Just a head's up, y'all: I'll be taking a short break from the state-by-state posts, and the blog in general, for about two weeks to help my mother recover from surgery. She'll be fine, but needs some extra attention right now. Tennessee posts will be up on a Sunday in early to mid September, and Texas posts will follow. In the meantime, I will be running some favorite posts from the past once every few days, and I'm hoping to get a Baltimore Restaurant Week post up in early August.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Oh it's on again.....
Bawlmer Restaurant Week, hons. Going on until August 5! And yes, some restaurants are offering $20 dinners while others offer theirs for $30 (I like this flexibility). Lunches at some places for only $15. Go out. Eat.
Snacking State-by-State: South Dakota II - If you can't stand the cake, get into the kuchen
South Dakota is one of the few states with its own official state dessert, cake. Or should I say kuchen, which is German for "cake". With its large German American population, South Dakota's specifically German cake should be of little surprise as an official dessert.
State Nickname: The Mount Rushmore State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#40)
Capital: Pierre (8th largest)
Other Important Cities: Sioux Falls (largest), Rapid City (2nd largest), Aberdeen (3rd largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: North Dakota (north), Minnesota (east), Nebraska (south), Wyoming & Montana (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: fry bread (bread), honey bee (insect, for the honey), kuchen (dessert), milk (drink), ring-necked pheasant (bird), walleye (fish), Western wheat grass (grass, though I imagine few people drink the wheat grass concoctions popular with health nuts elsewhere in the country),
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American foods, especially those of the Great Plains (wojapi, fry bread, Bannock bread, and so on, as well as traditional foods such as pemmican and wahuwapa wasna); German and Eastern European foods, including kuchen & chislic
South Dakota officially made kuchen the official state dessert in 2000, after a hard fought (okay, maybe not that hard, but quite delicious) struggle the previous legislative session. In his article "Cookin' Kuchen", Trevor Guthmiller - as referenced by the North Dakota State University Library's "Germans from Russia Heritage Collection" - points out that kuchen was an important part of South Dakota culture long before that.
German immigrants brought kuchen to South Dakota in the 1880s. Homesteaders often brought very little with them besides their clothes, basic tools, self- sufficiency and a determination to face the challenges that a rough and unsettled South Dakota threw at them...Many came directly from Germany, others most recently from Russia. Their hard work and agricultural prowess turned McPherson County [where many settled] into one of the largest wheat- producing areas in the country...
To understand why kuchen is such a staple in McPherson County, you must understand the heritage of the people who live there. In 1990, 2,758 residents [the single largest ethnic group in the county] listed their primary ancestry as German... Eureka holds a Schmeckfest every fall, and Leola celebrates Rhubarb Day every other July, and kuchen is prominently featured in those events. There aren’t many lutefisk feeds in this part of the state; it’s a kuchen- eatin’ crowd if there ever was one. [Guthmiller 2004]There are many different varieties of kuchen: those based on fruits, on cottage cheese, on cream cheese, on a streussel-type filling, and so on. So it must have been a difficult choice to pick one to be the state's official dessert. The one that was put in place: the apple and cream cheese kuchen. The South Dakota state government [South Dakota Secretary of State Office 2007: 14] even prints the complete "official state recipe" in a government publication. Good luck getting them to do that in Annapolis for Smith Island cake.
The recipe I interpret below is the official kuchen recipe of the state of South Dakota, on page 14 of the 2007 South Dakota Legislative Manual. Since this is a government publication, I could copy and quote the recipe word for word, but you can look it up yourself.
