Check out this week's recipe.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for everything under the heavens.”
– Ecclesiastes
3:1
It’s true, everything has a season. Especially here in the South. Some southerners see the seasons as football season, basketball season, and baseball season. Others live by dove season, deer season, duck season, and turkey season. When one travels into the Deep South the four seasons are more accurately noted as almost summer, summer, still summer, and Christmas. But for those of us in the food business, we measure seasons by the availability of certain food products or the occasions of certain seasonal holidays, events, and celebrations.
For
me, the
seasons of food down here are very different than what the seasons are
for my friends in Minnesota where they deal with bitter cold for a large
portion of the year, or for my friends in South Florida who have warmth
and
sunshine 12 months straight. My friends in California have near perfect
weather
all year long and are able to grow amazing fruits and vegetables every
day of the year.
So, my
food seasons are not only associated with what is fresh, and which crop is
coming in at the moment, but also the activities that happen during certain
times of the year. July reminds me of barbecue in all its forms. I am mainly a
fan of ribs, but I also love pulled pork. A half-and-half plate of dry ribs and
a pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw is hard to beat in the heat of July. For
years my hometown was blessed with a barbecue place called Leatha’s which sold
some of the best barbecue, ever. Today I get my barbecue ribs from a joint just
south of town— Donanelle’s— which makes, to my taste, the best barbecue ribs I
have ever eaten. Seriously, the best, and I have eaten barbecue ribs all over
the Southeast.
August
reminds me of crabmeat. As a child we had a fish camp on the Mississippi Gulf
Coast and my mom, my brother, and I would bait crab traps every morning and
check them at the end of the day. Once our ice chests were full, we would head
back at dusk, boil, and pick the crabs. My mother would mainly make West Indies
Salad which seemed to always be in the refrigerator at the camp. But a lot of
the crabmeat didn't even make it into the picking bowl, as I would eat it at
the table as I was picking. At our Creole restaurant in Hattiesburg, we always
have a crab feature menu in August which is typically the best month for crabmeat.
September
is shrimp month for me. It's actually not the peak time for shrimp— browns run
out early in the summer, whites can last through late fall— but they're still bringing
in shrimp in September, and our Creole restaurant occasionally prepares a
feature menu showcasing shrimp that month.
October is
my favorite month for oysters. It's far enough from the heat of the summer and
it always seems like oysters are close to hitting their peak, and seem plumper,
in the 10th month. As a kid I would probably tell you that October
tastes like chocolate because typically ate all of the Halloween candy before
we even had a chance to pass it out on the 31st. But now October marks that period
when my oyster consumption kicks into fifth gear.
November
tastes like turkey and sweet potatoes. It's strange that one day can create an
association for an entire 30 days. But if I sat here and tried to think of
another food stuff that reminds me of November, I really couldn't think of
anything. I don’t eat cranberries, so turkey it is.
There's
no
doubt what December tastes like. December tastes like Mary Virginia's
sweet
rolls. Mary Virginia McKenzie was my next-door neighbor all through
childhood. She spent every Saturday throughout the year making the best
orange
sweet rolls anyone has ever eaten, or will ever eat. Period. End of
discussion.
Any major event in my family’s life was celebrated with a tin or two of
Mary Virginia’s
sweet rolls, as there would always be a stack of five or six aluminum
tins of
Mary Virginia's orange sweet rolls on our front doorstep. They came at
typical
holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas but also if someone in the
family won
a sports tournament or did something newsworthy. On Christmas morning we
always
ate those orange sweet rolls. If Christmas has a taste, that is it, and I
can’t
think of a better one.
January
tastes like chicken pot pie. I love chicken pot pie. Is probably one of my
favorite comfort foods. When the weather gets cold, I go for comfort.
On the
food scale, February is not much different than January in that I go for
comfort foods. My vegetable beef soup recipe was created a couple of decades
ago on a snow day in February. We still make it and serve it at home and in the
restaurants around that time of year. To my taste, it is the best version of
that specific soup, ever.
March
tastes like Creole food. Mardi Gras is a big deal around here and king cakes
are plentiful but, for me, it's more about the jambalaya, shrimp creole, and
crawfish etouffee that end up at the center of the plate. Every once in a while,
we can boil crawfish in March, but they're usually small that early in the
season.
