State-by-State Redux: VI of X - African-American Cuisine Revisited - From Dr. George Washington Carver's recipe collection to yours

Dr. George Washington Carver is best known to America's schoolchildren as the inventor of scores of peanut products for home and hearth.  That's where most school curricula stop.  It must be known, however, that Carver was a maestro of much more, and was one of America's leading botanists and agriculture scientists of his time.  In her book The African American Heritage Cookbook [1996, 2005], Carolyn Quick Tillery explores many of Carver's historic recipes, generally a reflection of Southern cuisine, and specifically of African-American cuisine

Snacking State-by-State Redux VI of X: African-American Cuisine

What is it? Foods traditionally cooked by African-Americans in the South, often overlapping with the cuisine of the South in general.
Where did it come from? African-American cuisine (also known as "soul food" since the 1960's) is a combination of cooking techniques and ingredients (sorghum, okra, rice) brought from West Africa, plus ingredients from Europe, the Middle East and Native America.  Again, African-American cuisine shares many similarities with Southern cuisine in general.

As pointed out by food author Celia Barbour for O Magazine, African-American cuisine (or "soul food" as it was first called in the 1960's) is traditionally a cuisine of "[e]ating organically, sustainably [sic] and locally" [2010].  A culinary tradition that was grown out of resourcefulness, specifically in the South.  She first had the idea of it being excessively fattening and unhealthy.

Like most culinary traditions, African-American cooking was long a balance of wholesome and unwholesome elements. The good ones kept the bad ones in check, until this equilibrium was upset by the processed and fast food industries. In the past few decades, traditional dishes have been supersized and made with nontraditional ingredients, and meals that were formerly eaten only on special occasions have been marketed as everyday fare. (It was hard to gorge on fried chicken when you had to first catch, slaughter, gut, and pluck the obstinate bird; quite another matter when it came in a bucket for $6.99.) Processed foods also recalibrated taste buds: "normal" came to mean excessive amounts of fat, salt, and sugar. It was a toxic mix. [Barbour 2010]

The truth, as she found out, is somewhat different.

I leafed through a book called Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, by Frederick Douglass Opie, a professor of history at Marist College. I learned that for thousands of years, the traditional West African diet was predominantly vegetarian, centered on things like millet, rice, field peas, okra, hot peppers, and yams. Meat was used sparingly, as a seasoning. [Barbour 2010]

That includes, specifically, the many vegetables, nuts and fruits that African-Americans and others throughout the South grew wherever they could find room to grow it.  As for George Washington Carver, professor at Tuskegee Institute, he was an authority in growing these many varied crops: okra, snap peas, black-eyed peas, corn, collard greens and mustard greens, garlic, onions, etc., etc.

Carolyn Quick Tillery [1996, 2005] collects many of Carver's recipes for the modern chef and historian.  For more historical context, as she notes, so many African-American sharecroppers were forced to grow cotton and not food on the land outside their homes, being forced to buy whatever food they needed from the plantation's commissary at sky-high prices, keeping them poor and dependent upon them.

Upon his arrival [at Tuskegee], Washington observed that the common diet of sharecroppers was fat pork, corn bread, and, on occasion, molasses.  When they were without fat pork, sometimes their only food was the corn bread, served with black-eyed peas, cooked in plain water... Washington urged [the sharecroppers] to ask for a small plot of land on which to grow food and raise chickens.  [He] showed them how to maximize production of the plots or to live off "nature's bounty" where no plot could be obtained...  In addition to showing subsistence farmers methods of increasing their yield, Carver, an accomplished cook, shared recipes and preservation methods with their wives, and as a result, the women began to participate as well. [Tillery 1996, 2005: x-xi]

As Tillery found out while researching her book, she found that "the first Tuskegee students grew their own vegetables" [Tillery 1996, 2005: 124].  George Washington Carver himself noted in his Up With Slavery his relationship to agriculture:

When I can leave my office in time so that I can spend thirty or forty minutes in spading the ground, in planting seeds, in digging about the plants, I feel that I am coming into contact with something that is giving me strength for the many duties and hard places that await me out in the big world.  I pity the man or woman who has never learned to enjoy nature and get strength and inspiration out of it. [Washington Carver, quoted in Tillery 1996, 2005: 125]

I've tried to fancy up most of these last ten recipes in this State-by-State series, but this time I'm keeping leaving it un-zhuzh'd, so to speak, and doing Carver's recipe straight up.  You can find the following recipe for collards and cornmeal dumplings (with exact measurements) on page 127 of Tillery's African-American Heritage Cookbook.

