Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Robert St. John: Pass the Crackers (and the butter, and the slaw, and the Comeback), Please

Appetizers are often the most interesting part of a restaurant menu. I could live in the appetizer section, alone, and often do. There are several reasons for this. Starters are easier to develop. Center of the plate proteins need more focus, they cost more, and the gross profit is greater so more care needs to be taken when adding entrees to a menu. Starters are smaller in scale and scope, so chefs tend to spend more creative time developing them.

 

There is a sub-category that comes before the first course or appetizers, they are the pre-starters. Mexican restaurants bring chips and salsa to the table early in the dining process, many Italian restaurants bring bread and olive oil, but those are unique beginnings devoted to a specific ethnic cuisine. 

 

In Mississippi our pre-starters are often nothing more than crackers.

 

In the old-line Mississippi Gulf Coast seafood restaurants of my youth, there was always a plastic basket filled with crackers and butter pats on the table. It was as much a part of the table setting as the blue cloth napkins, silverware, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. I was there for the fried shrimp, but I would often get full on captain’s wafers and butter before the entrée was delivered.

 

In those days I wasn’t interested in appetizers unless it was a dozen raw oysters. I was probably 10-years old when my grandfather took me to Baricev’s in Biloxi to eat my first raw oyster— with a saltine cracker, of course.

 

To my thinking, saltines are the only cracker that should be eaten with raw oysters. Many fine dining places try to add a finer touch to the raw oyster platter by putting wafer-thin crisps or homemade crisps alongside the mollusks. But I am a saltine guy to the core. I load my cocktail sauce up with lemon juice and an obscene amount of horseradish and wash the oyster down with a crisp saltine. The crispness of that simple cracker is a perfect foil for the oyster.

 

I have purist friends who believe crackers don’t belong anywhere near an oyster. They dot a small amount of mignonette on the oyster and leave it at that. Some don’t add any condiment to the oyster and swallow it unadorned believing that is the only way to get a true taste and appreciation for the bivalve. I am OK with them being wrong.

 

I eat oysters the way my grandfather did, and probably his grandfather before him— with a saltine and horseradish-heavy cocktail sauce.

 

My go-to catfish house in my hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi is Rayner’s. They’ve been around for over 60 years on U.S. 49 just north of town. The catfish there is very good, the fries are homemade, and the hushpuppies are spot-on perfect. But where they truly knock it out of the park is in the coleslaw category. The coleslaw prepared in the Rayner’s kitchen is my favorite on the planet. It’s cut perfectly and just sweet enough to be a foil for the salty fish, but not so sweet that I believe I’m eating cabbage for dessert. Their slaw is brought to the table at the first of the meal, and I put a small forkful on a captain’s wafer and usually have to ask for another bowl of slaw. It’s probably the most redneck pre-starter one can eat, but they’ve been serving it since I was born, and I love it. I can make a meal out of nothing more than Rayner’s coleslaw and captain’s wafers— and have. The fish is good, and I order it to be polite, but I’m there for the slaw and crackers.

 

Coleslaw that is slightly sweet doesn’t pair well with regular saltines, but only with captain’s wafers. The wheat version of captain’s wafers are acceptable— and I will empty the basket of those first these days— but I don’t imagine there’s actually a grain of whole wheat that gets anywhere near the wheat version of a captain’s wafer in the cracker factory. They’re probably just colored brown and use a different enriched flour. But they have a little more depth in the flavor profile and are still as buttery as their non-wheat counterpart.

My favorite pre-starter would have to be saltines dipped in comeback sauce. New Orleans has Creole sauce, North Carolina has vinegar-based barbeque sauce, Texas has salsa, Tennessee has tomato-based barbeque sauce, Cleveland, Ohio has ketchup. Mississippi has comeback sauce. Sometimes spelled kumback or cumback.

Someone once described comeback sauce as, “The offspring of the incestuous marriage between Thousand Island dressing and remoulade sauce.” Actually, I think I may have been the one who described it that way, but just in case it was John Currence or John T. Edge and I have forgotten all these years later, I put quotation marks around the description. Anyway, however it’s described it’s most definitely the queen mother of all Mississippi condiments.

