Innholdsfortegnelse for December/January 2025 i Cook's Country

THE ISSUE OF Cook’s Country that you are holding in your hands, or viewing on your screen, is different; do you feel it? From the opening photograph, featuring Southern food expert, television host, and award-winning cookbook author Nathalie Dupree and me, to our elegant holiday menu, and all the way through the magazine to the approachable weeknight dishes, this edition celebrates the season with inspiration and recipes from all across the American South. We devoted the entire issue to cooking that reflects a fuller, more inclusive story, one that honors Southern hospitality as both an art and a science. To help us tell that broader story, we turned to local experts who know the region best. From them we learned new takes on old favorites. We also were inspired to create…

WHAT BETTER WAY to satisfy a tableful of hungry friends and family than a great big ham? Answer: a ham bolstered with pineapple, itself a symbol of warm hospitality. The classic image, of course, is a ham studded with pineapple rings and maybe some bright red maraschino cherries, and the style has an undeniable retro charm. But when it comes time to eat, those pineapple rings prove mostly decorative, offering little bits of sweetness but not much else. We wanted to bring these two players together and give them equal star billing, glazing the ham with a potent pineapple glaze and serving a lively, sweet-tart pineapple chutney alongside. The key to “cooking” a cured ham—which is brined, smoked, and already fully cooked—is gently warming it to 110 degrees in a moist…

WHILE PIMENTO CHEESE is ubiquitous in the South, its story begins in the North, where a confluence of industrial food manufacturers and resourceful home cooks gave rise to this classic, iconic treat. In the 1870s, two key ingredients—cream cheese and canned pimentos—gained traction in the prepackaged-food industry. Farmers in New York started producing French Neufchâtel cheese, a precursor to modern cream cheese, and the public loved it. Around the same time, sweet peppers, “pimientos” from Spain (the “I” was later dropped in the United States) were enjoying a vogue in the Americas, as they were viewed as a high-end, imported good—and one that grew well stateside. “TIME WILL TELL JUST HOW FAR THIS BELOVED AND VERSATILE CONCOCTION WILL GO.” In 1908, Good Housekeeping (based in Massachusetts at the time) ran a…

ALTHOUGH HISTORY suggests that creamy milk punch, a traditional favorite on festive occasions in New Orleans and elsewhere in the South, was originally served in punch bowls, these days it is most often prepared as a shaken cocktail. We wanted to serve a happy crowd, so we decided to take milk punch back to its celebratory big-batch roots. There are two basic types of milk punch: the milky, frothy version we’re making here, and a clarified version that runs closer to clear. Because it’s the holiday season, we focused on the former, which feels more festive. This type is brandy-based (although it is sometimes also made with bourbon), rich from dairy, lightly sweetened, flavored with vanilla, and shaken with ice until cold and frothy and ethereally light; it is in the…

WHY WE LOVE LIQUID SWEETENERS We embrace the unique flavor characteristics each of these liquid sweeteners brings to the table. Aside from flavor, their syrupy nature means they readily dissolve in drinks, batters, and other liquids. All these sweeteners contain at least some invert sugar (a viscous liquid that’s a mixture of two or more simple sugars, such as glucose and fructose) and thus are a little sweeter than plain granulated sugar (which is mostly sucrose). Like all sugars, these liquid sweeteners will aid in browning; because of the invert sugar, they also help keep cakes moist and cookies chewy (invert sugars are hygroscopic, meaning they have an affinity for water molecules) and can help prevent ice crystals from forming in ice cream. THREE FROM FARTHER AFIELD Lyle’s Golden Syrup…

WAFFLE HOUSE KNOWS its way around hash browns. The iconic Southern restaurant chain has had them on its menu since opening in Georgia in 1955, and today, these famous spuds have their own ordering lingo. You can get them “Scattered, Smothered & Covered,” meaning smothered with grilled onions and covered with American cheese, or “All-The-Way,” adding smoked ham, diced tomatoes, jalapeños, grilled mushrooms, chili, and sausage gravy to the onions and cheese. Or you can just choose from any of these toppings and build your own. Here, I’ve taken inspiration from these delightful loaded spuds, re-creating the crispy “scattered” hash browns and refining the toppings for a version that’s easy to make at home and a great option for serving to guests as part of a brunch spread At Waffle House,…

