mid-20th century I pieced together my Capital of the World.” I learned that grandfather’s life, in fact Bondurants have been living in that little and fiction, through corner of the Appalachian foothills since rumor and research. the early eighteenth century, eking out a subsistence living growing tobacco, raising a bit of cattle and corn, and making untaxed liquor. I studied basic chemistry, learning the then shake his head in a dismissive fundamentals of distillation. I toured manner, like I was too pathetic to bother legitimate distilleries, read all the books, with. He carried a gun for much of his newspapers, letters, memoirs, listened life. A pair of brass knuckles hung on a to the music. I rode four-wheelers nail over the toilet in the back bathroom. through the woods to visit old still sites, People from around the county treated the rusting remains of cooling coils, him with a palpable deference. He’d been thumper kegs, mash boxes. I stood on shot at least once, under his left arm on the remains of Maggodee Creek Bridge, a snowy morning at the Maggodee Creek trying to approximate the exact spot Bridge in December of 1930, and never where sheriff’s deputies shot Grandpa told anyone about it. When his own chil- Jack in the chest and my great uncle dren found out around 1985, he merely Forrest in the stomach. Both survived, acknowledged the story as true and lifted and my father still remembers the way his shirt to show the bullet hole. No ex- Uncle Forrest’s stomach would bulge planation, no context. Grandpa Jack was unnaturally when he ate, the food leaking the real thing. through the perforated stomach lining. When I visited, my grandfather would I sampled product. I holed up in my roust me in the mornings to feed the brother’s West Virginia mountain house cows. I remember the silent truck cab in with a half-gallon jar of Franklin County the darkness before dawn, the wheel white for three days, wandering the wells mucked with red clay, straw, and woods during the day, sitting in a pool of tobacco. How I stood in the truck bed lamplight at night listening to the Carter cutting the twine and pushing out the Family sing murder ballads. I tried to get hay bales as he cruised through the fields, inside moonshine any way I could. a funnel of cows lumbering in our wake. The result was the novel The Wettest We didn’t talk. This was terrifying, ex- County in the World, published in 2008, hilarating stuff for a suburban kid like which became the movie Lawless in 2012. me, and I have to think that was his way My family came to Los Angeles for the of trying to communicate something to premiere, and my dad loved every minute his grandson. He died when I was a teen- of it, joking with Shia LaBeouf, the actor ager, and I regret that I never had an playing my grandpa Jack, taking selfies actual conversation with the man. with Jessica Chastain, and working the Instead I pieced together my grand- crowd at the afterparty well after mid- father’s life, in fact and fiction, through night. I was having lots of conference rumor and research. He had a rich and calls and meetings in Santa Monica with

violent past, and with his brothers thirty-year-old guys wearing flannel Collection Earl Palmer College, Blue Ridge Institute & Museum of Ferrum OPPOSITE PAGE:

34 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 35 legal whiskey. Bondurant Brothers Dis- façade. I inhabit different worlds for the tillery hand grinds Hickory King corn, three to five years that it takes to write a an heirloom sweet corn, all of it grown novel. The last four years, I’ve been living in Virginia. This is the same white corn (in my head) in the far northeastern my grandfather used in the 1930s. Their corner of New York, in a fictional town tag line: “Some Moonshine is legendary where people work in supermax prisons and some is made by legends, ours is and run snowmobiles across the frozen both!” They use an old family recipe, and Canadian border with a million dollars it’s fair to say this is as close to the au- of ecstasy strapped to their backs. I left thentic article as you can get, legally. The that world of southern Virginia, the world real thing. I hope they succeed. I plan to of moonshine and dangerous, silent men order a bottle or two, if my local liquor like my grandfather, ten years ago. store here in Oxford hasn’t disappeared. But that’s not true either. I was never really there. I was always the outsider, the kid from the suburbs visiting on the WHAT DOES MOONSHINE MEAN? holidays, the one who talked different- I’m talking about the actual article, the ly, the one who didn’t hunt. The young condensed drops that gather in the coils boy herded into the wire at midnight. and coalesce into a stream of clear, hot The Wettest County in the World wasn’t liquid. Spinning the lid on the jar, the about feeding the legend of the Bondu- heat on the back of the tongue, the loos- rant Boys, or even feeding my growing ening of the joints, the bones of your family. It was a love letter shot into the chest floating apart, watching the clouds darkness of the past. I know there will race through the trees, the rush of feeling never be a reply. that comes with knowing that anything And yet. The deep red clay of the road- A moonshine still confiscated by the Internal Revenue Bureau, ca. 1920s is possible in this life. Does moonshine cuts, the ripple of tobacco leaves in the have any inherent value or meaning? I’ve afternoon. A stand of silent corn at night, shirts and flip-flops who wanted me to regulations, creating an opening in the come to the conclusion that it is an ex- the winking sliver of taut wire. The way pitch them ideas for television shows. market for these faux moonshiners. istential object; its existence precedes its an old woman invites you to come visit, First-class flights, press junkets, my wife About 50,000 cases of legal moonshine essence. We as a society have created its the offer of four different kinds of cake doing the backstroke in the rooftop pool were sold in 2010, jumping to 250,000 value and meaning, bound up in images and pie with coffee. The bowl of creamed of the W Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. in 2012. And the numbers keep rising. of mountains and overalls and shotguns corn bubbling in the skillet, my grand- The world seemed like it was speeding Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine, the and the way a man wears his hat. I played mother tossing in a heavy pinch of sugar. up, and at times I felt a bit sick about it. top-performing brand, sells more than my part in this fiction. The sharp tang and burn of corn whiskey I had cashed in on my family’s past. I 300,000 cases each year, and the inter- People write me all the time wanting going down your gullet like a rusty knife. took something real, something true, and national market is just beginning to catch to tell me stories of their family’s moon- History reverberates like the tones of packaged it into a story. Now, I know fire. Now corporate giants like Jim Beam shining past, their Southern roots, even church bells in winter; you can’t see it or enough about the history of moonshine and Jack Daniel’s are marketing “white” to parse bits of Southern history, culture, even sense the direction but you can feel to know that it’s always been about whiskies. Package the story, feed the recipes. I’m flattered and I try to answer something coming back, an answer. The money. Was this any different? legend, make some money. them as best I can, but I am merely real thing. You’re never ready for that. I also noticed a growing mainstream Last year, my first cousins Robert and feeding an illusion. What I want to say is It’s everything you were afraid to know, interest in moonshine. It began to appear Joey Bondurant, buoyed by the press and this: The person you think I am is a and everything you wanted to say. in liquor stores as a sort of boutique buzz surrounding the movie made from whiskey, a way to experience this exotic, my book, renovated an old warehouse in Matt Bondurant is the author of the novels The Night Swimmer, The Wettest outlawed practice. Some say it was the Chase City, Virginia. They moved in a County in the World, and The Third Translation. He teaches literature and recession that caused a few states, such couple of stainless-steel stills, got the writing at the University of Mississippi. He delivered a version of this article

as Tennessee, to relax their distilling requisite permits, and started making Collection/Library Photo Company National of Congress as a talk at the 2016 Southern Foodways Symposium.