The Recipe: Kuchen
+ingredients.jpg)
For the official South Dakota kuchen recipe assemble the following:
For the crust, you will need:
* regular flour (have it)
* sugar (same)
* salt (yup, have that, too)
* vanilla (got it)
* butter (this I would have had, were it not for that wretched derecho that knocked out power in my neighborhood - and many neighborhoods throughout the Mid-Atlantic - for at least five whole days. Another $2 for some new butter. This should be cold but it worked fine at room temperature for me),
For the cream cheese filling that goes on top of the crust, you will need:
* more vanilla and sugar
* cream cheese (a pound, or two blocks, each about $2 at Harris Teeter)
* an egg (at room temperature - this also had to be replaced thanks to that damn storm)
And for the apple topping, you will also need
* still more sugar
* cinnamon (had it)
* and, of course, apples (I got three Granny Smiths for about $2 total)
.jpg)
Mix together the dry ingredients for your crust. Use a mixer or just a spoon.
.jpg)
Cut in the butter and add the vanilla.
.jpg)
And press the dough into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan. Put in a preheated 450°F oven for about 15 minutes. When done, take out and cool it down, also reducing your oven to 400°F.
.jpg)
While the crust is baking, peel, core and thinly slice your apples and set aside.
.jpg)
Mix together your filling ingredients, apart from the egg, again with a mixer or a spoon.
.jpg)
Add the egg...
.jpg)
...and mix thoroughly.
.jpg)
Pour the filling over the baked crust and spread out evenly.
.jpg)
Next, mix together your sugar and cinnamon.
.jpg)
Arrange the apple slices over the filling as tightly as possible. Although I cut up three apples, I could barely fit half of the slices on top.
.jpg)
Cover with the cinnamon and sugar, and bake for 20 minutes.
+plated.jpg)
With as many components as this recipe has, it is easier than it seems. It's best served cold I find, and easier to cut for that matter. The apples are still a little crunchy and the cream cheese is a nice, sweet complement to them. Now just imagine all the other recipes for kuchen I could have done!
- - - - -
Now we're done with South Dakota, and it's time to head southward to the home of of bluegrass, Memphis BBQ and the one and only Miss Dolly Parton! We are ringing the bell(e)s of Tennessee next week!
Sources:
Johnson, Laura. "Viborg's Pancake Balls". South Dakota Magazine.com. Posted June 21, 2012. Copyright 2012 South Dakota Magazine. All rights reserved.
Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "South Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "South Dakota".
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Snacking State-by-State: South Dakota I - Chislic-in' Good!
Just as I saw with North Dakota a few months back, South Dakota is a state whose foods are based in Germany, Eastern Europe and the Sioux and other Upper Great Plains peoples. The next few recipes will bear that out. And in a nice contrast to South Carolina's very complex recipes for Lady Baltimore cake and shrimp and grits, one of the most popular state-specific foods of South Dakota is chunks of fried beef on toothpicks.
Wow, that's hard to make.
State Nickname: The Mount Rushmore State
Admission to the US: November 2, 1889 (#40)
Capital: Pierre (8th largest)
Other Important Cities: Sioux Falls (largest), Rapid City (2nd largest), Aberdeen (3rd largest)
Region: Midwest, Great Plains; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison; Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: North Dakota (north), Minnesota (east), Nebraska (south), Wyoming & Montana (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: fry bread (bread), honey bee (insect, for the honey), kuchen (dessert), milk (drink), ring-necked pheasant (bird), walleye (fish), Western wheat grass (grass, though I imagine few people drink the wheat grass concoctions popular with health nuts elsewhere in the country),
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American foods, especially those of the Great Plains (wojapi, fry bread, Bannock bread, and so on, as well as traditional foods such as pemmican and wahuwapa wasna); German and Eastern European foods, including kuchen & chislic
The cuisine of South Dakota - as opposed to its northern neighbor - is quite unknown to the rest of us. It's even conspicuously absent from Roadfoodies Jane & Michael Stern's 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late, that otherwise comprehensive compendium of anything to eat in the lower 48. Had they ventured anywhere in the state they might have found such delicacies as these (see South Dakota Magazine's blog post "What We Eat. How We Eat. Who We Are." for more):
* German, Danish and Eastern European foods, like Danish pancake balls known as æbleskiver (again: South Dakota Magazine has a feature on them - these intrigue me, but I would need to shell out the big euros for a special pan just to make them, so no æbleskiver).
