Kentucky Potato Country Ham and Sour Grass Soup
LEGEND HAS IT THAT DURING THE FIRST YEARS ON THE Kentucky frontier, housewives followed the cows into the region’s meadows and picked only the wild greens the cows ate to avoid poisonous plants, and no doubt one of these was the tangy sour grass (sorrel) that still flourishes throughout much of the state during the […]
Virginia Sweet Potato and Bourbon Soup
FIRST, TO CLEAR UP ONE GRAVE MISCONCEPTION: genuine yams are not sweet potatoes, despite their resemblance to them in shape and flavor. The two are different plant species altogether—the yam a tuberfound mainly in South America and Africa, the sweet potato native to the New World, especially the American South. Most likely, the confusion derives […]
Pot Likker Soup
THROUGHOUT THE DEEP SOUTH AND MUCH OF Appalachia, pot likker is essentially no more than the vitamin-rich broth left over in a pot of boiled greens or peas cooked with a smoked ham bone, and it is always—I repeat, always—served with cornbread. Arguments flare up about pot likker: Is it one or two words? Can […]
Creole Eggplant Soup
INTRODUCED TO THE AMERICAN COLONIES FROM Africa by Thomas Jefferson, eggplant is often referred to as Guinea squash in Louisiana, where the vegetable has always been much more popular than in other areas of the South—due, most likely, to the large black population there. Except, in fact, for a splendid eggplant soup that chef Bill […]
Tennessee Bean Sausage and Mixed Greens Soup
WHEN TENNESSEE WAS PART OF THE VIRGINIA Territory in the eighteenth century, settled mostly by the English and Scotch Irish, cooking in the hill country revolved mainly around roasted meats, country hams, stews, and hearty soups such as this one based on dried beans, sausages smoked at hog killing time, and the bounty of various […]
Watercress and Buttermilk Soup
EVER SINCE SETTLERS IN THE FIRST SOUTHERN colonies churned butter derived from a sour milk called clabber and drank the leftover nutritious liquid, buttermilk has had a special status in the South that few outsiders appreciate. Gone are the days, however, when you can find natural buttermilk like that I drank as a child. Today […]
Delta Bean and Ham Soup
IN ONE VERSION OR ANOTHER, I’VE HAD THIS SPICY bean soup from the Louisiana Delta right up to the Texas border. The most memorable I’ve tasted was made with the highly spiced and smoked Cajun ham called tasso, but since tasso is still not that easy to come by outside the region, I’ve learned that […]
Beefy Okra and Tomato Soup
THERE’S NOT A SERIOUS COOK IN THE SOUTH who doesn’t have his or her special version of okra and tomato soup. Craig Claiborne used to add a little country ham to his Mississippi variation; Louis Osteen at Louis’s in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, makes his with rice, bell peppers, and chile peppers; the chef at […]
Williamsburg Peanut Soup
MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, DESPITE GEORGIA’S reputation as the peanut (and pecan) capital of the universe, the nuts there cannot hold a candle to the large, oily, succulent, noble goobers grown in Virginia. (I order a steady supply of 2-pound bags from Original Nut House, in Wakefield, Virginia: 1-800-913-6642.) In 1794, Thomas Jefferson’s garden […]
She Crab Soup
CREATED A CENTURY AGO AT EVERETT’S RESTAURANT in Charleston, South Carolina, by the black chef William Deas, she-crab soup is not only the quintessential dish of the Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry but the true queen of all Southern soups. And if you think debate is hot over the correct way to prepare Kentucky burgoo, Creole […]