A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (66 page)

BENNE WAFERS

MAKES ABOUT
6
DOZEN

I’ve always been partial to benne wafers, an easy drop cookie with a delicate caramel flavor. Note:
To toast sesame seeds, spread in an ungreased pie pan and set on the middle shelf of a 275° F. oven for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring once or twice. Watch closely; benne burn easily.

½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup lightly toasted sesame seeds (see Note at left)

• 1.
  Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spritz two or three baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
  
• 2.
  Cream the butter, two sugars, and vanilla in a large electric mixer bowl at moderately high speed for 1 to 2 minutes or until light. With the mixer at low speed, beat in the egg, then the flour and salt. Fold in the sesame seeds.
  
• 3.
  Drop the dough from rounded ½ teaspoons onto baking sheets, spacing the cookies about 3 inches apart (they spread considerably as they bake).
  
• 4.
  Bake on the middle oven shelf for 10 to 12 minutes or until irresistible smelling and the color of caramel.
  
• 5.
  Remove the cookies from the oven, let stand on the baking sheets for about a minute, then transfer to wire racks to cool.
  
• 6.
  To store, layer the cookies between sheets of wax paper in airtight tins.
  

“Oh, my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane. “It‘s fruitcake weather!”

—
TRUMAN CAPOTE
,
A CHRISTMAS MEMORY

TENNESSEE WHISKEY BALLS

MAKES ABOUT
5
DOZEN

Bourbon balls are well known throughout the South and routinely show up at holiday open houses during Christmas and New Year’s. These whiskey balls, however, are mellower because they are made with Jack Daniel’s, a supremely smooth sour mash “sipping whiskey” that’s been made in the town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, for nearly 150 years. The Jack Daniel Distillery, the first to be registered in America, is a National Historic Site that can be toured. Note:
To toast pecans, spread halves or large pieces on an ungreased baking sheet and set in a 325° F. oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool the nuts, then pulse in a food processor until as fine as cornmeal.

3½ cups fine vanilla wafer or graham cracker crumbs

2 cups finely ground lightly toasted pecans (see Note above)

2 cups unsifted confectioners’ (10 X) sugar

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

¹
/
₃
cup light corn syrup

½ cup Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey

1 cup sifted confectioners’ (10 X) sugar (for dredging)

• 1.
  Knead the vanilla wafer crumbs, pecans, 2 cups unsifted confectioners’ sugar, the cocoa, nutmeg, corn syrup, and whiskey in a large mixing bowl until well blended.
  
• 2.
  Shape into 1-inch balls, then roll in the 1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar until snowy.
  
• 3.
  Place the whiskey balls in airtight containers, separating the layers with wax paper. Cover and allow to season for about a week before serving.
  

PECAN PRALINES

MAKES ABOUT
20

I’ve spent a fair amount of time poking about the Cajun Country west of New Orleans and what fascinates me there, almost as much as the crawfish farms, are the pecan orchards and sugarcane fields. Small wonder pecan pralines are a Louisiana classic. There may be as many recipes for them as there are cooks. Some like to begin by boiling pure cane syrup down until it is as dark as molasses. Others prefer brown or granulated sugar. And still others favor buttermilk over sweet milk. I’ve tried many different praline recipes and keep returning to this one given to me nearly twenty-five years ago by a wonderful Cajun cook named Miss Tootie Guirard of St. Martin Parish. Tip:
Choose a dry sunny day for making pralines. They won’t firm up in rainy or humid weather.

3 cups sugar

1½ cups milk

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

• 1.
  Cut 20 four-inch squares of heavy-duty aluminum foil, place dull side up, butter each well, then arrange—not touching—on baking sheets. Set aside.
  
• 2.
  Mix the sugar, milk, and salt well in a large, deep, very heavy pan, then drop in the butter. Insert a candy thermometer, set over moderately low heat, and bring to a boil without stirring.
  
• 3.
  Reduce the heat slightly and continue cooking without stirring until the candy reaches the soft ball stage—238° F. on a candy thermometer. This may take as long as an hour. If you try to rush things, your pralines will be gritty.
  
• 4.
  The instant the candy thermometer reaches 238° F., set the pan off the heat and stir in the pecans. Beat hard with a wooden spoon for 30 seconds, then pour the candy onto the buttered foil squares, making each praline about 3 inches across. You’ll have to work fast because the candy hardens quickly.
  
• 5.
  Let the pralines cool for an hour, then peel off the foil and arrange in a single layer on a large platter. Or layer between sheets of wax paper in an airtight canister and store in a cool, dry spot.
  

“Young lady, I carried you some Bigbee pecans. I thought you might not harvest their like around here.”

