Shrimp Pea and Pork Cracklin’ Salad
FROM LITTLE RIVER DOWN TO GEORGETOWN, SOUTH Carolina, fishermen keep roadside markets stocked with the freshest, fattest, most beautiful white shrimp imaginable, and I must have visited every one while nesting in our cottage at Ocean Drive Beach. “With or without the heads?” is the first question most of the old salts ask before quoting […]
Delta Red Eggs
I’D CERTAINLY EATEN ORDINARY PICKLED EGGS AT cafés, diners, and picnics while growing up in the Carolinas, but it was not till I went to Indianola, Mississippi, to visit a large catfish cooperative that I was first exposed to hard-boiled eggs pickled in vinegar and beet juice. As it turned out, red eggs are a […]
Eggs Maryland
PROBABLY THE ONLY SOUTHERN COASTAL STATE where I’ve never eaten (or heard mention) eggs Maryland is the state of Maryland. I have no idea where the rich, luscious dish originated, but I’ve had this recipe for years and judge that its creator (in Norfolk, Virginia? Jacksonville, Florida? Brunswick, Georgia?) associated any dish that featured crabmeat […]
Eggs St. Charles
I DON’T RECALL WHETHER EGGS ST. CHARLES (NAMED after the gracious Avenue St. Charles in New Orleans’ Garden District) were originally introduced to the Crescent City by the Brennan family at Brennan’s Restaurant or as a new brunch dish when they took over Commander’s Palace in the 1970s, but there can be no doubt that […]
Eggs Sardou
GGS SARDOU WERE CREATED BY CHEF ANTOINE Alciatore at Antoine’s restaurant in New Orleans in the late nineteenth century to honor the visiting French playwright Victorien Sardou, and along with eggs Hussarde, eggs Benedict, and a score of other elaborate egg dishes popularized in the Crescent City, they have become a brunch and luncheon classic. […]
Kentucky Cheese Pudding
IN BARDSTOWN, SOUTH OF LOUISVILLE, TO LEARN more about the production of bourbon whiskey, I was utterly puzzled when my host began talking about a local dish called cheese pudding and insisted on taking me to a family-style restaurant to sample the strange casserole. I loved it, but it was not till sometime later that […]
Spicy Ham Cheese and Mushroom Strata
WHEN AND HOW THE STRATA EVOLVED AS A CONCEPT in Southern cooking remains something of a mystery, but it’s for sure that the layered casserole in all its many variations is loved in homes from West Virginia to Georgia. Virtually any layered ingredients can be baked with different liquids to produce a strata, and probably […]
Spanish Omelette
DON’T ASK ME HOW IN THE WORLD WHAT Southerners call a Spanish omelette crept into the breakfast repertory (the only ingredients remotely associated with Spanish cuisine are onions and bell peppers), but I’ve been eating this omelette at various venues in the South ever since my grandmother fixed her version on Sunday mornings when I […]
West Virginia Appalachian Omelette
DRIVING SOUTH ON INTERSTATE 81 IN VIRGINIA, I decided to make the short detour just over the state line to have lunch at an eatery called A Taste of West Virginia, which I’d been told was operated by the nearby Greenbrier Resort renowned for its culinary excellence. The café couldn’t have been more delightful or […]
Savannah Shrimp Omelette
MY FRIEND DAMON LEE FOWLER TELLS OF FORMAL evenings in Savannah when, after supper, guests traditionally shed their jackets, loosen their ties, discard earrings in empty ashtrays, open a last bottle of Champagne, and, still not ready to call it a night, end up taking leftover shrimp from the buffet and folding them into midnight […]