* The most notable of the German dishes is the state dessert kuchen, that German cake recipe for which there are many variations: apple, peach, blackberry, cream cheese, custard and so forth.
* traditional and modern foods of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Sioux, and other Native American peoples of the state. Note for example the delicious wojapi, that berry pudding that I tried to make back when I examined Nebraska, or bannock bread, basically an oven-baked (and therefore somewhat healthier) version of fry bread.
* walleye, the state fish
* milk - because South Dakota, like so many other states, wanted something exciting for its state beverage (to be fair, many states - including my own - don't even have a state beverage. No, hons, it ain't Natty Boh.)
* steak, because South Dakota is a beef state.
* corn, because South Dakota is also a corn state
* chislic, because South Dakota is...er... Okay I'll bite, what the hell is that?
Simply put, chislic is cubed beef or mutton, sometimes breaded, sometimes seasoned, always fried and skishkebab'd or served on toothpicks. It looks like a pretty simple dish to make. According to Rich Preheim writing for - once more! - South Dakota Magazine, chislic was introduced by Russian immigrant John Hoellwarth. A century later, it is an extremely popular and even important part of life in the southeastern corner of the state.
However it’s prepared, chislic sells. Papa’s Restaurant in Freeman serves up to 3,000 chislic sticks a week. Rachel Svartoein, whose grandfather sold chislic at a corner store south of Freeman for many years, provided 1,200 sticks for her high school graduation reception. At Marion’s 125th anniversary, the Jaycees sold 4,000 sticks on the first night. The chislic stand at the Turner County Fair in Parker sold 40,000 in 2004.
Chislic is simply an unquestioned thread in certain community fabrics; yet it remains a mystery meal, its origins unsure. Even theories and myths are difficult to find. “I know there are sheep in other places, so why chislic is popular here and not there, I don’t know,” said Papa’s co-owner Susan Letcher. [Preheim 2005]That's right: chislic is almost as unheard of in the rest of South Dakota as it is in the rest of the country. But it's a pretty simple dish to make, and shouldn't it be better known in the US? I mean, what's more American than fried meat on a stick?
The Recipe: Chislic
Since it's such a simple dish to make, there is much room for variation. Cheri McSpaden [2008] of the Holland Sentinel seeks out various chislic recipes that include anything from a garlic and soy sauce marinade to a Worcestershire sauce marinade, each of which sounds awesome. But this even simpler recipe from Tasty Kitchen user "globetrotter" [2011] just fries up meat - "lamb, beef, venison, goose—any game meat, really" as he or she says - and sprinkles it with garlic salt or Lawry's seasoning. I decided to mix and match these various ideas for the chislic recipe below.
+ingredients.jpg)
* beef chunks (in this case, Angus top sirloin "fondue style" beef chunks, $8 per lb. I got about 7/10 lb for around $5.60. This is probably smaller than the meat chunks they would use for chislic in South Dakota, but hey it works for me)
* oil for frying (still getting lots of good use out of that big jug o' rice bran oil)
* garlic powder (since I have no garlic salt on hand; Lawry's is also used frequently)
* toothpicks (yes, my seemingly unending font of rainbow toothpicks that I stick into the little flags is coming in handy for actual eating - these will be your utensils).
I zhuzh'd it up, as I was inspired to do from the Holland Sentinel piece, with some soy and Worcestershire sauces for an impromptu marinade
.jpg)
If your beef is not already conveniently pre-chunked, go ahead and cut it into cubes now. When ready, marinade it in the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, if you're inspired to do so (or for what I gather is the "authentic" way to do this, skip this part entirely). Let it marinade for half an hour.
.jpg)
Heat your oil to deep frying temperature, and get ready to drop the beef chunks in (some preparations call for dredging the beef in flour but I figured short and simple would be nice for a change).
.jpg)
Fry those beef chunks up. Bigger chunks will take about three minutes; these smaller, fondue-sized ones only took about one and a half.
