Keeping Wild Foods in Our Culinary Culture

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.]

Is cooking with wild foods out of place in today’s modern society? Because it’s so old-fashioned, I was surprised by how many kids had entered the Wild Food Cooking Contest in RichmondCounty.  It’s the event of the spring in Ellerbe, NC, when youth and adults show off their skills for cooking deer, moose, rabbit, beaver, squirrel, and other wild game. After the judges have scored each entry, everything is served buffet-style as a tasting party for the participants, their families and friends, and others like myself who attend to see how wild our food once was and still can be.

Rabbit pot pie was one of the many
tasty entries in the Richmond County
Wi

Dishes prepared by kids age 16 and younger were the most interesting. They included teriyaki rabbit, beaver pot roast, rabbit pot pie, duck and dumplings, Eastern wild bear and wild hog sausage, and catfish stew. When I had the opportunity to sample them, each was so good that I could have made a complete meal of it.

My first surprise was not so much that young people had prepared tasty food; it was that the game, fowl, or fish could not have been purchased. It had to be hunted, trapped, or caught legally or received as a gift. The actual step of cooking is only the final stage in the process and only the visible one at the contest.

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Grits & Groceries: At the Crossroads with a Rooster (and Pig's Tail)

Sometimes the best home cooking is at the crossroads of nowhere in the most remote area of a county, and sometimes a well-chosen name may give the best clue that the food is authentic down home cookin’. At Saylors Crossroads (the intersection of S.C. highways 284 and 185), Grits & Groceries near Belton, S.C., has become a destination for food-inspired travelers.

Belton, founded by families of Irish descent and chartered in 1855, advertises itself as a community of “rolling hills, small ponds, and lakes.” I can attest to the scenery and remoteness because on my trip there from nearby Greenville (only 22 miles to the northeast) my GPS device lost its signal and I roamed more than 45 minutes out of the way.

In eastern Anderson County, Belton boasts a population of fewer than 5,000. However, Grits & Groceries has a clientele that clearly exceeds the local population because its owners serve excellent traditional Southern food. Heidi and Joe Trull (whom I’d met a few years earlier on a field trip conducted by Southern Foodways Alliance) operate the establishment in an old country store that once was also a post office and radio station. At Grits and Groceries, they combine Cajun, Creole, and Southern cooking traditions that feature locally grown organic produce and dairy products. In addition, Heidi and Joe’s own extensive garden provides seasonal vegetables for the menu.

Both Heidi and Joe have more than simple Southern cooking roots. After circuitous career paths through kitchens in the Carolinas and other parts of the South, both were lured to New Orleans where they eventually joined Emeril Lagasse’s Nola restaurant in the French Quarter. Joe, in fact, was Emeril’s pastry chef for ten years; Heidi had even owned and operated her own restaurant, Elizabeth’s, before joining Nola.

Before I arrived at Saylors Crossroads, I thought I would order Carolina shrimp gravy and grits ($10.00) but instead was immediately attracted by the pimento cheese sandwich ($5.50) at a neighboring table and ordered one for myself; it is true regional tradition. My wife chose French toast stuffed with cream cheese and fresh strawberries ($8.00) — the best French toast that either of us has tasted. In addition, we also shared an order of praline bacon ($4.00), an excellent treat that provided an appealing contrast to our primary choices. However, most memorable was a plate of pig’s tail (not routinely on the menu) that we shared with a trio also attending the Potlikker Film Festival, which Southern Foodways Alliance conducts around the South (that weekend Greenville was the venue). Although we wanted to try one of Joe’s special homemade desserts (pies and cakes), we couldn't eat more so we compensated by taking home a copy of Heidi and Joe’s cookbook.

With a rooster on the corner at Saylors Crossroads, Grits & Groceries, which offers heaping servings of “real food, done real good” (Heidi’s slogan also still used by Elizabeth’s), is hard to miss (when you’re on the right road). If you do head that way, arrive at least before 2 p.m., when they close — and before you travel, check out the directions on their website that might cut 45 minutes out of your driving time.

Tasting Cajun Life

To learn about the foodways of a culture or region, how would you do it? Nothing beats making a personal trip and tasting well-known examples, enjoying meals of typical dishes, visiting locations where food is grown or raised, and talking to local experts.

To learn more about Cajun food and its relevance to Southern culture, I joined a field trip conducted by the Southern Foodways Alliance to Louisiana. To contrast urban and rural experiences, the trip focused on New Orleans as well as Acadian towns, principally Eunice (the prairie Cajun capital of Louisiana), where the Arcadian Cultural Center depicts Arcadian migration and culture, including foodways.