36 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 37 II’M NEVER FROM GET TIREDALBANY, OF SAYING GEORGIA. THAT. More specifically, I’m from southside Albany on Hardup Road, a collec- tion of farms, houses, and nothingness on the outskirts of town in OR, HOW TO MAKE Dougherty County. I’m from the road that strangers and classmates chuckled and asked me to repeat to make sure they heard me right. Yes, COUNTRY BLACK hard up. As in there are no streetlights. If you wave your hand in front of your face at night, you can’t see it. Untamed tree limbs and two plan- GIRL MAGIC tations flank either side. Hardup Road is close to the Flint River, but not too close. Roads with names like Calvary and Lonesome branch out from BY Hardup’s sides. Hardup Road is connected to Newton Road, which, if you drive long enough, runs into Baker County. Back in the early 1900s REGINA N. (and probably later), that’s where folks were dragged to their deaths for being too black or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When we left Hardup Road to go into the city—whether for food, school, or church— BRADLEY we called it “going into town.” When I finally learned to drive, the pinnacle of teenage life, my friends refused to come see me.

“It’s too much gas money,” they said. a military brat, who, before Albany, had “They’re not your real friends, then,” never stayed in one place for longer than huffed my grandmother, whom I call a few years. The harvest schedule was Nana Boo. If gas money is the gauge, I steady and permanent. had no friends at all. I embraced the particular strength of Hardup Road is flat, bordered by being a country girl. In particular, sprawling grazing pastures, melon fields, country black girl magic manifested in and cornfields. The cornfields often the kitchen as much as it happened flanked the back and immediate left side during gatherings on the porch. Even of our house, while the grazing fields though “them books” was my job—I was went farther down the road to our right. an honor student and a voracious read- The corn stalks stood tall and subtly er—I would slink around the kitchen swayed with a wisp of wind when I’d trying to catch a piece of gossip, munch- leave for school in the morning. By the ing on freshly roasted peanuts, swiping time I got out of class, they’d be flat and biscuits, and pinching off pieces of bacon brown. Lone strands of ripened corn silk on the stove. I realize now that I took the floated over the windshield and disap- final product and the process for granted. peared into the sky as if to announce, The historical and cultural roots of “Harvest is done.” cooking in our family were always on The fields turned up and turned over, display. But they were not annotated like often perfumed by the funk of lime at in a textbook. Our family recorded our night and early in the morning. They kept history in practice. My people would say, me company when I waited on the bus or “My mama taught me how to make this.” when I returned home from a date. I never Our life in the country, adjacent to the

Jerry Siegel appreciated how the fields comforted me, cyclical fields that grew and died, offered

38 Winter 2016 | 39 from batch after batch of fried bacon. Nana’s fingers thrummed the sides of Bacon drip made the world go ’round. the mixing bowl, guiding the thick corn- “Can I help with the cornbread?” I asked. meal batter into the hot pan. “The folks Nana thrust her head toward the who didn’t have much and the folks in jail cabinet underneath the stove. “Get me only got a bit of meal and water to eat.” some bacon drip.” Jailhouse cornbread was the food of I shuffled around the can of Crisco and unseen folks. The ones in the farthest reached for the gray can of bacon grease. part of the back kitchen; the ones who I was careful not to tip the similarly learned to whip something together out colored fish oil can because I liked living— of necessity. Nana Boo and Paw Paw, my and the smell of fish made me queasy. I grandfather, said black folks made do put the jar on the island and sat at the bar with a little of nothing all of the time. facing the kitchen. The cyclops eye burned The leftovers. I didn’t understand it then. bright red and awaited Nana’s instruc- But I do now. Rural folks’ poverty wasn’t tions. Nana made the jailhouse cornbread city folks’ poverty. Cornbread was a a quiet resilience and strength that I notes. The kitchen wasn’t her only space with water, cornmeal, salt, and bacon staple because it was readily available. learned to love. to navigate and be great. It was a comple- drip—“this much,” she said, pinching the Just ground corn and a bit of water. Corn ment to her career as an elementary school tip of her finger with her thumb. was sustenance. Cornbread symbolized teacher. Nana didn’t like folks messing “Nana? Why do you call it jailhouse the strength to keep going. Like Southern I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME around in her kitchen and upsetting the cornbread?” A chuckle climbed over her black folks, corn stalks grew in the most I asked Nana Boo about why she called order of things. Her order of things. The back. adverse and the most random places— hot water cornbread “jailhouse bread.” I kitchen was the brain of our house, the “That’s what they called it in Leary,” she lopsided, crooked and in the cracks of walked into the house on the sides of my place for family talks and taunts. Our said. Leary, Georgia, is about thirty minutes neglected pavement on the side of the feet. Pebbles from our then-unpaved memories rose and settled with the pots down Hardup Road. Uncle Charlie, my road, or held up by the side of a house in driveway had flung themselves into my and pans, around the kitchen bar. Nana’s first cousin and adopted brother, rural southwest Georgia. The bacon drip shoes as I shuffled toward the house. The She loved the stove most of all. Black, lived there until his death in 2013. Corn- in the skillet sizzled in agreement. smell of a hot iron skillet and a live electric still shiny as the latest addition to the stalks and tomato vines leaned against the “How did you learn to cook it, Nana?” current stung my nose at the door. This kitchen, it had a cycloptic red eye that side of his house. He grew greens and did “My mama, your Ma Mary, taught me.” was pretty much common practice every stayed on until the stove turned off. The masonry work in the back. Uncle Charlie “Will you teach me?” day after school. I ate McDonald’s once other eyes had specific duties. She cooked always smelled like freshly cut wood and “Sure.” in a while. But most days, Nana floated greens or cabbage in a big silver pot on tomatoes and his smile made you want to “When you gonna let me in the kitchen through the kitchen, from the sink to the the back left side. Nana fried everything smile in return. Most of our veggies came to learn?” wooden island to the stove. “How was on the front right eye. Nobody cleaned from him or the Harvey’s, which was prac- “Let me pray about it and get back to school?” she asked as she put on a master the surface but her. She used a special tically a farmer’s market. you,” she laughed. class in kitchen arts. She didn’t expect cream that she rubbed on and then that I would know how to handle a scraped off with a razor. Her grease stayed Regina N. Bradley is assistant professor of African American literature at kitchen. “I didn’t learn how to really cook under the stove, arranged in order, from Armstrong State University in Savannah, Georgia. She delivered a version of this

until I got married,” Nana said. I took solid Crisco to bacon fat, generations old Denny Culbert article as a talk at the 2016 Southern Foodways Symposium.