ACCORDING TO ONE legend, brittle was invented—accidentally—by a Southern woman in the late 19th century. As the story goes, she was making taffy but accidentally used baking soda in place of cream of tartar. Not wanting to waste the batch, she kept cooking it. The result was not taffy. Instead, thanks to the air pockets introduced by the baking soda (which foams on contact with hot caramel), the episode produced a brittle and deliciously sweet candy. From a food history perspective, this story is likely apocryphal. Many cultures around the world had a version of a hard candy containing nuts or seeds that existed before the 1890s. It’s more likely that what we today call “brittle” emerged as a variation from one or more of those. However peanut brittle came to…

IN HIS BOOK Southern Provisions (2015), David S. Shields describes the flavor of sorghum as the “coppery evening sun: more mellow and malty than blackstrap molasses, less brilliant and wholesome than cane syrup, less piquant and poetic than maple.” Sorghum is a popular sweetener in the American South and Appalachia, similar in consistency and color to molasses but made from sorghum cane rather than sugarcane (see “Getting to Know Liquid Sweeteners,” page tkktk 28). Its hay-like, slightly floral notes make it the perfect complement to the bitter-sweet flavors of roasted brussels sprouts. One of our editors recently enjoyed sorghum-glazed sprouts at Brennan’s in Houston, Texas, where the sprouts are fried and crispy (their loose leaves in the mix are the crispiest bits of all), cloaked in a sorghum glaze, and studded with…

THE IDEA OF punch conjures images of an overly sweet drink ladled from a giant bowl. In a 2018 article for Our State magazine, Kathleen Purvis, the prolific Southern culinary writer who edited the Charlotte Observer’s food section for many years, refers to that type of punch as “church punch—fruity and frothy, with an iceberg of sherbet floating in it.” Punch has a deep history. In his book Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl (2010), David Wondrich tells of British sailors drinking a communal punch on voyages to and from the Indian subcontinent. It became popular in taverns in England and America and eventually found another home in the Caribbean. The first rum was made in the Caribbean in the mid-1600s from the molasses left over from sugar…

Cornbread-Battered Catfish Nuggets with Roasted Sweet Potatoes We developed this recipe with Jiffy brand corn muffin mix. Be sure to use untreated catfish. 1½ pounds sweet potatoes, unpeeled, cut lengthwise into 1-inch wedges2 tablespoons vegetable oil5 teaspoons Cajun seasoning, divided1½ teaspoons table salt, divided¾ cup mayonnaise1 teaspoon Dijon mustard½ teaspoon grated lemon zest plus 1 tablespoon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving1 quart vegetable oil for frying1 cup corn muffin mix1 egg¼ cup milk1½ pounds skinless catfish fillets, cut into 1- to 2-inch chunks 1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment. Toss potatoes, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning, and ¼ teaspoon salt together in large bowl. Arrange in single layer on prepared sheet. Roast until potatoes…

HOSPITALITY TAKES A thousand forms, from fancy cocktail parties to relaxed backyard cookouts. And sometimes, the best way to satisfy hungry stomachs and soothe world-weary hearts is a simple, homespun supper. Chicken spaghetti fits the bill. Food writer Lisa Fain, known as the Homesick Texan, characterizes the Tex-Mex version she knows best as “baked pasta with chicken and chile con queso.” The earliest recorded recipe Fain found dates back to 1931, published in the Amarillo Daily News, featuring a simple combination of chicken, cheese, noodles, and a liberal dose of chili powder. Later versions included canned cream of mushroom soup, Velveeta, and sometimes a tomato product like Ro-Tel—products of the midcentury convenience-food boom that dominated American food culture for decades. But this casserole’s history isn’t limited to Texas. Famed New York…

ARE YOU A Thin Mints person? Or maybe Peanut Butter Patties (Tagalongs) are more your thing? People have intense feelings about their favorite Girl Scout cookies. Mine are Samoas (or, in some parts of the country, the nearly identical Caramel deLites). They have a buttery, shortbread-like base; a layer of rich caramel; lots of toasted coconut; and a chocolate coating (fully on the bottom, stripes on the top). Samoas have deep flavor and a fun look: doughnut shape, coconut shag, and rakish chocolate stripes. Because I love Samoas so much, I wanted to develop a homemade tribute I could enjoy all year rather than just from January through April—the Scouts’ cookie-selling season. I reimagined the individual cookies as a giant shows-topper, baked in a round pan to mimic the shape…

BASKING IN THE hospitality of a festive Cajun pig roast, or cochon de lait, in Marksville, Louisiana, we were captivated by sweet potato coins fried in lard and then tossed in cinnamon sugar. If you haven’t been to a cochon de lait, there’s a glorious, lard-fried logic at work. At the gathering, cracklin’ (spiced hunks of crispy fried pig skin) is made in huge black cauldrons filled with bubbling fat. When the cracklin’ is done, folks keep that frying fat hot, tossing in peeled, sliced sweet potatoes and cooking them until golden and tender and lightly crisp at the edges. Finished with a flurry of cinnamon sugar, the sweet potatoes are served alongside the cracklin’ and a host of other pork-centric snacks as a prelude to the whole-hog main event. At…