The Recipe: Dr. Carver's Collard Greens with Cornmeal Dumplings

* collard greens (Duh.  I was in Whole Foods when I bought these.  Since George Washington Carver's foods would have been, by default, "organic" by modern standards, I went ahead and bought as much, $3 per bunch for two bunches.  Had I bothered to go to the farmers' market first, I would have found the same ones for about $2 a bundle.  Wah waah.)
* ham hock (the recipe says you can also use a turkey wing.  One package was about $6 at Giant)
* onion (just one, about half a dollar)
* dried chile pepper flakes (had one laying around)
* jalapeño (a few cents for just one)
* garlic powder (had garlic salt, which meant I didn't need to use actual salt.  But I did use...)
* seasoned salt (or in this case, Old Bay.  I rarely miss an opportunity to use this for something)
* sugar (had it)
* pepper (same)
* bacon (had that too)

Start by sautéing your bacon in a heavy bottomed pot or Dutch oven.

Meanwhile, wash your collard greens and chop up.  I took my kitchen shears and minced them up in their bowl.

After chopping your onion and chile, sauté them with your bacon.

Then throw in a ham hock and fill the pot with water until the ham hock is about covered.

Bring the water to a boil...

...covering it with the lid for half an hour.

Then add your collard greens and any other ingredients.

Continue to cook them for at least an hour.

Dr. Carver also added cornmeal dumplings to his collard greens.  To do this, gather the following (I actually had all of these laying around, except for the milk, about $1.30):

* corn meal
* eggs
* milk
* bacon grease
* flour
* baking powder

Mix the dry ingredients together...

And add the eggs and milk.

Stir until lumpy.

When the collard greens are almost done, drop by large spoonfuls into the boiling collard green liquid, and cover for five minutes...

...like so.

Already nice and dumpling-y.

I don't eat collard greens often.  This is a recipe I should be making more of.  The collard greens burst with so many different flavors, from the greens themselves to the bacon and ham hocks.  This with the delicate, salty dumplings make this a meal in and of itself.  You don't need anything else with this.  It is its own meal.

- - - - -

Dr. Carver's collards are part and parcel a quintessential example of both African American cuisine and Southern cuisine.  Again the two are intertwined.  And next week we examine the South some more with another dish that I grew up eating, done up a way that I never ate it.

Sources:

Barbour, Celia.  "The Origin of Soul Food". O Magazine, July 2010.  All rights reserved.

Tillery, Carolyn Quick.  The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes and Fond Remembrances From Alabama's Renowned Tuskegee Institute.  Citadel Press: New York, 1996.  First paperback edition 2005.

Some information also obtained from the George Washington Carver Wikipedia page and from the Food Timeline State Foods webpage.

South Carolina is the next stop on our culinary tour of the United States.  This state is known for everything from mustard barbecue sauce (not all over the state, but it is unique to the Palmetto State) to boiled peanuts to its Lowcountry boils and other dishes.  Many of those Lowcountry dishes come specifically from the Gullah people.

Official Name: State of South Carolina
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)

South Carolina and coastal Georgia are Lowcountry.  This cuisine, as Ramsey Prather at Coastal Living Magazine (date unknown) points out, is heavy on rice, grits and seafood:

The Lowcountry teems with aquatic life, and for centuries local cooks have turned to the water for culinary inspiration. Crabs, shrimp, fish, and oysters form the basis of any traditional menu, and seafood dishes are offered at every meal. [Prather, date unknown]

Shrimp and grits, she-crab soup (not Virginia's variety from the Chesapeake Bay), frogmore stew and so on are all typical dishes of the Lowcountry.  Many of these dishes are important to the Gullah, that very localized Lowcountry African American culture that anthropologist Joseph Opala, an expert on Gullah culture, points out have very strong ties to Sierra Leone (date unknown).  In fact, the important tie between the Gullah and Sierra Leone is one specific food that is vital to Lowcountry cuisine: rice.

During the 1700s the American colonists in South Carolina and Georgia discovered that rice would grow well in the moist, semitropical country bordering their coastline. But the American colonists had no experience with the cultivation of rice, and they needed African slaves who knew how to plant, harvest, and process this difficult crop. The white plantation owners purchased slaves from various parts of Africa, but they greatly preferred slaves from what they called the "Rice Coast" or "Windward Coast"—the traditional rice-growing region of West Africa, stretching from Senegal down to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The plantation owners were willing to pay higher prices for slaves from this area, and Africans from the Rice Coast were almost certainly the largest group of slaves imported into South Carolina and Georgia during the 18th century. [Opala, 1986]

It is these enslaved West Africans that are the direct ancestors of the modern-day Gullah people, and the recipes I am interpreting for South Carolina are all familiar to them.

The first dish is indeed one of those rice dishes, one that exemplifies the importance of rice to the Lowcounrty.  The ancestors of the Gullah brought their ideas about how to cook rice with them, and one of the most important ones was what modern cooks call purloo.  Apparently nobody agrees on exactly how to pronounce it, even in South Carolina - pur-LOWE, pur-LAO, PUR-lowe, pur-LEW?  That's just a smattering of the many different ways to pronounce it: Joseph E. Dabney (2010:150) enumerates about sixteen that Lowcountry cooks have used in the past.  From what Dabney notes in his cookbook The Food, Folklore and Art of Lowcountry Cooking (2010), even though it came to America from West Africa, purloo is not native to Africa:

...the word and the dish are said to have originated in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran).  In subsequent centuries, the dish's popularity spread in all directions and accumulated many different name tags, such as pilaf in Turkey, pullao in India, and pelau in Provence, France [Dabney 2010:150]

That is, over time it worked its way from Persia through the Middle East into West Africa, and across the Middle Passage into the Americas.