40 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 41 DC Diary

SEARCHING FOR SOUL FOOD IN THE ONCE- CHOCOLATE CITY DOES SOUTHERN STILL HAVE A PLACE AT THE DC TABLE? by W. Ralph Eubanks

n spite of its location below the mason-dixon line, Washington, DC, does not feel especially Southern. I’ve always found Wash- I ington’s elusive regional identity part of its charm. By the time I left my native Mississippi and crossed the Potomac River to call DC home, it was still in the midst of its Chocolate City period, which began in the mid-1970s. At that time, the African American population rested around 70 percent. The nickname derived from the 1975 Parliament album of the same name that featured the Capitol, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial on its cover. I arrived five years after the record came out, but it was still a soundtrack for the city. Everyone I knew had a copy, whether on vinyl or cassette. Chocolate City also referenced DC’s status as the nation’s largest majority-black city (and with more African American elected of- ficials than New York, Philadelphia, or Boston), a designation that we strutted proudly, echoing the funky beat of Bootsy Collins’ bass line.

For the first time in almost field peas, and cornbread to the sixty years, Washington’s black kitchens and restaurants of the population is now less than 50 nation’s capital. During the latter percent. In a city whose food- half of the twentieth century, ways originate in Southern and Southern cuisine shared a table African American sensibilities, I in DC alongside French, Vietnam- wondered what impact the pop- ese, and Ethiopian. Today, South- ulation shift was having on the ern food is overshadowed by the restaurant scene. creative fusion of foods, whether Washington attracted African it is Korean tacos or shrimp frit- Americans from the South—es- ters in chili sauce. pecially the Carolinas and Virgin- Among fellow Southern expa- ia—during the Great Migration of triates in the 1980s, our culinary the twentieth century. Those adventures included catching

Natalie Nelson Natalie migrants brought sweet potatoes, new-wave and punk acts at the

42 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 43 DC Diary

9:30 Club’s old F Street location this past summer, I was and eating late-night plates of lo back in DC after teaching as a mein in Chinatown to soak up all visiting professor in my home the beer we drank. We were too state of Mississippi. In Jackson, poor for the few power-dining I’d become devoted to the meat- establishments that existed at the loaf and tomato gravy—with sides time. The music of Talking Heads, of rutabagas and fried okra—at Fugazi, X, and R.E.M. pushed us Bully’s. Each time I ate there, I beyond our small-town upbring- felt as if I had entered my grand- ings. When we longed for some- mother’s kitchen, and I wondered thing that tasted like home, we if I could still find places like dug in at meat-and-threes: the Bully’s in my adopted hometown. long departed Whitlow’s or It didn’t take long to realize that Reeves Restaurant and Bakery, what passes for Southern food with its sweet potato pies. has been adapted to please a Today, one place remains from younger, whiter, and more afflu- my early years in the city—the ent clientele. These are diners Florida Avenue Grill. It’s still who expect Gruyère in their mac- located in the U Street corridor of aroni and cheese and believe that DC near 14th St. NW, a neighbor- grits are only worth eating if you hood once known for the largest serve them with shrimp. concentration of African Ameri- In recent years, several South- can–owned businesses in the city ern-influenced, white-tablecloth restaurants have opened. Crisp, a WHEN WE LONGED few blocks from my house in the food culture stands on an inter- out. Am I knitting together the FOR SOMETHING Eckington-Bloomingdale neigh- national stage. A dish like pork social fabric of the city, or tearing borhood near Howard Universi- and grits will have kimchi mixed it apart? THAT TASTED LIKE ty, fries Nashville-style hot in, a sure sign that this is not the For the young people who pop- HOME, WE DUG IN AT chicken. In the Shaw neighbor- old Chocolate City. ulate the city, dining out is just as MEAT-AND-THREES. hood, Southern Efficiency, a Although I have lived in DC for popular as catching a show at the whiskey bar whose name evokes many years, I’m both a newcom- 9:30 Club. Hip, upscale options and now the center of a burgeon- John Kennedy’s famous descrip- er to the Eckington-Bloomingda- now include Filipino restaurant ing restaurant district. Whereas tion of DC, pours mint juleps and le neighborhood and part of the Bad Saint or the progressive the Florida Avenue Grill built its old fashioneds. These restaurants forces of gentrification that are tasting menu at Minibar, and I reputation on dishes like smoth- and taverns have opened as the transforming the city. After our appreciate those dining choices. ered fried pork chops in onion city’s population has grown more children went to college, my wife Yet I still feel a lost connection gravy and baked chicken with affluent, and they cater to those and I downsized from a house in with the DC of my youth. In trying cornbread dressing, these new tastes. Bourbon drinks are a main- upper Northwest DC. We were to find a bridge between Missis- restaurants reflect the city’s ex- stay on cocktail menus. Dishes attracted to the restaurant scene sippi and DC this summer, I panded palate. Today, even the like pork and grits or pimento that was beginning to rise up learned that soul food has not Florida Avenue Grill has lightened cheese and crackers pay homage within walking distance of our disappeared, but has undertaken up its menu offerings, influenced to the down-home fare that were new house. But now I wonder a migration of its own: across the by an owner who previously op- once DC staples, but they have about the impact of my own river to Anacostia and Prince Natalie Nelson Natalie erated vegetarian restaurants. been updated now that the city’s Nelson Natalie evolving, eclectic taste in dining George’s County.