April is
all about lamb. My grandmother was a master lamb cook. She made leg of lamb
often but in April she doubled her efforts. As a kid, growing up in South
Mississippi in the 1960s and 1970s, lamb was the most exotic food I knew. It
was always a treat. April also tastes like strawberries as Louisiana’s Ponchatoula
strawberries start migrating north into our markets and into the inventories of
our produce suppliers.
June might
be my favorite food month. June tastes like peaches. Actually, if someone were
to ask me what summer tastes like, I would answer: Peaches. I always keep a
bowl of fresh peaches in the refrigerator in the early to mid-summer. There is
a bowl in my refrigerator at this very moment. Though they will likely be gone
before this column hits the presses.
So there’s
a time for everything, and it all has a season. A time to grill, a time to
bake, a time to pick fruit, and a time to a time to cast nets, a time to pick
crab, and a time to shuck oysters. A time to peel fruits, and a time to bake
pies. All of these are gifts, and most certainly come from heaven.
Onward
Peach-Pecan
Ice Cream Sandwiches
Pecan Sandies
for Ice Cream Sandwiches
1 cup pecans,
toasted
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter,
softened
2 /3 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 /2 tsp baking powder
Preheat oven to
350 degrees F.
Yield: 50 cookies-25 ice cream sandwiches
Peach
Ice Cream
2 cups peaches, fresh,
peeled (can use frozen)
3 /4 cups sugar
1 Tbl lemon juice
2 Tbl peach schnapps
1 cup heavy cream
1 /2 cup milk
1 /2 vanilla bean
2 egg yolks
In a bowl,
combine peaches, 1 /4 cup sugar, lemon juice, and peach schnapps. Cover and
refrigerate 2- 3 hours or overnight, stirring occasionally.
Remove peach
mixture from refrigerator and drain juice, reserving in a cup. Return peaches
to refrigerator.
Split the
vanilla bean lengthwise, and combine it with remaining sugar, heavy cream, and
milk in a small saucepot. Heat just until it just begins to boil.
In bowl,
whisk egg yolks. While whisking, stream in about 1 /3 of the boiled cream
mixture. Stir well. Add egg mixture to cream mixture. Return to heat and
continue stirring. Mixture will thicken as it returns to a boil. Remove from
heat and strain into a bowl set over ice. Add the reserved peach juice.
Transfer
the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's
instructions. After the ice cream begins to stiffen, add the peaches and
continue to freeze until done.
Yield: 1 quart
4 comments:
Good article. I, too, associate seasons of the year with certain foods and flavors. I look forward to tomato season all winter and spring. For the past two weeks, I have been picking, blanching and freezing gallons of green beans and sugarsnap peas, and picking and freezing gallons of blueberries and blackberries from our land every day. When it is too hot to go outside in late July/August, I will make jelly and jam with the fruit. During peak tomato and pepper season, I'll make gallons of salsa and can it with a hot water bath. We don't have to do this - we can afford to buy whatever we want to eat - but the freshness of what we grow and preserve has no competition from anything one can buy in a store.
Thanks for the column, KF.
I have never had anything like the orange sweet rolls. Sounds delicious! I would love to have that recipe. Maybe I’ll see what I can find.
Been wishing since Katrina that we could buy decent oysters to fry up in our own kitchen.
Mary Virginia’s Orange Sweet Rolls
1 batch icebox roll dough (recipe follows)
1 stick margarine
1¼ cup granulated sugar
1½ tablespoons Chinese cassia cinnamon
1 pound confectioner's sugar
Grated rind of two navel oranges
Enough orange juice to make a glaze
Melt 1 stick of margarine and grease 6 aluminum foil-lined 9-inch-square cake pans. Roll out icebox roll dough into a large rectangle (1 foot by 3 feet). Sprinkle with granulated sugar and cinnamon. Roll up jellyroll style from the long side. Cut and place into prepared cake pans. Let rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour). Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Make a glaze using the confectioner's sugar, rind and orange juice and ice the rolls while they are hot. Mary Virginia says navel oranges have the best rind. These rolls freeze well in Ziploc bags, but if you are like me, they won’t last long enough to make it to the freezer.
Post a Comment