One common feature of purloo, apart from the rice, is that it usually features meat or seafood as a main component of the dish.  Chicken, shrimp, oyster, crab, ham and even duck and sausage purloos abound in Lowcountry cookbooks.  But you do often see vegetable ones too.  The one I use below is from pages 156 and 157 of Dabney's book, which he adapts from Lillian Marshall's cookbook Cooking Across the South, and features okra.  Okay, okra and bacon.  Even though he calls it "Savannah Okra Pilau" - as in Savannah, Georgia - this is for all intents and purposes a purloo.  And is it that difficult to believe that something they'd be making in Savannah wouldn't have crossed the river into Charleston?  Seriously?

The Recipe: Savannah Okra Purloo (Pilau?)

To make this okra purloo, on pages 156-157 of Dabney's book, you will need:

* rice (a smallish bag is all I needed - about a dollar at Wegman's)
* okra (a package of the fresh stuff ran about $2.75 at Wegman's.  Typically I would've just bought frozen pre-sliced okra and saved myself the trouble, but the recipe calls for thinly sliced okra, and the frozen stuff is never thinly sliced)
* bacon (a few slices; the local variety set me back about $3.50 at Giant)
* onion (one is all you need - about 60¢)
* green bell pepper ($2 on sale, or about $1 for the one)
* chicken broth or bouillon (or this Better Than Bouillon stuff which seems to work)
* tomatoes (if not the goopy fresh kind you find in the supermarket, go with canned.  A can cost no more than a dollar)

You will also need a dash of salt, which I forgot to put in the photo.

First you ought to defuzz the okra.  Any of you who has dealt with fresh okra has learned this is not fun: the little hairs can sometimes bristle and stick in your skin and be a real pain.  What some websites suggest is to wash the okra, and then take a nylon net or brush or even a paper towel and scrub the hairs off as best you can.

There really is no other way to photograph this, is there?

Next, slice your okra pods thinly.

Cube your bacon and add it to a heavy skillet or Dutch oven with your okra.

Add the other vegetables...

...and your tomatoes, chicken broth and (of course) your rice.

Cover and let cook without uncovering for 15 minutes.

STOP! Do NOT lift that lid!  Since I have no lid for my cast-iron skillet, I used the lid for my crab pot like I did for the Maryland fried chicken recipe.

Uncover and fluff with a fork.  I found that in my cast iron skillet nothing burned to the bottom of the pan, as it usually does in my large pot to which everything burns.  That pot is now basically good only for boiling water and making soup.  Oh well.

This is a relatively easy rice dish to make.  The rice came out tender and the sliminess of the okra was hardly noticeable at all.  Plus, the bacon and rendered bacon grease give a nice flavor.  This was an all-around satisfying dish.  I will make this again - but next time I';m just doing the pre-frozen okra.

Sources:

Food Network.  "True Grits".  Episode of the show Good Eats (Alton Brown, host). Food Network, 2004.

Dabney, Joseph.  The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking: A Celebration of the Foods, History, and Romance Handed Down from England, Africa, the Caribbean, France, Germany, and Scotland.  Cumberland House: Naperville, Illinois, 2010.
DiRuscio, Mike.  "Transcription of Good Eats: True Grits".  Good Eats Fan Page (GoodEatsFanPage.com), 2004.  Includes correspondence between DiRuscio and Alton Brown about the episode.

Lee, Matt, and Ted Lee. The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners.   W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2006.

Opala, Joseph A.  "Introduction to The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection".  The Gullah: Rice, Slavery, and the Sierra Leone-American Connection, online version of the pamphlet, United States Information Service: Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1986.  Online access available through the Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University.
Prather, Ramsey.  "Lowcountry Cuisine: South Carolina's coast is home to one of the country's richest culinary traditions."  Coastal Living Magazine.com (CoastalLiving.com).  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 Time Inc. Lifestyle Group. All Rights Reserved.
Shields, John.  Chesapeake Bay Cooking.  Broadway Books: New York, 1998.

Villas, James.  The Glory of Southern Cooking.  John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, 2007.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "South Carolina" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "South Carolina.

Tidbits: Early June Edition

A few items that have been waiting:

* While I wrote the other week about my food truck experience in LA, I never got around to my experience the week before in DC with their food trucks (I did send out Twitter posts about them though). I was specifically seeking the fabled Red Hook Lobster Truck (Twitter: @lobstertruckdc), parked that Wednesday at L'Enfant Plaza metro along with several other food trucks. It sells - what else - lobster rolls. Okay, it also has shrimp rolls, but they're known for the lobster. $15 for a lobster roll but this is absolutely worth it. They have two kinds: the Maine-style lobster roll, which is mayo-based, and the Connecticut-style roll, which is butter-based. I went with the Connecticut-style, and it was just wonderful. I could not stop little pieces of lobster from falling out of the roll, so I just ate those with my fingers - forgetting the obligatory fork, of course. They also have whoopie pies and New England lines of craft soft drinks.