44 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 45 DC Diary

Big Fish the anacostia river, which in the heart of downtown that is city—including Anacostia—as Family separates the neighborhood of soon to be cleared for redevel- comeback dressing is in Jackson, Fish Fry in Anacostia that name from the rest of DC, opment—moved there, and Keith Mississippi. It is a staple in DC divides the city by race and class. and Son’s in Seat Pleasant is also carryouts and is often served with Once you cross the Anacostia, a mainstay. Henry’s menu evokes french fries or fried chicken there are few new construction the Carolinas, while Keith and wings. A few upscale restaurants sites and even fewer white faces. Son’s menu echoes the foods of now serve mumbo sauce on sand- Strolling the neighborhood, I the Deep South. Soul food is wiches or with fries, much like hear an amalgam of Virginia and alive and well, but largely on the comeback is found in a range of North Carolina in the inflections other side of the Anacostia River Jackson dining spots. of the words of people I encoun- and just across the District line DC is changing rapidly. With ter. I detect a palpable air of in Maryland. the exception of the Anacostia friendliness, too. Children ride are fewer than ten restaurants South of Anacostia, at the Na- neighborhood, there are few bicycles with fishing poles and with table service. tional Harbor development in places in the city that show the bait buckets attached to them, a Like the rest of the city, gentri- Prince George’s County, you get old Southern and Chocolate City scene that would fit in any river- fication has arrived in Anacostia, a different picture. Among an vibes—with the food to match. As side Southern city. Abolitionist but change here has been spurred assortment of fast-casual restau- the city grows, I fear the steady Frederick Douglass purchased by young black professionals rants at this relatively new stream of newcomers will think his Cedar Hill estate in the rather than whites and is moving complex is Succotash, which DC was always filled with gleam- neighborhood in 1877. The view at a slower pace. Here, few offers dishes like collards, kimchi, ing dining spots and upscale from Cedar Hill provides a pan- upscale restaurants serve that and country ham from Korean retail. On the spot of the old 9:30 oramic view of the city. But since market. Uniontown was the American chef Edward Lee. Club on F Street NW sits a J. Crew this is a predominately black neighborhood’s name when Southern fusion has made its way and Anthropologie, making it neighborhood—which unfortu- people began to settle there in here, across the District line, in a hard to believe that the location nately, in the eyes of some, means 1854, and the food and drink at mixed-use development geared was once part of the city’s alter- unsafe—few tourists ever take in Uniontown Bar & Grill resembles toward shoppers and tourists. native music and art scene. Some- that vista. what you might find at a pub on DC’s evolving food landscape times change feels more like Crispy fried whiting, fried the other side of the Anacostia toes a blurry line between eco- cultural erasure. chicken, and greens dominate the River. The menu offers fried nomic displacement and gentri- While I still love Southern food, menus of Anacostia’s carryout catfish alongside the craft cock- fication. Changing demographics like my fellow DC residents who restaurants. Anacostia provided a tails, a sign that this upscale place aside, I’d like to see DC restau- live north of Anacostia, I often place of refuge for me this summer, pays homage to Southern roots. rants pay homage to the former seek out innovation and a culinary when a trip to Bully’s back in Mis- Just a few miles away, Prince Chocolate City. Some of the new shock of the new. I realize that I, sissippi was not an option. As I sat George’s County is home to the Southernish spots do that already too, have taken on the mindset on a park bench overlooking the most affluent African American by offering mumbo sauce, a that has come to dominate my Potomac, eating meatloaf, collard enclave in the country. Washing- sticky reddish-orange condiment city: My feet are in the South, but greens, and macaroni and cheese ton, DC, is divided into eight native to DC. Mumbo sauce, my head and palate, as Jesse Win- out of a Styrofoam tray, I felt as if electoral wards, and Prince which is sweet and tangy, is as chester once sang, are in the cool I was home in the Deep South as George’s County is sometimes ubiquitous in some parts of the blue North. well as in DC. In this part of DC referred to as the “ninth ward,” that includes the most impover- since many of its residents once W. Ralph Eubanks is the author of Ever is a Long Time and The ished neighborhoods in the city, lived in DC. Henry’s Soul Café, House at the End of the Road. He has just completed his time as the the majority of eating establish- once with several locations in Eudora Welty Visiting Scholar in Southern Studies at Millsaps

ments offer take-out only. There DC—one on U Street and another Photo courtesy of the author College in Jackson, Mississippi.

46 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 47 Oral History

Anytime you look into my work remember her picking me up— THE LANDSCAPE OF and you see a simple A-frame only had my diaper on—putting house with a porch on it, that’s me on the bar, putting a quarter my grandmother’s house. It went shot in my hand, and pointed to MY ANCESTORS through multiple changes over the person. And I would walk on IN CONVERSATION WITH JONATHAN GREEN the years as the family grew. It the bar. And the joy was that I did got larger, you add a room here not spill a drop, because I had good and you add a room there, and the balance, coordination, you know, Jonathan Green is an artist and a partner in the Lowcountry Rice Culture Project. color changed from time to time. from drawing and all that stuff. A native of the South Carolina coast, near Beaufort, he now lives and paints in Our house was also a stop-off And I would take it over to them, Charleston. At the Southern Foodways Symposium, Green spoke with poet Kevin house. It was one of those places, put it down, and as I put it on the Young about his grandfather’s moonshining. The following is an excerpt from SFA because African Americans could bar and when I heard the tap of it oral historian Sara Wood’s 2016 interview with Green. not stay in motels and hotels. on the bar without spilling a drop, When guests came through, ev- eryone had to give up their sleep- I WOULD WALK ON ing space, and we slept out in the THE BAR, TAKE THE yard or on the porch, most likely on the porch. The entire house QUARTER SHOT TO would be offered to the guests that THE CUSTOMER, AND would stop through so they could PUT IT DOWN WITHOUT get a bath, good meal, good night’s SPILLING A DROP. sleep, and they would usually leave first thing the next morning. and they would put the coins in [The nightclub] was called my hand. And I would fold my Sahan’s Place. Many of the en- hand tightly, not to lose it or drop slaved Africans were Muslims, and it, and walk back to my grand- her name came from her Muslim mother. She thought that was the culture. Black people remember greatest thing, so she had me and retain lots of names. They may working very early. not always know what it meant, The interior of the bar was cov- but they can remember the sounds ered in newspaper. There was a of it, and that’s a way of holding belly-pot stove in the middle of on to their culture. So her nick- the bar. I remember, seemingly name was “Sahan.” for me as a kid, the most beauti- She probably opened in the late ful people, because people really thirties, so she probably had it took pride in dressing and groom- Red Fish y grandmother’s I would become. My grandmother about fifteen, twenty years. ing. I remember the smells, the name was Eloise and grandfather built their own With my grandmother in the smells of lilac and roses, and M Stewart Johnson. She home, and they built another nightclub, I loved being there. She women would wash in flower raised me personally. She literally structure next to it and it was used used to put me up on the bar. The water. They would put flower took me from my mother, and she as a juke joint. She had her liquors earliest memory I had of being in petals in the water. And also the said, “This is my child,” and she license. She signed her name “E.S. the nightclub, this probably was smell of—I think it’s called po- raised me because she believed in Johnson,” so people did not know about 195—I was born in ’55, so it made. It’s a hair oil. I was always

the signs and the prophecy of what she was a woman. Green, courtesy by Jonathan of the artist Paintings must have been around ’58. I can fascinated with how people