The versatility of comeback sauce is impressive. In this part of the world, it’s used as a salad dressing, a dip for fries or onion rings, a condiment for burgers, an accompaniment for fried mushrooms, and a dip for crudité. I prefer it as another in my stable of redneck pre-starter appetizers and like to start a meal by dipping saltines in a small ramekin of comeback. In this case, the saltine is the preferred cracker, but a captain’s wafer will do in a pinch. Just as with the other pre-starters described herein, I could probably make an entire meal out of dipping saltines in comeback sauce.

 

Appetizers might be the most interesting part of a menu, desserts might be the most creative, center-of-the-plate entrees might offer the most gross profit, but pre-starter cracker snacks are the most underrated.

 

Onward.






Comeback Sauce

 

 

1 cup               mayonnaise

1/ 2 cup           ketchup

1/ 2 cup           chili sauce

1/ 2 cup           cottonseed oil, or any neutral oil

1/ 2 cup           yellow onion, grated

3 Tbl               lemon juice

2 Tbl               garlic, minced

1 Tbl               paprika

1 Tbl               water

1 Tbl               Worcestershire

1 tsp                pepper

1/ 2 tsp            dry mustard

1 tsp                salt

 

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and mix well.


Yield: 3 1/2 cups


 

17 comments:

Stuff About ZeroBear PolyBear said...

Many years Back, I worked for Packard Electric Division of GM in Clinton, MS.

We produced automotive wire, terminals, plastic connectors, and terminated wire lengths that eventually would become wiring harnesses for all GM automobiles produced at that time.

Sadly, GM decided to move all of that work to Mexico (Another story about a money hungry company). During my time at Packard, we had harness assembly vendors all over the state, with one in Hazelhurst where I spent a lot of time. On my first visit, I was accompanied by my Boss and Packard's vendor director. I assumed we would have a full day's work at the vendor and was surprised to find they scheduled the trip to only arrive in Hazelhurst at lunch.

Rather than go to the vendor's facility, we stopped at the Hazelhurst Country Club, where they intended to have lunch "Before going to the vendor". As it turned out, we spent the entire afternoon at the restaurant, with them drinking beer and me declining all offers of a beer, so there would be someone in the group capable of not blowing a high number should we encounter a PoPo man on the way back to Clinton, 10 minutes before quitting time that afternoon.

That afternoon, I learned the joys of eating Captain's Waffers with Comeback Dressing. My boss and his boss would polish off one basket of crackers after another, covered in ComeBack Sauce, from a squirt bottle, washed down with a healthy gulp of cold beer. By time to return to Clinton, we had had lunch and I don't know how many crakers and cold beers. Also several bottles of Comeback Dressing.

During most subsequent visits, I went without the bosses and invited the guy from the vendor plant, who also liked that pre lunch treat. Thank goodness, he did not have my Boss and Big Boss's fondness for cold beers, consumed during working hours.

My comeback recipe is pretty much identical to Robert's version, So here is another good salad dressing recipe.

Thousand Island Dressing

(Makes 2 cups - enough for maybe three salads)

Ingredients:

1 cup Mayonnaise (Helmann's at our house)
1/4 cup Chili Sauce – Hinds 57 brand is usually in the Ketchup section at your Grocer
2 Eggs – Hardboiled and (very) finely chopped
2 Tablespoons Green Bell Pepper, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons celery, finely chopped
1 1/2 Tablespoons onion, finely chopped
1 Teaspoon Paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Prepare and mix all ingredients together.

Keeps for 2-3 days in the refrigerator in a sealed container.

I like this dressing served simply over lettuce wedge. Others probably prefer Blue Cheese Dressing on their Lettuce Wedge Salad, But not me. Thousand Island dressing is mighty fine on any green salad.

It is also very good on a Captain's Waffer, or Saline Cracker - probably on a Ritz, too.

******************

One more recipe:

Thanks to my wife, here is the closest Cabbage Slaw to the old original KFC Slaw you will ever eat.

Cabbage Slaw

2 Servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Tarragon
1 Tablespoon Apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Swerve sweetener
3 cups shredded cabbage

Directions:

Shred cabbage. Use the large shredder disk on a food processor if you have one.