Of course, I had to try the others, but how to do so with only $5 left? Get some small bites! The Fojol Bros (of Merlindia) (Twitter: @fojolbros) serve Indian plates, usually $7 or $8. Don't have that? Get one of their $2 "dingo bites" - sort of like a shot of one dish with rice. I got their silky butter chicken. After a free sample of jerk chicken from Goode's Mobile Kitchen (Twitter: @mobilekitchen), I got a massive side order of chickpeas for only $2 at the Tasty Kabob truck (Twitter: @tastykabob). I'm not kidding about the "massive" part either. This was easily as big as two lobster rolls, and as filling as two dozen of those dingo bites. If you have just two bucks, go to the Tasty Kabob truck, and you will get filled up.

* Heads up: both Baltimore and Washingtonian Magazines have similar themes this month: where to get the cool groceries, find the best butchers, peruse the nicest cheeses and sample the hoppiest beers. Read them for yourself to find out where to get the foods and shopping experiences you've been craving in the Baltimore-Washington area.

* Watching a soccer game at Sláinte Pub soon? Like, maybe, during the CONCACAF Gold Cup 2011 matches this month? (USA 2 - 0 Canada, yippee!) But you want to save some of that food money for beer or dessert? Why not sample the Sloppy Jim? For $10 (on special - it might be more at its regular price), you get a Sloppy Joe-style sandwich on an onion brioche bun, with cheese. And the Sloppy Jim isn't ground beef - it's bison sausage. Mmmm.

* Did you catch the Midday with Dan Rodricks show last week, with the big fried chicken smackdown between Gertrude's John Shields and the Baltimore City Paper's Henry Hong? No??? Check it out on the WYPR website here.

ADDENDUM: Speaking of food on the radio: today's Kojo Nnamdi Show featured a large segment on military food. Watch below as Kojo samples a delicious MRE:

* The last of my bacon-pancetta wot that I made for last year's Great Grapes bacon cook-off (info about this year's Great Grapes festival is here) has been sitting in my freezer - in a freezer ziploc bag - for almost exactly a year. Now? Still good.

Exits 7B, 8A and 11A Revisited

Once you get past Glen Burnie and Ferndale on the Beltway, you run into the dreaded 95 Clump. Nobody calls it that. Not even I call it that. But this is an apt description for how the various interstates and state routes - the northbound parts of Maryland 295 (Exit 7B), Interstate 895 (Exit 8A) and Interstate 95 (Exit 11A) - just all kind of come together, somewhat leading to the same place. If you drive the back roads to the locations I visited off of these exits, you find that you can pretty easily get to whichever one of these major routes you want with little effort.

Exits 7B, 8A and 11A -
Section of the Beltway - the Glen Burnie (S. Baltimore City, N. Anne Arundel County) and Catonsville (S. Baltimore City, SW Baltimore County) Sections
Towns & neighborhoods along the way - Morrell Park, Violetville, Westport, Lakeland, Cherry Hill, Pigtown, Brooklyn Park, Lansdowne, Baltimore Highlands
Routes that branch off - I-95, I-895, MD-295, US-1

Places that have shut down since I last visited

The first time I did this, I never bothered to take 295 to Westport. At the time I didn't want to travel that far from 695 for food. Also, there aren't a lot of notable places in Westport, so I didn't really explore. As my journey around the Beltway continued, I was willing to drive farther and father away from the Beltway (hell, I went all the way to Harford County by the time I got to the Northeastern section of the Beltway.

One Westport location I had noted the first time I did a redux post, of places I missed the first time, was the Cajun Blu Restaurant. It no longer exists. Or maybe it's just been renamed (see below). Surprisingly, this is the only location that is missing from the first time I wrote about it. Most other places I wrote about have remained open despite the recession. That is not to say that nothing has closed - there have indeed been closings. Take the Holiday Restaurant on Hanover Street in Brooklyn Park (closest to 895). I never had visited it, but now I don't really have the choice. The same is true for a lot of the restaurants in the area that have been hit during or even before the recession.

Restaurants that have since opened

When you drive up Cherry Hill Road, you will not see a sign for Cajun Blu. But you will pass by Ambrosia Catering (map).


Though I haven't stopped in, Ambrosia apparently has one big buffet on Sunday afternoons. I'm not usually free on Sunday afternoons, but maybe you are? If so, be prepared for a massive "soulful Sunday buffet" featuring many soul food favorites - from macaroni and cheese to collard greens, fried fish to black eyed peas. It's all there on Sunday afternoons for the price of $15 ($12 for seniors, $8 for kids). At some point when I have a Sunday free, I will need to stop in. As noted, Ambrosia also caters, and they have a wide variety of dishes they serve.