48 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 49 Oral History

groomed themselves, how wom- in it, but it was always one big museum. So I kind of made a en dressed and looked. I learned dish, one bowl. self-imposed mission to be the later about makeup and how [In 1959, when Hurricane Gracie person to help change that, and women wore makeup, and about hit South Carolina,] the home was that’s all I thought of. I didn’t their relationships, their close- not destroyed; only the nightclub. compare myself to anyone. ness with each other, with men. So I’m sure to her, that was a token When I travel down Highway There was a door that led with of, “You need to move on with your 17 and Highway 21, and I look out a narrow screened-in walkway life, do something else.” And I at the marshes and where those that led to the house, and that was think when that happened, she were once rice fields, I can almost her way to get to the house, bring was probably in her forties. see in the far, far distance my rel- food, get to the house for what- atives working in the rice fields ever reason. My grandmother was i went to the art institute or just being the only seemingly always very clever; she had it and first enrolled as a student-at- black people on the planet, elevated. She had a walkway from large in the fashion department, because it’s such a huge expansive the nightclub to the house. spent a half day in the fashion landscape of flatness, and you can My mother would [carry food department. The fumes from the see forever, seemingly. I know from the house to the club], and painting and the linseed oils from that I’m looking at the very same my aunts and whomever was the painting department—I would pictorial landscape, skyscape, having dialogues about myths. The around. My grandmother used never have enrolled at the Art waterscape, that my ancestors I think the most important role Reception that walkway to stash her cash, Institute of Chicago as an art, three hundred years looked at. that art has is visual, but also to check on what’s going on in the painting, and drawing student. I People need to be aware of the beyond the visual is the audacity house, see what’s cooking, so she would have been too intimidated fact that when they come to the to ask the question, “What if?” could let people know. She never for that. But enrolling as a fashion most beautiful, idyllic city in What if we were brought here like ever believed in serving alcohol design student allowed me access America—Charleston—how this Europeans were brought here? without having food. to that department, and I just city happened. The city was What if we had an opportunity to My grandfather was probably followed my nose, and it led me founded in 1640, and the earliest be a part of, to share, and to enjoy one of the finest moonshiners in up to the third floor and I never known rice planting was probably the wealth of the culture, not to Beaufort County. Black people left. It was so natural when I sat around 1670. That lasted well up be sidelined or neglected or and white people would come to down with pencil and paper and into the Civil War with hundreds passed over? What if the beauty this nightclub for moonshine. You started drawing. of thousands, millions of people of African culture and the human- know, alcohol never discrimi- I was not thinking of being an working for hundreds of years, ity of African culture was synon- nates. I would remember her African American artist. I did not dying at very, very early ages, a ymous to Europe from the onset always saying, “Have you eaten?” think so much about feeling the culture of people that weren’t even of America? What if we could to the people that were ordering need to portray my own culture considered humans. But the infra- have all come together on this moonshine or beer. She would and community. All I thought of structure and work they did so that land and appreciate the Native also have prepared pigs’ feet and was the incredible variety of we can live this lifestyle and culture Indians of this land? What if we pickled eggs and pickled okra, and artwork around me and that I that we have today is astronomical. could have all just come together she would have breads there wanted to fit in there somewhere. Not to know that, I think, is a dis- and appreciated the different available, always a big pot of soup. Also I was very cognizant of the service to any human being living cultures and been able to work People would eat and feel great, lack of imagery of people that in this area, in this environment, together and to love together? and they would stay longer and looked like me, but it wasn’t a and that’s the importance of it, so And we would have created what buy more liquor. We had a big complaint. I was just aware of it, that we can have more conversa- we are inching to, which is a com- soup most often, with rice in it, and I think a part of that was tions and dialogues about our pletely new civilization and with vegetables in it, with meat being a security guard at the history honestly, rather than culture of people.

50 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 51 On the Water THE HARKERS ISLAND WATERMEN A FADING TRADITION THRIVES IN NEW HANDS by Keia Mastrianni

colorful oil painting hangs near the front door inside fisherman Eddie Willis’ second-story home on Harkers Island, North A Carolina. It was a Christmas gift from his wife, Alison. In the foreground is Willis’ mother, Dora, seated on a bench with his then-two-year-old daughter, Maggie. Behind them, Willis, in a white tee and black bib overalls, pulls the heads off shrimp. The key figure, though, is Alberto Morales, hat on backwards, head down like Willis, lost in the mundane pleasure of fish-house work. Morales is Willis’ fishing partner. Willis calls him “the other me.” On any given day, it is hard to find one without the other.

Morales is always the first to Morales grew up 2,500 miles ABOVE: arrive at the fish house, a set of from Harkers Island in El Eddie Willis prepares coral and teal buildings tucked in Bellote, a fishing community in a shrimp a curve on Island Road. He calls the southern Mexican state of delivery; Willis upon arrival. “I’ll be there Tabasco. His mother left him to OPPOSITE PAGE: in twenty minutes,” goes Eddie’s be raised by his abuela, Maria. Alberto morning refrain. He closes his flip His alcohol-addled father Morales phone, slips on a pair of well- refused to claim him as his son, transports nets and worn boat shoes, and rushes out though they lived and worked in poles the door. the same coastal town. Morales By the time Willis, a fourth-gen- did not start school until he was eration fisherman, arrives, eight years old. Instead, he Morales and his wife, Heather, helped his grandmother craft have boxed up soft-shell crabs brooms from the stems of inside the roadside fish market. coconut leaves to sell. At ten, he Morales wears faded black jeans, joined his uncles on the water. tucked into a pair of muck boots. He married at seventeen, and At forty-four years old, he still joined a fishing crew at twenty looks boyish, except for a chin- to support his children—daugh- strap beard that connects to a ter Isidra and sons Jesus Eduardo barely-there goatee. When he and Ivis. Morales’ first wife even- smiles, his silver-lined teeth glint tually left for the United States,

Photos by Keia Mastrianni Photos by Keia in the morning light. leaving him to care for the

