Calico Cupboards - cooking from Benton, Arkansas
A very wise friend gave me a cookbook for my birthday. It’s the 1980 edition of Benton Junior Auxiliary’s Calico Cupboards. She explained to me that this was the Arksansas cooking of her childhood, that recipe after recipe rang true when she read it. And it’s big - 350 glorious pages. It’s the perfect addition to my collection.
What struck me about it is partly the diversity of the recipes: I’m used to thinking of Arkansas as rural and therefore having a simple cuisine, but its cooking has a bunch of interesting influences and some curious complexities. I should stop making the typical city assumption that rural = unsophisticated. This cuisine takes from the north-east and from the south and from the south-west and just a touch from traders from far off. Chicken and rice are popular and desserts are very numerous.
I want to go out and make hush puppies immediately (and I would, if it weren’t nearly 1 am). It’s one of the type of recipes that make up the backbone of this book. Good plain cooking holds the cuisine together. Things like the chicken and dumplings recipes (which I’ll give you shortly).
A bunch of recipes have the trait that my (still mislaid) 1970s Louisiana Methodist cookbook has: lots of pre-prepared ingredients. Tins of this and packages of that.
I’m reconsidering those tins and packages. When I first came across them I thought they were shortcuts, because I was taught from childhood that ‘real cooking’ means preparation of everything possible from scratch. I was applying the principles of my own cuisine to someone else’s, and that was a mistake. The Regency tests may very well use sauces and additives in the same way Southern cuisine uses tins and packages. Right now this is a vague thought, and I will revisit the subject some day.
I do love regional and district and school cookbooks. This one has quilt patterns for each chapter, devotes a whole chapter to allergies, and has a final chapter with recipes from local dignitaries. I’m going to include one of the VIP recipes as well as the chicken one, because it’s very topical. Think about what was happening in Arkansas in 1980 and think what is happening in the US now. if you can’t work it out, just scroll down the page a little…
Chicken and Dumplings (recipe given by Sandra Hooker)
1 stewing hen
3 cups flour
1 egg
1 heaping tablespoon shortening
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold water
Cut chicken for stewing. Barely cover with water and cook until tender for about 2 to 3 hours. Remove chicken fro stock and remove bones. Put flour in mixing bowl. In center of flour put egg, shortening and salt. Gradualy add cold water. Work plenty of flour into the dough. Roll thin and cut in 2x 3 inch strips. Drop into fast boiling broth one at a time When all dumplings are added, lower heat and simmer about 12 to 15 minutes. Place chicken back in the stew. A little butter may be added if chicken is lacking in fat.
Oven Chicken Parmesan (recipe given by Hillary Rodham, First Lady of Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas)
1 fryer (cut up) or chicken breasts (split)
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspon pepper
1/2 cup margarine (melted)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Dip chicken in egg and milk. Dredge in flour mixture and seasonings. Place in shallow baking dish. Pour margarine over chicken. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/4 hours.
foodhistory, foodways, Arkansas, Calico Cupboards, review, recipes, Oven Chicken Parmesan, Hillary Rodham, Chicken and Dumplings, Sandra Hooker
May 11th, 2007 at 8:34 am
[...] Let me give you two quite different recipes for cabbage salad, an eighteenth century one from p. 116 of The Sensible Cook (tr and ed Peter Rose), which is a book I must blog some day, all about Dutch Foodways in the New World and the other from 1980s Arkansas (from p. 93 of Calico Cupboards, which I have already blogged). [...]
February 14th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I would like to buy a Calico Cupboards cookbook that the Benton Auxiliary published.
Where can I buy this cookbook?
Thank You
Glenda Kelly
gkelly@comcast.net
February 17th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Mine was a present from a US friend. However, when I’m looking for books like this, the first place I check is Jessica’s Biscuit, an excellent online bookshop. Another place to check is Abebooks http://www.abebooks.com.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
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