Cajun cuisine is a cooking style of French-speaking refuges exiled by the British from Canada who settled in Louisiana. They adapted local ingredients (such as game meats, rice and crawfish) to rural French cooking and were also influenced by Native American, Caribbean, and other European cooking styles.

The trip was helpful to understand how simple Cajun food preparation is and learn more about unique cooking methods such as smothering (cooking a vegetable or meat in its own juices), sometimes known as étouffée, and the importance of other methods such as boiling (for example, crawfish). The visit also helped to appreciate more the importance of rice (the second largest agricultural export of Louisiana) and sugarcane in Cajun cooking.

Typical Dishes

Classic Cajun dishes include:

• Jambalaya, a dish that contains rice, meat (such as chicken), seafood (such as shrimp), and vegetables (green peppers, onions, celery and chili peppers);


• Gumbo, a soup that takes its name from a word brought from western Africa that means okra, which is used as a thickening agent and is a principal ingredient.

In addition to jambalaya and gumbo, I was also able to enjoy and learn more about:

• Boudin, fresh sausage that is widely available and made fresh daily (becuase it doesn’t keep well for very long) with pork, rice, green onions, and spices and stuffed in a natural casing;


• Cracklin, fried pieces of pork fat with a small amount of attached skin, flavored after frying with peppery Cajun spices;


• Andouille, a spicy smoked sausage characterized by a coarse texture;


• Beignet, a French-style doughnut, that is fried dough covered with powered sugar. In the French Quarter of New Orleans, beignets are square and usually served in orders of three.

Memorable Meals

Several meal experiences were memorable. Each meal gave a particularly insight into Cajun food and together made the trip truly representative of Cajun foodways.

• Dinner at Calcasieu in New Orleans with chef Stephen Stryjewski (2011 James Beard Award Winner for Best Chef: South). Boudin and crawfish pie were appetizers; Louisiana chicken and sausage gumbo soup followed as the next course; entrees (all served family style) were catfish courtboullion, onion smothered pork, shrimp and eggplant dressing, and smothered greens. Pecan pie with praline ice cream and whiskey sauce was dessert.


• Crawfish feed at Hawk’s opened by Anthony Arceneaux, who has a reputation for serving the biggest, sweetest, and best seasoned crawfish. Established in 1983 near Rayne, La., Hawk’s proclaims to be in the middle of nowhere (it is because field trip members were not trusted to find it on their own by car and had to ride a bus).


• Smothered lunch at Le Village, a Cajun country retreat in Eunice, La., that featured smothered rabbit, smothered okra, smothered cabbage, and rice smothered in gravy.


• Lunch of boudin at the Mowata Store in Mowata, La., where owner Bubba Frey makes up to 400 pounds daily.


• Breakfast of boudin, sugarcane syrup, and biscuits prepared by The French Press of Lafayette, La.


• Rice dressing supper in Eunice, La. at Ruby’s Cafe, which has been preparing plate lunches since the 1950s, that also included pork loin stuffed with local sausage, coleslaw, okra, and bread pudding.

Rice and Crawfish Fields

Side trips to locations where food is grown or processed added to the understanding of Cajun cuisine:

• Rice fields and production of Cajun Grain in Kinder, La., owned by Kurt Unkel, who plants, grows, and mills brown jasmine rice that is a mixture of jasmine and wild red rice.


• Crawfish fields and operations of Craig and Troy West Crawfish in Mamou, La., who run one of the oldest commercial crawfish businesses in the state and supply clients from the Southwest to New York City.

Local Experts

Discussions with regional food experts helped to explain Cajun foodways so that the programs were more than just tasting events:

• Paul Prudhomme, owner of K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, a restaurant where I had a bowl of chicken gumbo for lunch, described the challenges of bringing rural flavors and cooking styles into a big city.


• Jim Gossen, founder of Louisiana Foods (a leading crawfish wholesaler), explained how crawfish came to be farmed rather than fished.


• Donald Link (also a James Beard award-winning chef), a descendant of Germans of Acadiana, described Cajun food as “the self-sufficient food of people who live in the country and eat what they can take from the land.” (Link is also co-owner of the restaurant Cochon and in-house boucherie with Chef Stryjewski.)


• Bubba Frey explained why his boudin is so popular: He leaves out internal organs and uses very little grease. At the Prairie Acadian Cultural Center Kitchen in Eunice, he also demonstrated how cracklin is made.