52 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 53 On the Water

MASON AND MORALES DEVELOPED “In Mexico, you do what you see at three o’clock on a CARIÑO—DEEP AFFECTION—FOR EACH on the water,” says Morales. “But Tuesday afternoon, it’s time to with P.D., he was always prepar- stick poles. The Coree Indians OTHER. THEY SPENT THE NEXT THIRTEEN ing me for the next step.” were the first to use this ancient YEARS TOGETHER, FLOUNDER-FISHING Morales gained a waterman’s method of impoundment fishing OFF THE COAST FOR WEEKS AT A TIME, education typically reserved for in Core Sound. Fishermen cut AND SHRIMPING THE WARM WATERS OF Harkers Island natives. Mason young saplings from the maritime SOUTH CAROLINA’S LOWCOUNTRY. taught Morales how to drive the forests for pound stakes, which boat, showed him how to locate they stick into the sea floor. The children alone. He did not hear watermen, and a mentor to Willis. fish, and helped him secure a poles are the framework for an from her for seven years. Morales slept on Mason’s boat. commercial fishing license. elaborate series of nets. Fish un- Though work on the fishing They built trust in each other, and Mason eventually fell ill, unable wittingly swim into the nets, boats was steady, money was Mason invited Morales to stay in to work the water. Four years ago, sealing their fate. Willis turns to scarce. In the 1990s, an average his home while he secured a on Mason’s recommendation, his cohort and says, “Let’s do this, week yielded the equivalent of mobile home for his guest. Morales went to work for Willis. ’Berto.” $50. With fishing on the decline In the mornings, Mason would For a fisherman who has Morales and Willis work in in Mexico, Morales’ haul de- gently wake Morales at 6 a.m. watched the traditions of his tandem while a reluctant young creased. He cites pollution as the Breakfast beckoned: a plate of father and grandfather slowly helper maneuvers the boat. A gen- main factor. Industry privatiza- over-easy eggs with cheese and fade into a lost art, Willis takes erator-powered pump jet churns tion and expanded competition fried sausage. The two men de- Morales’ partnership to heart. incessantly. Morales grabs a stake contributed, too. Morales decided veloped cariño—deep affection— “Alberto, my heart and soul,” says from a pile and props it on the edge Morales to come to the US. for each other, says Morales. They Willis. “We’ve never had a cross of the skiff. Willis sticks the pump empties the “I knew if I came here, that I spent the next thirteen years to- word, no quarrel.” jet into the bottom of the sound crab pots could support my kids in ways gether, flounder-fishing off the that I just couldn’t in Mexico,” coasts of Virginia and New York says Morales. He wanted his chil- for weeks at a time, and shrimping dren to earn an education, an the warm waters of South Caro- opportunity that escaped him. His lina’s lowcountry. They always ex-wife’s brother helped him split the proceeds. make the risky and expensive Mason, who never had a son, journey across the border in 1997. lavished a father’s love on his With the help of a coyote, fishing companion. Morales Morales crossed the Rio Grande admits to drinking heavily during into Texas, then continued to his early years in the United Beaufort, North Carolina, a twen- States. Mason chastised him, ty-mile drive west of Harkers checked in on him, and asked him Island. He took a job at a plywood to go fishing instead. Morales factory. He eventually traded jobs finally divulged his family history. with a cousin who worked the Mason’s words still resonate for water and couldn’t handle being Morales: “Leave all that in the seasick. So began Morales’ life on past,” he said. “You have a father Core Sound. P.D. Mason was his here now.” boss, a native fisherman from After church on Sundays, the the old guard of Harkers Island two would head out on the water.

54 | southernfoodways.org Winter 2016 | 55 On the Water CORN-FED and Beyond: RECIPES FROM THE 2016 SOUTHERN FOODWAYS SYMPOSIUM

The 2016 Southern Foodways Symposium

Willis pulls with a long aluminum pole while The Willises have supported in our hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, explored the corn-fed crab pots Morales, stake in hand, waits for Morales’ path to citizenship, from the South and examined corn as symbol, sustenance, and problem. waters of the nod. Without hesitation, they which he’s been working on for Back Sound make the hand-o . Morales takes the last three years. During Symposium weekend, more than a dozen chefs (and one the jet out of Willis’ hands, and “Alberto has come to be a life- envelope-pushing bartender) took the humble cob as their muse Willis grabs the pound stake. The long friend and family member. pole slides with ease into the sea He knows what I’m going to do and riffed on corn in every way imaginable, from the pre- fl oor. They repeat this along the before I do it, and I know what Columbian to the postmodern. We asked a few of them to share “Great Wall,” the name Willis he’s going to do,” says Willis. On coined for the massive confi gura- Harkers Island, a tight-knit com- their recipes so that you can recreate the Symposium’s greatest tion of poles that spans 2,300 yards munity that holds fast to its tra- hits in your home kitchen. (Note: Because no one can live on across the water. In three hours’ ditions, Morales might have once time, Morales’ white oyster gloves been thought an outsider. Not corn alone, we’ve included a few cob-free crowd-pleasers.). are soaked and grayed from soil now. “When I quit, this is all his,” and seawater. Willis’ T-shirt collar says Willis. sags with sweat. Like the waters of Core Sound, CORNBREAD CRISPY SQUASH “What I’ve learned from P.D. the tide inevitably shifts. Morales MADELEINES CORNMEAL MUSH CASSEROLE and Eddie are things I would have has already recruited his son, 58 60 62 never thought of learning, things Jesus Eduardo, to come work at that the locals don’t even know,” the fi sh house. When the time says Morales. “I know where the comes, he will pass on the tradi- OKRA SPICED SWEET CORNFIELD crabs are, and that when the half- tion to the next generation of STEW POTATO COOKIE COLLINS moon rises, it’s time for shrimp.” Southern watermen. 64 66 68

Keia Mastrianni is a writer based in Shelby, North Carolina. Find her Harkers Island oral history project for the SFA online Gravy thanks SFA Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow Kevin Mitchell for testing the recipes for cornbread madeleines, crispy cornmeal mush, okra stew, and spiced sweet potato cookies. at southernfoodways.org. Translation by Victoria Bouloubasis. Mitchell, a graduate student in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, is a chef and former instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston. 56 | southernfoodways.org CORNBREAD MADELEINES by JEAN-PAUL BOURGEOIS

during my sophomore year of culinary school, i Makes approximately 40 madeleines visited a friend in Birmingham over a break. That was the first time INGREDIENTS I tasted Frank Stitt’s cooking. He was doing cornbread madeleines 1 as part of his bread service at Highlands Bar & Grill. They really stood 1 ⁄2 cups coarse cornmeal, such as Anson Mills 1 out to me. I know this is controversial to some, but the cornbread I 1 ⁄2 cups fine cornmeal, such as Anson Mills grew up with had sugar—it wasn’t a sugary dish necessarily, but it 1 tsp. baking powder had a sweetness to it. As soon as I tasted Stitt’s cornbread madeleines, 1 tsp. baking soda I knew one day I was going to put them on my menu. When I was 3 tsp. kosher salt 1 growing up, we served cornbread with warm cane syrup and butter, ⁄4 cup white granulated sugar 1 so I serve these madeleines the same way. My recipe is different from 2 ⁄2 cups buttermilk Stitt’s, but it still reminds me of those madeleines at Highlands. Note 2 whole eggs 1 that this recipe only works well in madeleine pans. 4 ⁄2 ounces (9 Tbsp.) butter, melted Nonstick cooking spray Jean-Paul Bourgeois is executive chef at Blue Smoke in Manhattan, New York. Born and raised in Thibodaux, Louisiana, he is a graduate of the John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine all dry ingredients until thoroughly mixed.