Restaurants I didn't get around to the first time

In contrast, I did get to visit a few more of the eateries in and around Morrell Park, conveniently located along US-1 and right off Exit 51 off of 95 North (if taking 95 South, you will have to take Exit 50B past Caton House (renovated since I visited last time) which I did visit the first time, towards US-1 and Lansdowne. Turn left at Washington Blvd.

One place I technically did not get to the first time around was Polock Johnny's (map). I say technically because I treated it as if I had. Really though, the last time I had visited when I wrote that post was several years before. Kind of like the Georgetown Market (map), where I stopped many a time on the way home from high school for a foot long hot dog (ah, those were some late 80's/early 90's memories). But as for Polock Johnny's: I figured it was finally time to, you know, go back for real.

Polock Johnny's is a Baltimore institution. Despite the name, it does not serve Polish food. It does serve Polish hot dogs and regular hot dogs, in various combinations and lengths - their Original 5' Polish, their Large 7" Polish, their All Beef 7' Big John, and so on. You can also buy their dogs to go, from their fridge case in the front. And several of their dogs come in combos, with fries and sodas (milkshakes are more, and onion rings in place of the fries are extra). I went ahead and ordered a regular all beef hot dog with onion rings and a soda (about $6) with "the Works". Polock Johnny's famous Works consist of... er, I don't know! And I wouldn't know, since it's their own special recipe that they aren't divulging. But you can also buy tubs of "the Works" to take with you as well.


I did not dine in, but took my food home. Even after I got home half an hour later, the food was just as good for the wear: the dog was still juicy and the tangy, onion-y Works held up well to the travel. Is it any wonder people might buy tubs of this to go? I am not usually a big fan of take out fries, which is why I went with the onion rings. I found myself nibbling on these greasy delights all the way home, and about half of them were gone by the time I got there. Juicy and crunchy all at once, these are the thick onion rings you hope to find when you get take out.


Farther into Morrell Park along Washington Blvd, you head past DeSoto Road (I used to go that way to get to Gibbons sometimes, now shut down by the Archdiocese). Before you hit the old Montgomery Ward (now Montgomery Park) and the decades-gone Little Tavern, you hit the exit that takes you southbound onto I-95. Right off Exit 51 off of I-95 north is Italiano's (map), the latest in a few restaurants that have been in that location over the years (if you get off, the only way back on to 95 from there is south - remember that). I had seen Italiano's many a time in passing along 95 - it's that close - but never ventured to stop in.

The first time you visit Italiano's (they also have a drive thru) you will be greeted by a very large chef statue - maybe this is Italiano? - flanking a very snazzy counter and a nice, comfortable seating area. Mirrors and bright lights make it seem very big inside. If you eyes aren't drawn to our big fiberglass friend (he has menus, by the way), they'll probably be drawn to the big glass counter filled with Italian desserts. I might have gotten one of the desserts were it not for the dizzying array of options on the menu. This place has much of everything: pizza, pasta and stromboli, but also subs, sandwiches, Greek food, hamburgers, salads, crab cakes and other seafood dishes. I could have easily spent $20 or $30 at this place, so I showed some self-restraint and got myself a stromboli ($7.50 minus additional toppings - about $9.50 with one topping). The standard stromboli comes with tomato and cheese. I added sausage to mine. It came out 10 minutes later in a pizza box, which surprised me a bit.


When I got the stromboli home, I could see why they packaged it the way they did: it was a 12" pizza folded over, much bigger and flatter than most stromboli I've seen around town. Yes, I know this is the correct way to make them, but I haven't seen many like that lately. This stromboli was a few meals for me (eat it with tomato soup for a nice filling meal on a freezing cold day). Though I have had better stromboli recently (as recently as Glen Burnie), this one is pretty standard and I did enjoy it. The crust was a nice soft crust, perfect for dipping into tomato soup or sauce, and the sausage is in nice chunky slices, mixed in with the melted cheese and tomato sauce. If nothing else, this stromboli makes me want to go back to try what else is on their utterly humongous menu.

So, what did I miss this time?

Again, I have missed some spots, specifically in and around Brooklyn Park. I still, regrettably, have not made it to 895 Grill (map), though from the reviews I have read online its patrons love the food, the cheesesteak in particular. One spot I have never seen appears to be a Brooklyn Park institution - the Castle Restaurant (map). Then again, I cannot find anything about it. I know of no one that has eaten here. Urbanspoon doesn't even know about, and the City Paper has asked readers for more information. No cars were in the lot (granted, the info I found online says it opens at 4PM), but there was a big "OPEN" sign above the door.

Look! It's, um... open?

So if anyone has any info about the Castle Restaurant, please pass it along here. Or to someone!

