Why is it duck that brings on a moment of truth?
Every year, preparations for the banquet take their own path. I’m testing recipes far more intensively than I have done any other year, because once March hits, I’m not going to have much in the way of breathing space until late April. I have teaching and I have fiction coming out and I have other obligations. In fact, it’s going to be so busy that even looking ahead is daunting.
I’ve prepared for this in a number of ways. I spent time in January catching up with all sorts of things, making up for the time I lost when I was ill (I’m still ill, to be honest, but it’s not nearly as debilitating as it was a few months ago). I caught up with a large chunk of it, but am not there yet.
Now I’m sprinting through as much recipe testing as I can, so that I can make sense of things early and make sensible decisions. So that I can leave testing for a month and not fall behind.
I had no idea of the mouthfeels of the cuisine or what sort of things made it distinctive. This was very dangerous – we all think we know a lot about Southern cooking because of KFC. KFC is not Southern cooking. It comes from a lot of the same basics, but it’s Southern classic the way an icy-pole is real ice cream.
I have nine recipe testers (and happy to have more, if anyone’s been shy about volunteering) and I have given them each as many recipes as they are wiling to handle and then taken the number and doubled it, and that’s what I’m testing over a three week period. I am exactly half way through my share of this first batch. Between us, we’ll have tested seventy-five recipes in three weeks. A fifth of the whole, though I may be able diminish the numbers of remaining recipes, if the results of the first round shape up nicely.
This approach has one massive advantage. Tonight, with a duck and biscuits and duck sauce all happening at once I realised that Southern cooking has some characteristic scents. I hate it early on, because there is so much fat that it overwhelms me. But when the dishes are almost there, that invasive scent of butter and other fats mellow and what you get is a very welcoming, warming scent. This transition has happened with every single meat dish and quite a few of the other ones so far. There is a moment when everything turns delectable.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Jeepers Gillian makes me feel hungry
February 21st, 2009 at 2:43 am
I have just finished reading the last several entries about your exploration of USA-Southern-style cooking. As my dad’s family is from Florida, I grew up with a little bit of that, my husband (who does most of our cooking) has several Southern-style vegetarian dishes. We’ve also got cookbooks, some from the 70s and 80s, and some earlier, as we’ve got a large collection of cookbooks. I wish we could come help, but I’d be delighted to answer questions, if at all possible.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:21 am
Thank you for the offer of advice. I have someone advising me whose family goes way back and who has a background in her own family history and culture, which has been a great help. She has also found me articles and things from local sources (The Times Picayune is my favourite.) I have all the recipes I can possibly trial and all of them from cookbooks from the right decade. What I need are people willing to cook the recipes. I need to sort out what - of the classes of food I know I need - actually goes on that table. If you like cake, email me a number and I’ll send you that many recipes.
I’ve only got a few weeks for the hard work this year, so it means I have had to be very precise and targeted in my research very early.
February 27th, 2009 at 4:11 am
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you when you’ve got such a short time in which to get things worked out. I hadn’t anticipated that you’d want us to test, since we’re too far away for anyone on the con committee to taste anything we cooked, and was trying to help in the only way I thought was possible, long-distance. Please, accept my apologies.
We haven’t much to offer as cake testers, as our oven is not working, so we’ve been making do with a counter-top roaster. (We really need a whole new range, but just don’t have the funds to manage one.) Please, accept my apologies.
February 27th, 2009 at 4:26 am
There’s nothing to apologise for - this is the first time you’ve seen the banquet testing in operation and most things you know about me are of me as a fiction writer, not an historian.