"southern food" news and stories

As we glide toward New Year's Day, it's time to think about traditional foods to ring in 2011. In the South, that means inviting some black-eyed peas (no, not Fergie's band) to the dinner table. A symbol of good luck, the black-eyed pea also pairs perfectly with smoked ham, as in this recipe from KitchenDaily contributor Ruth Cousineau, who suggests you serve it with cornbread and some rich stir-fried greens, such as collards. Hoppin' John is the quintessential New Year's dish, and uses salt pork instead of ham.

Recipe: Black-eyed Peas and Ham

Hoppin' John and More Black-eyed Peas recipes

While traditionalists still take their eggs in the morning and their 'cue in the afternoon, a few experimental pitmasters are putting their own spin on the "eggs on everything" trend that's lately seized high-end pasta joints and pizzerias.

At Luella's Bar-B-Que in Asheville, the most popular brunch dish is a scramble of pulled pork, collards and eggs. And over in Houston, restaurant critic Robb Walsh recently conferred 'favorite dish' status on Plantation BBQ Trailer's tortilla crammed with barbecued brisket and scrambled eggs.

"When you crack that yolk over a barbecue sandwich, you've just added creamy lusciousness," says Luella's owner Jeff Miller, likening the combination to the bacon lardon and poached egg that might surface on an Old World salad.

Participants in North Carolina's Museum of the Albermarle's "Dine With a Pirate" program this weekend will have the opportunity to feast on hot dog telescopes and golden chicken nuggets in the company of Blackbeard impersonators. But what might aspiring buccaneers who want to dine like a pirate eat?

Pirate foodways aren't particularly well documented, partly because most serious academics aren't too keen on high seas crimes (A spokesman for Mystic Seaport, which bills itself as "The Museum of America and the Sea," says institutional policy prohibits its employees from commenting on piracy. "Have you tried Google?," he asks.)

Still, David Moore, curator of nautical archaeology at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, says it's fair to assume the pirates who terrorized the Atlantic Coast probably ate "pretty much everything that everyone else ate." As Moore explains, the parasitic nature of the pirate profession meant its members typically subsisted on whatever they found in the holds of the ships they hijacked.

A western North Carolina baker whose cake line-up mischievously melds trends and tradition is seeking "Southern Cake Ladies" for a new book chronicling their lives and scratch-made cakes.

"I broadly define Cake Ladies as people who make cakes for their communities," explains Short Street Cakes' Jodi Rhoden, who's befriended hundreds of brides with her banana pudding, coconut, hummingbird and apple-bacon cakes made from all-natural ingredients.

"Rural and urban, young and old, professional and labor-of-love, of every one of the many cultures -- Black, White, Latina, rich, poor (you get the picture) that make up the South -- I want to meet them, interview them, bake with them," Rhoden writes on her blog.

A Birmingham restaurateur is putting a gourmet spin on a barbecue tradition that's thus far remained fiercely regional.

Sweet Bones Alabama, a downtown 'cue joint, last week began bottling its version of Alabama white sauce, a mayonnaise-based concoction pioneered in 1925 by Decatur's legendary pitmaster Big Bob Gibson, who liberally slathered the stuff on chicken. The sauce has since become a favorite dressing for just about anything fried or smoked in North Alabama, including pickles, tomatoes and venison.

"It's a very versatile sauce," Sweet Bones' owner John Cowan says.

While many white sauce fans make their own batches of Big Bob's famous sauce – an authorized cookbook published last year revealed the exact proportions of mayonnaise to pepper to vinegar -- Cowan thinks he's improved on the original. Among the first artisanal barbecue sauce makers to tackle white sauce, Cowan's crafted a recipe he describes as "much more complex, with more layered flavors."