Places I got back to

Italiano's (Italian/American/Greek/seafood) - 2229 Washington Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21230; Phone: (410) 468-3377

• Would I eat there again? Yes
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Perhaps

Polock Johnny's (hot dogs/fast food) - 3212 Washington Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21230; Phone: (410) 644-5997

• Would I eat there again? I have and I would
  
• Would I go out of my way to eat there again? Yes

A few places to look up later

895 Grill and Carry-Out - 101 Chesapeake Ave, Brooklyn, MD 21225; Phone: (410) 354-1968

Ambrosia Catering (catering/African-American/brunch) - 1810 Cherry Hill Rd., Baltimore, MD 21230; Phone: (410) 837-8701

The Castle Restaurant (I have no idea) - 3720 Potee St, Brooklyn Park, MD 21225; Phone: (410) 355-8300

Georgetown Deli (deli/fast food/grill/corner store) - 2829 Georgetown Road, Baltimore, MD 21230; Phone: (410) 644-7040 ‎

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas I - Hoppy New Year

What to say about the cuisine of Arkansas? Like so many others from the nation to the South to even Arkansas itself, I am finding it extremely difficult to pin down. Hanna Raskin of Slash/Food quotes Chris Smith, director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, who sums up Arkansas food best:

"Arkansas is one of those states where the Northwest is different than the Southeast, and the Northeast is different than the Southwest," Smith says. "I don't think it has as much fried food as Louisiana, and I don't think it's as Mexican as Texas." [Raskin]

With that, I face the daunting task of finding some of the food of Arkansas.

Snacking State-by-State: Arkansas

Official Name: State of Arkansas
State Nicknames: The Natural State; The Land of Opportunity
Admission to the US: June 15, 1836 (#25)
Capital: Little Rock (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Fort Smith (2nd largest), Fayetteville (3rd largest), Springdale (4th largest)
Region: South; West South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Corn Bread & BBQ
Bordered by: Louisiana (south); Texas (southwest); Oklahoma (west); Missouri (north); Tennessee, Mississippi & the Mississippi River (east)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: rice (grain); South Arkansas Vine Ripe Pink Tomato (fruit/vegetable); Dutch oven (cooking vessel)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: many of the typical Southern classics (corn bread, hush puppies, catfish, sweet tea, barbeque, fried pies, fried chicken, Hoppin' John), chocolate gravy (Ozarks), Cajun/Creole (crawfish)

I say with some exasperation that this state has been somewhat difficult for me to explore. The reason I say that is because it is absolutely so difficult to pin down any one or two recipes that exemplify "Arkansas". It's "typical Southern food". It's dry rub brisket 'cue and wet pork 'cue. It's Cajun. It's Ozark. It's becoming more and more international, with Thai and Latino and other flavors. It's pretty much goddamn everything, isn't it? And so it is very strange (or perhaps very fitting) that, with such culinary diversity even the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans felt it needed to have an exhibit in 2009 about Arkansan food because so few people - even Southerners - are not aware of the true diversity of the cuisine that is "Arkansas" cuisine (note: had I known about this place I would've gone out of my way to see this museum in November when I was in NOLA for the AAA meetings).

It is not, I might add, all Sonic and McDonald's (thank you, President Clinton).

Even Arkansas.com's "Southern cuisine" webpage offers very little that is specific to Arkansas. So they just reiterate Arkansas' culinary diversity:

Just about every type of cuisine is available in The Natural State. The state's Southern heritage, not to mention its agricultural background, influences much of what can be found here. But not everything is fried. Healthy alternatives are readily available, many made from locally grown produce. Nouvelle cuisine has a home here as well, as does continental, Cajun, vegetarian and various ethnic choices. [Arkansas.org]

The Dutch oven is also an important part of Arkansas' pioneer past, so much so that it is the official State Cooking Vessel. Since so much about Arkansas food is so difficult to pin down, I figured I would at least narrow down my recipe choices to those that can be fixed in a Dutch oven.

Or at least something like a Dutch oven

This made things a little bit easier. The next step was to find a typically Arkansan, or at least typically Southern, dish that can be prepared this way.

My friend Jim, who is Californian by birth but Arkansan by heritage, was not much help here (thanks, Jim). But one tradition he carries on every New Year is the ritual of making a heaping helping of Hoppin' John. This dish is a mixture of black-eyed peas, rice and some sort of pork usually ham hocks and/or bacon. In her cookbook The New African-American Kitchen, Angela Shelf Medearis - the "Kitchen Diva" - notes that Hoppin' John comes from East Africa:

Black-eyed peas [and with it, Hoppin' John] were transported from Africa to the West Indies and then into the Carolinas before the 1700's... Some say the dish got its name from the word bahatta-kachang, meaning peas with cooked rice, which is of East African origin. Others say the name comes from the tradition of having the children of the family hop around the table on New Year's Day before eating the dish. [Shelf Medearis, p. 130; emphasis mine]

It is a uniquely Southern dish, though I did ask my mother if she had ever heard of it. She said it sounded familiar (after all, Maryland's foodways are somewhat rooted in the South, even if less so today than in the past - but that discussion is for another post). I can't say I grew up eating this at all (like I said: somewhat rooted in the South). We usually just ate the snacks and finger food we made for the previous night's festivities.