—
EUDORA WELTY
,
THE OPTIMIST’S DAUGHTER

FRIDAY PEANUT BRITTLE

MAKES ABOUT
1¾
POUNDS

This recipe comes from Dr. William C. Friday, who for thirty years was president of the University of North Carolina and with whom my father worked for at least ten as first vice president. I never knew that Bill was a peanut brittle aficionado until a few years ago when I appeared on
North Carolina People,
his public television show (UNC-TV). We spent half an hour cooking recipes from my recently published
American Century Cookbook,
and afterward, Bill inquired if I’d like to see how he made peanut brittle. Of course! When I asked how he’d become famous for his peanut brittle, he said that the
Chapel Hill News
had done a Christmas story some ten years earlier on the edible gifts he and his wife make each year: Ida’s fruitcake and his brittle.

Like the fruitcake, the brittle is an old recipe from Ida’s family in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Bill and Ida are most specific about how their brittle should be made. “Only use a cast-iron frying pan,” they instruct (my 12-incher is perfect because it’s three inches deep and that’s important). The Fridays also insist that you use a large marble slab—at least 20 inches by 30—when pouring out the brittle. And that you butter it well. “I just smear the butter around with my hand,” Bill says. At the end of his neatly typed recipe, Bill included the name of his peanut supplier “because you’ve got to use the right kind of peanuts.” He lists the A & B Milling Company of Enfield, North Carolina (aka Aunt Ruby’s Peanuts; see Sources, backmatter), which
sells the large, pale-skinned Virginias, and that’s what I ordered. Shelled,
blanched
peanuts arrived a day later; the Fridays prefer the
unblanched
because they make the brittle more flavorful. All I can say is that except for using blanched peanuts, I followed the Fridays’ recipe to the letter and within 15 minutes had poured out the best peanut brittle I’ve ever eaten. Unlike most, theirs is more peanut than brittle.

1½ cups sugar

½ cup light corn syrup

¼ cup hot water

2¾ cups shelled unblanched (or blanched) raw peanuts (see headnote)

1¼ teaspoons baking soda

• 1.
  Butter a large marble slab well and set aside (see headnote).
  
• 2.
  Combine the sugar, corn syrup, and hot water in a well-seasoned deep 12-inch cast-iron frying pan, stirring until absolutely smooth.
  
• 3.
  Set over high heat and as soon as the mixture boils, mix in the peanuts. Cook, stirring constantly over high heat, for 7 to 8 minutes or until the nuts are chocolaty brown and the syrup is the color of caramel.
  Note:
  The Fridays do not use a candy thermometer; indeed it’s virtually impossible to do so, but I did take the temperature of the hot brittle mixture after 8 minutes and it was 295° F.
  
• 4.
  Remove the frying pan from the heat, sprinkle the baking soda evenly over the hot brittle, and stir vigorously; the mixture will foam.
  
• 5.
  Pour the brittle onto the buttered marble slab and spread to a thickness of ½ inch. Let it cool for a minute or two, then loosen the brittle gently with a pancake turner so that it doesn’t stick to the marble as it cools.
  
• 6.
  Cool the brittle to room temperature, then break into chunks. Store in an airtight container.
  

PULLED MINTS

MAKES ABOUT
5
DOZEN

I’ll never forget learning to make pulled mints in the kitchen of Mrs. Pegram Bryant one wintry night too many years ago to count. Mrs. B, as I called her, was a well-off, well-connected resident of Statesville, North Carolina. Nearly seventy when I met her, she had a full-time maid and yard man, both of whom lived at the back of her property. She also had a two-room garage apartment, which she allowed me to rent after an intense grilling. “Now who was your mother?” Mrs. B had begun. It was the southern way to trace bloodlines. “You wouldn’t know her,” I replied. “We were on the other side.” I had meant in the Civil War but Mrs. B, an active member of the Colonial Dames, sputtered, “You mean that your people were Red Coats?” (In fact, some of them were.) After a walking-on-eggs start, Mrs. B and I became best of friends. I adored her outspokenness. And I loved hearing her reminisce about her youth, about the cotillions and teas and the “dainties” served there. Like other society matrons, Mrs. B rarely cooked. Her files bulged with old family receipts, however, and she had taught her maid,
Dorothy, how to prepare them. Once a year Mrs. B donned an apron and began her December ritual of making pulled mints for family and friends. Soon I was pulling the blistering taffylike strands, too, and relishing every minute. I wanted to taste the mints as soon as they cooled, but Mrs. B said, “No. We have to wait for them to cream up.” That bit of magic took about a week in a tightly covered container. When I left Statesville, Mrs. B pressed the pulled mints recipe into my hand. It was, she told me, an old Allison family recipe. Mrs. B had been born an Allison and she’d been making those mints since her cotillion days. Note:
Choose a sunny day for making pulled mints; they won’t cook up or cream up in rainy or humid weather. Dry weather is key.