In separate bowl, melt butter and combine with buttermilk.

In separate bowl, whisk eggs and combine all wet ingredients.

Gently fold buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients until thoroughly combined.

Lightly spray madeleine molds with nonstick spray.

3 Fill each mold ⁄4 of the way with batter.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until madeleines are golden brown and edges are crispy.

Set aside mold tray to cool, then remove madeleines.

Serve with melted butter and warm cane syrup. Melissa Hom Melissa 58 Winter 2016 | 59 EDITOR’S NOTE: Add the crème fraiche and blend until just This is a graduate-level project for the incorporated. This will thicken the mixture, home cook, and the recipe yields enough but do not overmix. Season with salt to for a crowd. Try it! Dabney recommends taste. Refrigerate for at least two hours. starting the night before for perfect cornmeal mush. You may substitute cornmeal mush store-bought pepper jelly for the pickled pepper jam. If you forgot to put up your 3 cups polenta or cornmeal 1 own pickled ramps last spring (oh, shoot!), 4 ⁄2 cups vegetable stock 1 you can purchase a jar from a number 4 ⁄2 cups milk 1 of sources, such as Blackberry Farm or 4 ⁄2 Tbsp. butter Farmer’s Daughter. 3 tsp. salt Vegetable oil Chopped fresh mint leaves, pickled pepper jam chopped hazlenuts, and corn nuts for garnishing Makes 3 cups Line an 11x17" baking dish or pan with 1 cup water oiled parchment paper. 1 cup sugar 1 cup white wine vinegar In a saucepan, bring the vegetable stock, 1 pint sliced lunch box pepper rings butter, milk, and salt to a boil. Add the 1 tsp. Aleppo or cayenne pepper polenta slowly and whisk constantly to 1 ⁄4 cup pickled ramp liquid avoid lumps. Cook over medium heat CRISPY until the polenta becomes tender, about Add everything except ramp liquid into to 20 minutes. Pour the cornmeal mush CORNMEAL MUSH a non-reactive pan. Reduce to a thin, light onto the prepared baking pan and spread by CASSIDEE DABNEY amber syrup (think the same consistency evenly. The mush will be about one to as simple syrup). Stir in pickled ramp one-and-a-half inches high. Cover with liquid. Set aside and let cool. plastic wrap to prevent a crust from when i learned about polenta in culinary school, i forming. Refrigerate overnight. The next remember telling my dad about it. He said, “Oh, that’s just cornmeal dill yogurt day, remove plastic wrap and cut sheet mush.” He used to fry cornmeal mush and coat it in a pepper jam. of polenta into desired cube size. For the Symposium, I thought it would be fun to garnish the dish Makes 2 cups with hazelnuts and mint. Peppers and dill are companion plants—they In a pot or home fryer, heat vegetable oil to grow next to each other in our garden at Blackberry Farm. They’re 1 cup yogurt 350 degrees. Working in batches, fry the actually just a few feet from the Hickory King corn and hazelnut 1 cup crème fraiche or sour cream cubed mush for about one minute or until 1 orchard. I tend to incorporate flavors common to some Indian cuisines ⁄2 cup gently packed dill, stems golden brown and crispy. Toss fried mush in my recipes, ever since my internship at an Indian restaurant in removed cubes with your desired amount of chopped Germany. I wanted this recipe to be creamy and satisfying, without 3 whole pickled ramps mint, chopped hazelnuts, sliced pickled getting so heavy that people can’t button their pants. Salt to taste ramps, and corn nuts. Toss everything with pepper jelly to coat lightly. Originally a physical anthropology major at the University of Arkansas, Purée the dill, yogurt, and ramps in a Cassidee Dabney graduated from the New England Culinary Institute. blender or food processor for about one Serve immediately with the dill yogurt on She took the position of sous chef at Blackberry Farm in 2010 and was minute. The yogurt will be thin and green. the side or plated beneath the cornmeal.

appointed executive chef in 2015. Atkinson Brandall 60 Winter 2016 | 61 Dora’s Savannah Seasoning, to taste (see below) 1 cup crushed crackers 1 ⁄2 cup fried onions, crushed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Put the squash slices in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook just until the squash is tender, a few minutes. Drain well and when it cools a little, squeeze the squash dry and set aside. Tip: Squash holds a lot of water, so squeeze it well to ensure the casserole isn’t watery.

Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and bell peppers and cook until soft, six to seven minutes.

Scrape the onion and peppers into a large bowl. Add the yellow squash, zucchini, sour cream, cheese, and seasoning. Put the squash mixture into a 9x7" or 8x8" casserole dish.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. In a small bowl, combine the SQUASH CASSEROLE cracker crumbs and fried onions with the by DORA CHARLES melted butter and mix well. Spread the cracker mixture over the casserole and bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm. southerners know that squash casserole—creamy, Serves 4–6 with a crunchy, cheesy topping—is a big thing. I usually make the dora’s savannah seasoning INGREDIENTS topping from crushed Ritz crackers and canned fried onions. For the 1 Symposium, I only used crushed crackers. My recipe calls for cheddar 2 pounds crookneck squash, ⁄ 3 cup Lawry’s seasoned salt 1 1 cheese, but for the Symposium I doubled up with mozzarella and cut into ⁄2-inch-thick slices ⁄4 cup salt cheddar in equal amounts. Maybe that’s why it was such a hit. 1 pound zucchini, 2 scant Tbsp. granulated 1 cut into ⁄2-inch-thick slices garlic or garlic powder 3 Dora Charles grew up in Savannah, Georgia, where she began ⁄4 stick (6 Tbsp.) butter 1 Tbsp. black pepper cooking alongside her grandmother at age seven. For twenty years, 1 large onion, chopped she led the kitchen of The Lady and Sons. Reprinted by permission 1 large green bell pepper, chopped In a small bowl, mix everything together 1 from A Real Southern Cook in her Savannah Kitchen by Dora ⁄2 large orange bell pepper, chopped thoroughly. Makes about 2/3 cup. Store Charles (Rux Martin Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). 1 (8-ounce) container sour cream seasoning in a tightly sealed glass jar. It 1 Brandall Atkinson Brandall 1 ⁄2 cups shredded cheddar cheese will last for about three months. 62 OKRA STEW by EDOUARDO JORDAN salare’s berbere mix