According to Jim and more academic sources, eating a bowl of Hoppin' John on new Year's will bring you good luck. I need some luck, and many Arkansans will have eaten this on New Year's. With that and the addition of the rice (Arkansas' chief agricultural export), it just seems like an obvious dish to make.

The recipe: Hoppin' John

The basic outline for Hoppin' John is deceptively simple: black eyed peas and rice mixed, usually mixed with some sort of meat and often some sort of vegetable. But in reality, there is no one way to prepare Hoppin' John. Some recipes call for soaking dried black-eyed peas overnight, others call for cooking them straight up, still others demand only fresh ones. Some suggest you prepare the rice first, others require you to add the rice uncooked. Some call for sausage, others bacon, still others ham hocks. I tried two recipes. The first turned out particularly bland and mushy - a mess of Damned black-eyed peas staring up at me in some twisted Southern version of Dante's Inferno in a Dutch oven. The second, from Kentucky native Ronni Lundy's Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden, turned out much, much better.


The ingredients are, by and large, very cheap:

* black eyed peas (a 1 lb bag will run your a grand total of - here it comes - $1)
* long grain white rice (rice: the main export of Arkansas! You can also find a 1 lb bag of this for $1 - $2)
* ham hocks (I got two lbs for about $1.50 per lb at Giant)
* various vegetables: jalapeño, red bell pepper and Roma tomato (I grew the chile myself, while the rest came to about $1 each - the bell pepper and tomato are not in Lundy's recipe, but do show up sometimes in Hoppin' John. I just wanted to add them.)
* onion (bought at the farmers' market several weeks ago at $3 for a small boxful)
* bacon grease or vegetable oil (I had both lying around. To get bacon grease, you need bacon. 6 to 7 slices will net you a little over 1/4 cup)
* water (lots of it. You're set if you paid your water bill)

Again, there are many ways to prepare this dish. Lundy recommends soaking 2 cups of black-eyed peas overnight in enough water that 2 inches worth come above it. I only soaked them for an hour, and was pleased with the results.

The rest takes a while, but is not that difficult. Put the peas in your Dutch oven-like cooking vessel with a ham hock. I also put my jalapeño and onion in with it. Bring it all to a boil, and keep them at a low boil for 90 minutes.

Startin' to hop

Next, as Lundy instructs, put enough water in the Dutch oven to have about 3 cups of liquid (I lost enough of my liquid that I had to add more during the initial boiling). Throw in 2 cups of uncooked rice, cover and simmer without removing the lid for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it steam for another 10 minutes.

Here's where I should have used the onion: Lundy says you should saute it in a tablespoon of bacon grease or vegetable oil (but use the bacon grease if you have it). Here I also put my chopped up bell pepper in the skillet.


Saute until the onion is soft while the rice is steaming, and then add to the Hoppin' John.

And there you have it.

As I said before, my first outing with Hoppin' John was, well, not good. This was much better. Yes, for my tastes, it needs a little dash of salt, and the tomato and peppers are a welcome addition. But I think the Hoppin' John really means to showcase the black-eyed pea and its flavor. It really goes well with some collard greens - I made some with yet another ham hock - and cornbread - in this case, a corn stick made, yes, with bacon grease. In all, this is good, cheap and hearty food, and may become a new tradition in my kitchen every New Year's. Or at least around New Year's. The only thing I have to watch out for is this: I burned just a bit of it. So next year it's going in my slow cooker, in which I have yet to burn anything.

Again, eat it with cornbread and greens if you have 'em.

Sources:

Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. "Southern Cuisine: Arkansas Southern Cuisine & Free Southern Recipes". Arkansas.com (http://www.arkansas.com), 2010.

Egerton, John. Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History. First edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987.

Lundy, Ronni. Butter Beans to Blackberries: Recipes from the Southern Garden. North Point Press, New York, 1999.

Raskin, Hanna. "Southern Museum Pays Homage to 'Arkansas Cuisine'". Slash/Food (http://www.slashfood.com), posted July 21, 2009.

Shelf Medearis, Angela. The New African-American Cookbook. Lake Isle Press, New York, 2008.

Saveur. "Chocolate Gravy". Saveur.com (http://www.saveur.com). Originally printed in Saveur Issue #126, January 2010.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Arkansas" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Arkansas".

Because it's Kwanzaa (Day Five)

Habari gani? Well, the news is that there is a surprising dearth of food-related Kwanzaa videos on YouTube. This one from Chow.com's page has Grandma Martha and her grandson sharing her delicious candied sweet potatoes with us, and invites all of us to the celebration.

Happy 3rd Day of Christmas - and Kujichagulia

Habari gani? Well, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum - which usually costs $8 to get in - is only a dollar today on this second day of Kwanzaa. At least, that's what the nice people on Channel 11 said this morning. You can also hear African drumming in the lobby. And make sure you stop in their cafeteria, which makes some of the best museum food I have ever had.

You can bet your kinara they won't be serving this crap:



Again, ewww.