PIMENTO CHEESE, bright and pepper-studded, is a Southern classic that never fails to impress straight out of the fridge. But bake this fan favorite until it’s oozy and bubbling? That’s a whole new kind of party food, perfect for a gathering of friends. The most basic building blocks of traditional pimento cheese are cream cheese and, of course, sweet pimento peppers. Mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, savory Worcestershire sauce, and a bit of prickly cayenne round out the baseline roster. But taking the beloved spread from the fridge to the oven required some adjustments. Most pimento cheese is heavy on the cheddar, which exudes excess oil when cooked for too long, leading to a greasy dip. What’s more, the mixture runs the risk of curdling if baked too long. We found that…

MY FASCINATION WITH my great-great-great grand-mother Eliza Seymour Lee (1800–1874) began at an early age when I realized we walked the same streets and neighborhoods of downtown Charleston. I felt a bond with Eliza because even as a child I knew I wanted to be, like her, a chef. Today Eliza Seymour Lee is remembered in Charleston as a caterer, pastry chef, and restaurateur, but she was also a mother, mentor, and entrepreneur. I am driven to preserve and share her stories and recipes. She continues to live on in me. Eliza was the daughter of the chef Sally Seymour, the enslaved mistress of Charleston planter Thomas Martin. Eliza learned everything about cooking alongside other enslaved people who were being trained by her mother. She excelled in the French style of…

WHERE MY FAMILY comes from, we serve rice with a special spoon. If you’re born lucky, it gets passed down to you or gifted as a wedding present. This long-handled sterling spoon showed up on the sideboard in my great-aunt’s formal dining room for two o’clock dinner, especially on Sundays when company was coming. Originally intended for basting meats or serving stuffing in Georgian-era England, that spoon’s use changed on arrival in colonial-era Charleston, where the export of a rice called Carolina Gold made some people incredibly wealthy and forced others to toil from dawn to dusk in the flooded fields of the Lowcountry tidal basin. Dainty and easily broken, this rice was difficult to harvest and winnow, all while dodging death by poisonous snakes, lurking alligators, and malarial mosquitoes. A…

“ONE PORK CHOP in the pan goes dry, but if you have two, the fat from one feeds the other.” So says Nathalie Dupree, the renowned chef, prolific cookbook author, television host, and beloved culinary instructor who has become virtually synonymous with the art of Southern cooking. But her “pork chop theory” has meaning that goes beyond the stovetop. In conversation with Cook’s Country Editor in Chief Toni Tipton-Martin, Dupree explained: “Shirley Corriher and I were both running for the board of an organization and we were from the same town and she had been my student. I didn’t want to compete with her, nor did she want to compete with me, so we came up with this theory that satisfied us both as the reason why we could both…

CORNBREAD IS A hot topic in the South. And people have strong opinions about what makes the best cornbread. Recipes vary, but for many people, Southern-style cornbread is savory, is baked in a cast-iron skillet, and lands somewhere on the spectrum between moist and crumbly. It’s great smeared with butter, drizzled with sorghum syrup, or crumbled into a bowl of greens and pot likker. Our cornbread is flavorful and versatile and welcome on any table. Hydrating some of the cornmeal in buttermilk is the key to keeping our cornbread supermoist. And while some say it’s just not Southern-style cornbread if there’s sugar in it, we opted to include just a little to highlight the flavor of the cornmeal. SOUTHERN-STYLE BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD Serves 8 Total Time: 1 hour We prefer lard…

FIRE CRACKERS Serves 6 to 8 Total Time: 30 minutes, plus 1 hour 10 minutes resting and cooling We developed this recipe using Hidden Valley Original Ranch Seasoning, Salad Dressing & Recipe Mix. Two sleeves of saltines weigh about 8 ounces and contain about 72 crackers. Three teaspoons of red pepper flakes add modest heat to these crackers; feel free to increase or decrease the amount, if desired. This recipe can easily be doubled. ¾ cup vegetable oil1 (1-ounce) package ranch dressing mix2–4 teaspoons red pepper flakes1 teaspoon dried dill1 teaspoon granulated garlic8 ounces saltines 1. Combine oil, ranch dressing mix, pepper flakes, dill, and granulated garlic in 1-gallon zipper-lock bag. Seal bag and knead mixture with your hands until well combined. Add saltines and reseal bag. Shake and turn…