this dish highlights southern cuisine’s transition Berbere is a traditional Ethiopian paste or spice mix made from garlic, from Africa to America. I was influenced by gumbo—I like a dark cayenne pepper, coriander, and other spices, often used in stews. roux—but wanted to do something different. I settled on okra and It is usually quite spicy; Salare’s version is mellower. tomatoes. At Salare, we do our take on the traditional Ethiopian spice mix, Berbere. Our version is not as hot, so it became a workhorse 3 tsp. garlic powder spice for us. Serve with a grain, such as rice or cornbread for a warm, 1 Tbsp. black pepper 1 satisfying meal. 4 ⁄2 tsp. cardamom, ground or pod 2 tsp. true cinnamon 1 1 ⁄2 tsp. chili flakes Serves 12–16 1 Tbsp. white sesame seeds 1 4 ⁄2 tsp. onion powder INGREDIENTS 3 tsp. coriander 3 medium-sized onions, diced 3 tsp. fenugreek seed 1–2 ounces olive oil 5 garlic gloves, sliced thin Blend all ingredients in a spice grinder. Pass through a fine sieve. 3 (28-ounce) cans San Marzano tomatoes, crushed Store in a tightly sealed container in a cool, dry place. 2 tablespoons Berbere spice mix (see below) 3 pounds okra, sliced into rings (may use frozen) Finely ground African bird’s eye chili, to taste (or substitute 1 ⁄2 scotch bonnet pepper or 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper) Salt, to taste Aged sherry vinegar, to taste

In a large pot, sauté onions in oil on medium heat.

Add garlic and continue to sweat ingredients for five minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently to avoid browning.

Add Berbere spice mix. As soon as you smell the spices, add tomatoes and cook on medium for 30 minutes. Stir to avoid sticking.

Add okra and cook until tender.

Season pot with salt and vinegar to taste. For more heat, add more cayenne.

Spoon over rice or serve with cornbread. Brandall Atkinson Brandall 64 | southernfoodways.org 65 SPICED SWEET

POTATO COOKIE spicy sweet 2 tsp. baking soda by EDOUARDO JORDAN potato purée 2 tsp. cinnamon 1 1 ⁄2 tsp. cayenne 3 medium-sized red sweet 1 tsp. allspice gingerbread cookies inspired this recipe. i like potatoes 2 tsp. cardamom, freshly soft-batch cookies with a crispy edge and chewy middle. These are 2 ounces honey ground 1 spicy. We didn’t want to shy away from full flavor. At Salare, we include 1 ⁄2 tsp. cayenne 1 nutmeg, freshly grated ground madrone bark, foraged from trees in the Northwest. It can 2 Tbsp. grapeseed or present like cinnamon and it’s almost chocolaty, but it’s hard to find. vegetable oil Preheat oven to 325 degrees. I’ve left it out here, but if you track it down, add a tablespoon. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a standing mixer, cream Edouardo Jordan is executive chef and owner of Salare in Seattle. together both sugars with butter He was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, and later attended Peel and quarter potatoes. using the paddle attachment. Le Cordon Bleu in Orlando. His next effort, Junebaby, will focus on Mix until light and fluffy. Southern cuisine and is slated to open in Seattle in 2017. Toss potatoes with honey, cayenne, and oil. Cover with foil. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Place potatoes on baking sheet Add sweet potato purée, vanilla, and roast in oven until tender and grated ginger, and mix until throughout, about 45 minutes well combined. to 1 hour. In a separate bowl, whisk Let cool completely, then purée together flour, salt, baking soda, in a food processor. and spices.

sweet potato cookies Add dry ingredients to the wet, mixing until just combined. Makes approximately Do not over mix. 3 dozen cookies Using a #20 ice cream scoop 24 ounces (3 cups) white sugar (approximately 2 tablespoons) 24 ounces (3 cups) brown sugar or a spoon, place cookie dough 20 ounces (5 sticks) butter, balls on to nonstick baking pan or softened baking pan lined with parchment 24 ounces (3 cups) sweet paper, leaving space between potato puree (see above) cookies. Sprinkle each cookie 2 Tbsp. fresh ginger, minced with raw sugar. 4 eggs 2 tsp. vanilla extract Bake at 325 degrees for 3 30 ounces (3 ⁄4 cups) 16-18 minutes. all-purpose low-gluten or cake flour 1 tsp. salt Brandall Atkinson Brandall 66 | southernfoodways.org 67 COIED COIS by E AUARRE Makes 1 cocktail   INGREDIENTS        ’ orncob tea is also lovely by itself. I 1 luncheon at the 2016 Fall Symposium, cooked by Steven Satterfi eld 1 ⁄2 ounces gin, such as Bristow recommend adding a touch of sorghum or 1 of Miller Union. Mint and corn make a lovely combination, and they ⁄2 ounce lemon uice, honey, a little lemon uice, and salt. both mix well with gin and lemon. I used Bristow Gin from Cathead freshly sueezed and strained 1 Distillery as a nod to the SFA’s Mississippi home. I wanted this drink ⁄2 ounce mint syrup (see below) Remove kernels from 3 corncobs and 1 to be light and interesting while keeping corn as the focal ingredient. ⁄ ounce lemon vinegar (see below) save for another use. This ri™ on the Tom Collins might even become your new go-to. 3 ounces corncob tea (see below) lace cobs in a large stockpot and cover Miles Macquarrie is co-owner and bar manager of Kimball House in Shake, then strain into an iced ollins with water. Decatur, Georgia. He is a three-time James Beard Award semifi nalist glass. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

for best bar program. Atkinson Brandall Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

Simmer for one hour.

Strain off the fresh corn tea.

Set aside to cool.

Store leftover tea in refrigerator.

 

Blanche to mint sprigs for about seconds in boiling water.

Immediately shock mint leaves in a bowl of icy water.

In blender, add leaves and simple syrup. uree for one minute.

Strain syrup through a fi ne sieve or chinois strainer.

eep bottled in refrigerator up to two weeks.

 

ix equal parts lemon uice, sugarcane syrup, and hampagne vinegar.

68 Gravy is a publication of the Southern Foodways Alliance, a member-supported institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

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