Slow Cooked Black Eyed Peas

When I hit up the Waverly Farmers' Market last Saturday, I found myself drawn to the line with all the beans in coolers. You might know that one: fresh lima beans, black beans, navy beans, black eyed peas, that sort of thing. About $2.50 later I was on my way with a pound of black eyed peas.

I don't eat them so I have little experience in cooking them. But I found a few good recipes for cooking them, fresh or dried, stove top or slow cooked. I was drawn to this one from About.com's Southern food section, "Fresh Black-Eyed Peas with Bacon and Fire-Roasted Tomatoes". I had to adapt it for 1 pound instead of 1 1/2, but it still required my stir frying half a package of bacon, a medium yellow onion, a whole red bell pepper and a stalk of celery in a big cast-iron skillet. I added these and a cup of water to the slow cooker and cooked it on low for about 7 hours. After that came small amounts of chili powder, dried oregano, salt and pepper and a 14 oz can of tomatoes, all cooked low for about 2 hours more. With the cornbread I made last week it was great. In fact, I had to get a second helping.


But oh WOW - all that bacon! It doesn't look like more than there was. Seriously: there was that much!

Festivals of Baltimore: Festafrica

I'm glad I was in town this year for Festafrica, Baltimore's yearly celebration of African cultures and the African immigrant community. I'm usually out of town - at least I was the past two years. This year it moved to Patterson Park, and parking was so scarce I had to park on the exact opposite side of the park from the festival. Not that I mind the walk.

Admission for Festafrica was $5, and since I deliberately left my ATM card and all but $20 in cash at home, I had $15 to get me through the festival. Enough, I reasoned, to sample a few foods and maybe buy a souvenir.

Oh, how silly I was to think that!

Compared to other area festivals, Festafrica is relatively modest - though about as big as most festivals held in Patterson Park. And that is despite the two competing stages of music on either side of the festival. Many vendors sold beautiful African and African-American art, including a handful of Kenyan-American "Barack Obama for President" paintings. As for the food booths, these were a bit lower key than most food booths at Baltimore's ethnic festivals. While a handful had official signs advertising their wares, most just had a piece of paper taped to the front of the wooden kiosk with the name of the vendor scribbled on it in marker. Doesn't mean the food isn't still good, of course.

I did the rounds around the Pulaski Monument, mind-boggled at the prices for food, which typically ran around $10 to $12 per plate. Buying just one thing meant I could try nothing else, so I had to hunt for cheap things where I could. But with little exception, most everything I could eat was about $10, so I went ahead and made my first selection. This was a choice between the following:

• a $12 plate of plantain, fish or goat ($10 with chicken) and my choice of plain or jollof rice at the booth of Olangela's Authentic African Kitchen (Is this the same Olangela's?); or
• the three suya plate for $10, courtesy of the Suya Stop.

A nice couple tried to help me figure out what to choose, but to no avail, since one got the suya and the other got the chicken and jollof rice platter. And, of course, each was duly impressed with his or her meal. I finally went on impulse and went with the suya, a Nigerian shish kebab of beef, chicken or some other meat, covered in a spicy peanut rub. The gentleman at the kiosk gave me a plate of three hot, steaming suyas with some chopped-up raw onion.


As far as kebabs go, I really like the suya. The meat is nice and thin, and not at all gristly or even very fatty. Plus, the flavors of the peanut rub - some of just sloughed off onto the plate - were sweet and spicy (picante) at the same time. I would eat this again.


If I don't make it myself, at least I can get it at Olangela's in Waverly, or Peju's in Woodlawn (The latter was recommended to me by one foodie at the Great Tastes exhibition at the beginning of the year, but since I am incompetent with all directions, I have yet to find it).

Since I still had $5 burning a hole in my pocket I went in search of something cheaper. Between a man selling fresh roasted corn, and a yoga and meditation booth (?), I found the Divine Kitchen's booth, selling a cornucopia of Nigerian and West African dishes. Among the standard dishes such as jollof rice ($10), fried fish ($10), grilled chicken (dang, is everything $10) was something I could afford: the moi moi (steamed black eyed pea cake) for $2.50. A Nigerian dish usually wrapped in banana leaves, mine came in a little empanada-shaped aluminum foil pouch. Handy if you can't find banana leaves.


It had a nice, savory, beany flavor, with the consistency of a light but thick bread pudding (if anything can be light and thick at the same time). After having the suya (and eating before I came, so really I was quite full), I knew I wouldn't finish this, so I carried it waaaaaaaaay back to my car. Maybe it'll be breakfast tomorrow.

Other photos:

The concourse facing the African arts. The main stage is out of the range of this photo, to our right. Note the Pulaski Monument on the left side of the photo to orient yourself.

The stage toward the back - the main stage - featured several groups. Here is the Kenyan group Jabali Afrika.

Even as I contemplated the Suya Spot, I was swooning over Olangela's myriad offerings.

When I left, I had to go completely around the festival. On the way, I heard some drumming and was able to get one last photo.