.jpg)
Drain on a paper towel.
.jpg)
Sprinkle with garlic powder, garlic salt or Lawry's seasoning.
.jpg)
Or hell, any old thing. That shaker of adobo seasoning is just itchin' to get used. Maybe I should have tried it with Old Bay for that matter, which is probably unheard of in chislic country.
+plated.jpg)
This is perhaps one of the easiest things I have made for this State by State project, apart from that sweet tea from one of my Florida posts. So I am surprised that this isn't more common, since when you think about it this is - again - about as American a snack food as I can think of: chunks of meat, fried. That's it. And it is an addictive little snack food. Even when just opening the fridge looking for something else I might snag one or two of these little things to eat. Quick, fattening burst of energy. And with all the different seasonings out there, you really can experiment with different flavors.
Sources:
Johnson, Laura. "Viborg's Pancake Balls". South Dakota Magazine.com. Posted June 21, 2012. Copyright 2012 South Dakota Magazine. All rights reserved.
Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "South Dakota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "South Dakota".
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Snacking State-by-State: South Carolina III - Good Morning, Baltimore, er, Charleston?
In one of the most well-worn cookbooks on my bookshelf, John Shields lists many of the desserts you will find in the Chesapeake, from Hot Milk Cake to Chess Pie. And there's one glaring addition to Chesapeake Bay Cooking [1998] that should catch the eye of anyone living within five miles of Fort McHenry: the Lady Baltimore Cake itself.
State Nicknames: The Palmetto State
Admission to the US: May 23, 1788 (#8)
Capital: Columbia (largest)
Other Important Cities: Charleston (2nd largest), North Charleston (3rd largest), Greenville (6th largest)
Region: South, Southeast, Lowcountry; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chestnut; Crabcake
Bordered by: North Carolina (north), Georgia (southwest), Atlantic Ocean (southeast)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: boiled peanuts (snack food), collard greens (vegetable), grits (food - okay, this is unofficial), milk (beverage), peach (fruit), rockfish / striped bass (fish), summer / wood duck (duck), white-tailed deer (animal), wild turkey (wild game bird)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Southern foods, particularly Lowcountry foods in the southern / eastern half of the state (especially purloo, Gullah cuisine); seafood (shrimp, crabs, typically boiled or in soups); Lady Baltimore cake; different types of barbecue, including its unique mustard barbecue (between Columbia and Charleston)
Shields notes that Lady Baltimore Cake is
...famous throughout the South...[and] is said to have originated as a centerpiece for afternoon teas in the late 1800's. The ladies I've spoken to lately don't hold many teas, but they swear by this cake for first communions, bridal showers, and your more "upper crust" Tupperware parties. [Shields 1998:238]While I admire Shields for trying to claim Lady Baltimore cake for the home team, and wished he were successful at it, the thing is: it isn't a Baltimore tradition. In fact, I have never seen it served in Baltimore at all (maybe other parts of Maryland, but not here). There's a simple explanation for this: Lady Baltimore cake comes from Charleston, South Carolina. James Villas, author of The Glory of Southern Cooking, says the following about this almond-y cake with the meringue frosting and fruity filling:
What is for sure is that [Lady Baltimore cake] is in no way connected with the city of Baltimore but, rather, with Owen Wister's 1906 romantic novel Lady Baltimore, in which the cake is described. In reality, the luscious cake was most probably created in Charleston, South Carolina, by Alicia Rhett Mayberry around the turn of the twentieth century and not named till after Wister's novel was published. Some, on the other hand, believe it could have originated in a Charleston tearoom of the time called Lady Baltimore. Whatever its origins, the cake's fame spread quickly throughout the South, and today the versions are multiple. [Villas 2007: 352; link added by me]James Villas has more than a few recipes from Maryland in this cookbook, but his Lady Baltimore cake is not one of them. Simply put: it ain't from Bawlmer, hon. But don't you wish it was?