• Pableaux Johnson, writer and photographer, discussed the art and practice of smothering.

Tasting Cajun food (while also learning about Cajun history and listening to Cajun music) in Louisiana gives anyone a better understanding and appreciation of the importance of Cajun culture in the American South.


Note: Click here to see pictures taken during the Louisiana field trip.

Making the South Flavorful Throughout the Year

Looking for a flavorful treat that has excellent regional flavors and connections? Although the pecan pie is an excellent Southern desert, particularly during the fall, many homes entertain guests with a “nutty” fruitcake at the end of the year, especially at Christmas. No fruitcake in the United States has gained more attention that the one made in central North Carolina by the Scott family at its Southern Supreme business.

Although begun very humbly in 1985 in the Scotts’ garage, Southern Supreme has become an international gourmet food company. As a result, it has expanded into a modern building with four kitchens and a retail sales room. Sales have grown to more than 200,000 pounds of fruitcake annually. However, the business still retains its family-oriented practices that emphasize quality and value. (Its emphasis on customer service is best illustrated by its record with Better Business Bureau, which gives its highest rating of A+ to Southern Supreme and has no complaints to report.)

Bear Creek, an unincorporated community (zip code 27207) where Southern Supreme is located, is just as traditionally Southern as its products. With only 4,100 residents in 1,625 households in 81 square miles (a population density of 51 people per square mile), neighbors don’t see each other too frequently, except at church -- or at Southern Supreme when they work there part-time. Several dozen residents are hired near the end of the year to meet the seasonal demand for fruitcakes and other specialties. In fact, family members of several students in my college classes have worked part-time there.

For more than 25 years, Southern Supreme has sold its fruitcake and other specialties by mail order as well as from the retail store in the farmland of southwestern Chatham County. Before October, Southern Supreme operates primarily as a mail order business, although the retail store remains open year round.

When is the best time to visit? For most it is mid-October when the Scotts have their annual open house. Despite the isolated location of its retail store, more than 10,000 people visit during the four-day event that starts usually on the second Thursday. After the open house, the store remains a fashionable destination and is so popular that some cities and counties, such as Carrboro Recreation and Parks and Fayetteville-Cumberland Parks and Recreation, offer tours before Christmas.

Although I’ve been to an open house, I dropped in on a rainy Saturday a month early when the store was uncrowded and I didn’t have to stand in line to sample the goodies. I enjoyed being able to taste samples at my leisure, linger at the photo display of days ago and read more information about fruitcakes and Southern Supreme than the average person should know:

• 2,100 calories in one pound of fruitcake


• 21 servings in one pound of fruitcake


• 1,800 eggs cracked in a day


• 2,800 pounds of fruitcake made in a day


• 8 Scott family members who own and operate the shop


• 100 employees during peak season


• 2,400 packages sent out on the first day of a week

However, I missed seeing the store decorated in its finest holiday attire as it is for the open house and I wasn’t able to view cooking stations that are set up to show how cookies, cakes, and other goodies are created. In addition, I missed the picturesque foliage in October when many visitors select the Devil’s Stomping Ground Scenic Byway (NC 902) to travel to Bear Creek from Pittsboro, the county seat to the northeast, or the small towns of Seagrove and Robbins to the southwest. To enjoy the seasonal experience, I might have to return during an open house and be part of the excitement with the crowd again.

Southern Supreme takes advantage of being in the South to use ingredients with wonderful flavors connected to Southern culture in not only fruitcakes but other favorites as well:

• Fruitcakes with regional fruits and native pecans are especially Southern (although fruitcakes are as old as the Romans). Fruitcakes date to the colonial period when European settlers brought traditions of having made them in their home countries.


• Nut specialties feature regional favorites, such as the pecan that is native to the American South and the peanut that has a long tradition in the South. Both are featured prominently in nut boxes, bags, and candies.


• Jams, jellies, and marmalades are also beloved Southern choices, particularly those made with strawberries, blackberries and peaches grown in the South.


• Relishes made using old family recipes depend on garden tomatoes and bell peppers of the South that have been enhanced with mixed spices.

Although fruitcake will always be its claim to fame, Southern Supreme has many regional delights than Southerners enjoy. Rather than struggle with an Internet search for find something generic for the holidays, take a fall trip to Bear Creek where the Scotts’ store still beckons to past guests as well as first-time visitors. The Southern connections to traditional flavors are appreciated not only at the end of the year but also throughout the year.