When Paul Prudhomme came barreling out of the bayous in the early 80’s, his cuisine had an enormous impact on the restaurant industry. The Cajun rage prompted restaurants as far away as Seattle to place jambalayas, gumbos, and etouffees on their menus. But the one dish that inspired a genuine craze was his blackened redfish. Prudhomme first served blackened redfish at K-Paul’s in March, 1980, serving 30 or 40 people. It was an immediate hit; within days the restaurant was full, and within weeks, there were long lines. The dish became so popular that redfish (aka red drum, Sciaenops ocellatus ..read more

Sometime in 2018, I began working on a profile of Charlotte Capers, and in the course of my research was fortunate enough to get an interview with Elbert Hilliard on March 21, 2019. The interview was held in a conference room on the second floor of the William F. Winter Building in Jackson, Mississippi. Also present was De’niecechsi Leyton, Head of Reference Services at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Though the purpose of my interview was to gather information about Mr. Hilliard’s brilliant predecessor, Charlotte Capers, Hilliard spoke of many other things, most notably ab ..read more

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Love is fraught with pitfalls, and food has the potential to be a more fundamental source of friction than ugly underwear or nasal hair. For those among us with discriminating dietary habits, it’s a safe bet that if you meet someone special in a natural foods dive, they’ll feel much the same way about pork roast as you do (which is not to say that soy products might not eventually become a bone of contention). But if you meet a mate in a bar that serves hamburgers and patriot fries, well, you’re just wide open for surprises, and if simply adjusting to eating together isn’t enough, learning to ..read more

It’s a jolt to find a recipe for what amounts to an oyster po-boy in Jane Grigons’s English Food, but even if we concede that anywhere there are oysters and mankind the oysters are bound to end up on someone’s table between two pieces of bread, Griegson’s foray into New Orleans cuisine is still nothing less than another British sally on the Crescent City. Grigson’s recipe–“Oyster Loaf”–begins: “This is one of the best of eighteenth-century dishes,” she begins, adding, “It was taken to America, and became popular in New Orleans in the eighteenth century, where it acquired the endearing name m ..read more

When I was a boy, I won an essay contest sponsored by the local library committee in my hometown in the north Mississippi hills. The speaker at the awards presentation was a lady from some literary society in the Delta. This woman just radiated dignity and graciousness from the top of her pill-box hat cum veil to the bottoms of her sensibly modest heels. She even wore little white cotton gloves with mother-of-pearl buttons. The ladies on our library committee were just undone by this exotic creature (the local women’s apparel store sold out of teeny-tiny white cotton gloves the very next morn ..read more

The Creole tomato has long enjoyed a storied reputation in the South. Here is a typical paean from Howard Mitcham’s Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz: “The large, vine-ripened Creole tomato is one of the glories of Louisiana cooker. Creole tomatoes have a pronounced acid flavor and are used to make delicious sauces, stews, gumbos, and so on. In fact, the very term, “à la Creole” usually denotes a tomato sauce of some sort, and when it’s made with fresh Creole tomatoes, its flavor will be distinctive.” In addition to a rich, distinctive flavor, the Creole tomato has a reputation for being able to ..read more

Within living memory, this simple dish was a staple on meat-and-three menus throughout the rural South. Juice from the vegetables stirred with oil and vinegar make a mild, flavorful vinaigrette best with beans or cold meats. I love to use it in the old three-bean-salad, and it’s great with fish or shellfish. Use fresh vegetables; supermarket tomatoes don’t have enough of that wonderful gelatin surrounding the seeds, and those cucumbers are too watery. Sweet yellow onions spoil the bite, and red onions discolor the mix; white boilers are best. Cut vegetables into bite-sized pieces, place in a ..read more

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The Introduction to this document contains this recollection from Dewitt Spencer: The way the idea originated, as I remember it–this was over two years ago-we had, during National Library Week-this was in 1973-I was on the Board for Dixie Regional Library-and Calhoun City Library had open house as part of its activities for the week and had some older people come in and tell about the early days of Calhoun County on tape. All of them were white, of course.  I thought this was a great idea, but why not tell it for the whole county and for all the people? At that particular time I was writi ..read more