Out of the various recipes I found, including John Shields' and a fairly complicated one from Matt & Ted Lee in their cookbook The Lee Bros. Southern Cooking, I stuck with Villas' version, featured on pages 352 and 353 of his cookbook. It's less complicated but still will take a while. And you will need both a stand mixer and a hand mixer - or failing that, a hand mixer and a lot of patience.
The Recipe: Lady Baltimore Cake
For Villas' interpretation of Lady Baltimore cake you will need:
+ingredients.jpg)
First, the recipe for the actual cake part of the cake:
* butter (had it - about a stick and a half)
* sugar (had it)
* vanilla and almond extracts (had 'em both)
* cake (or soft) flour (White Lily worked well with this)
* baking powder (had this too)
* milk (and this)
* egg whites (I needed to buy extra eggs for this, and I'm glad I did after that little accident with the egg yolks getting into the egg whites)
For the icing, a double boiler, Divinity-style icing:
* more egg whites
* water
* sugar
* cream of tartar
* vanilla and almond extracts
* figs (the recipe calls for seedless. I did not get these. I bought a dollar's worth of figs in the bulk foods section at Wegman's - typically $6 a pound)
* pecans (it's so nice to find this stuff in bulk - $1.50 for bulk pecans at Wegman's, typically $19 per lb but I didn't need a whole pound of them)
* golden raisins (again, bulk, Wegman's: about 50¢ for the quantity I bought, $3.30 per lb.)
.jpg)
Start by buttering ypour cake pans - I had two 8" pans, though Villas suggests 9" ones.
.jpg)
With your stand mixer, not your hand mixer, cream the butter and some of the sugar together (exact measurements in Villas' recipe).
.jpg)
Next add the vanilla and almond extracts and continue to blend.
.jpg)
Next, alternate by adding sifted cake flour and baking soda...
.jpg)
...and milk.
.jpg)
Mix until smooth and set aside. If you only have one bowl with your stand mixer, scrape out the batter into a bowl and clean it out so you can whip your...
.jpg)
...egg whites! You will need four.
.jpg)
Mix those egg whites (the highest setting on mine was what I needed to use) until stiff peaks form.
.jpg)
Add sugar and continue to mix until smooth and shiny.
.jpg)
See? Stiff and shiny. Er...
.jpg)
Fold the sugary egg whites into the rest of the dough.
.jpg)
Divide the dough evenly into your cake pans...
.jpg)
...making sure to thump them on the bottom to get rid of gas bubbles.
.jpg)
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for about 40 minutes.
.jpg)
Now would be a good time to make that icing. Start with a double boiler - I went with one of the stand mixer bowls in a glass pot. Put the egg whites, water, sugar and cream of tartar.into the double boiler and...
.jpg)
...mix with your hand mixer on a fairly high setting (I alternated between the "icing" and "egg whites' settings) until it forms peaks, about five minutes. Do this while the water is simmering underneath.
.jpg)
Stir in your vanilla extract.
.jpg)
Chop your figs and pecans...
.jpg)
...and mix with a third of the icing.
.jpg)
This part ended up less like icing with fruit and nuts and more like fruit and nuts coated in icing.
.jpg)
Let's take those cakes out of the oven.
.jpg)
Turn them out onto a cooling rack.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Place the other cake on top, smoothing out any goopiness as needed.
.jpg)
Ice the top and sides with the fruit-free icing.
+plated.jpg)
How to describe this unusual, delicate and gorgeous cake? I can't. It is something for a special occasion, lush almond flavoring in the cake, the fruit and pecans jumping out in the middle, and light whipped Divinity frosting all over. Wow! Let's hear it for this Lady Baltimore!
- - - - -
Next, we're heading northwestward from the Lowcountry to the Black Hills. And it's safe to say that most of the foods of South Dakota are more or less unknown, well, anywhere outside of South Dakota.
Sources:
Villas, James. The Glory of Southern Cooking. John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, 2007.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