Add other ingredients. Mix well, place in a container and store in the refrigerator for at least an hour - much better overnight, which is what KFC did, back in the day (in 5 gallon buckets). The cabbage will reduce in volume significantly while in the refrigerator and the second time you make this, you likely will double or triple the recipe.


Wigh I could figure out how to post photos in the comments section. Any way to do that Mr. Kingfish?

Anonymous said...

Great post today, Robert. I'm a saltine cracker girl but it must be Nabisco's Original Saltine crackers in the blue and white box, now with sea salt on top. No other brand tastes right and some are mushy instead of crisp. During 2020 pandemic food supply shortages, I was more upset by the lack of those crackers on store shelves than the lack of TP. I like having saltines on hand when I eat oysters in case I overdo the heat with horseradish and/or tabasco sauce.

Now I'm craving oysters with a saltine dipped in Comeback sauce as a starter.

Brad Bradshaw said...

Bob Crechale makes the best comeback sauce in the state of Mississippi, not a close 2nd.

Thomas Townsend said...

Reading this made me teary eyed. Brings back LOTS of memories I guess. LeFleurs and the Mayflower I guess. Miss the butter on the little pieces of paper. Glad to have the recipe for Comeback, but the odds of me making it are slim. Glad Primos sells it!

Anonymous said...

Hope Mr. St.John never suffers from GERD/reflux or bad heartburn, and that he visits his Gastro intestinal doc regularly. A lifetime of spicy, rich, exotic foods takes a toll.

Anonymous said...

Attn: Paula Dean and rival mayonnaise queens: I've substituted plain Greek yogurt for 1/2 or all of mayo in recipes, successfully. Healthier.

Anonymous said...

From what I’ve heard about the new Enzo, Sir Robert needs to spend more time in kitchen!

Anonymous said...

PolyBear is quite interesting. Look forward to his comments.

Anonymous said...

If you were lucky, the basket at your favorite seafood place (which of course had the blue cloth napkins and the mounted fish and the array of nautical knots like the monkey fist and the paper placemat where you could find Camille Cut) held more than one packet of Melba toast. And if you were really and truly the luckiest child in all the land, you got the green wrapper onion Melba toast and slathered it with whipped butter scrapped from the perfect little scoop nestled in its pleated paper cup.

Anonymous said...

“I am okay with them being wrong.” I wish I had thought of that. A long time ago.🤩

Anonymous said...

3:10 I started making my own salad dressings a couple years ago. Comeback, Lemon-Poppy Seed Viniagrette, Creamy Caesar to name a few. Nothing to it. A few basic ingredients in a bell jar, shake it up real good, and voila. I use Hellman’s Light and also go easy on it. Haven’t bought salad dressing since.

Anonymous said...

Me again with my homemade salad dressings. If a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of mayonnaise, I use 2 TB tops. It’s the perfect amount of creamy in any recipe, as far as I’m concerned. The finished product small jar of dressing will have roughly 400 calories total and will dress almost week’s worth of salads. Not too shabby.

Anonymous said...

Polybear — enjoyed your trip to Hazlehurst via memory lane. I worked in Crystal Springs & HH for 8 years and it was a hoot. Everybody’s kin to each other to some degree, or at least claims to be. On the off chance any two people are not related by blood or marriage, they still know each other’s business and yours and mine too. And thanks to your wife for the slaw recipe. Original KFC slaw was dang near perfect.

Anonymous said...

After my visit to Enzo, i Hope he spends more time developing his entree's. Terribly disappointing.

Anonymous said...

The little pats of butter on paper are much, much more useful to place in the center of a multi page menu. Remove the paper top, let set until warm and sticky, then pop out the menu by the edges to launch it to the ceiling. It naturally sticks there, at least until the lunch party coming after you sits down and it falls on their heads. Free entertainment.

Never thought of actually eating them.

The other kids knew what we were doing but just laughed and did not tattle. Yes, memory lane. Of many pranks and hooliganism in my youth.

Anonymous said...

Crechale copied the Rotisserie recipe. Most Greeks did.

Anonymous said...

3 cups of cabbage and 1/4 cup of mayo = 2 servings? You muss be a big ole boy.



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