1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (132 page)

In
A Tramp Abroad
, Mark Twain complains of the food he ate while traveling in Europe. “It has been many months, at the present writing, since I have had a nourishing meal,” he writes in 1873, listing all of the foods he hopes will be ready for him on his return. High on that list are baked apples with cream—a simple and most excellent request.

Best when prepared with the dark red, round, firm, and pungent Rome beauty variety, the apples exude the aromas of hot butter, cinnamon, caramelizing sugar, marmalade, or honey as they bake, with perhaps a few drops of dark rum for good measure. Then comes the warmth of their luxuriously soft interiors, with the edge of tartness Rome beauties are prized for, contrasted with cold, heavy sweet cream or a dab of softened vanilla ice cream. (The beauties began as a botanical accident in Rome, Ohio, but they are stunners only when slowly baked or steamed, moisture being necessary to enhance a flesh that is somewhat dry and fibrous when uncooked.)

Although the utter lack of adornment of the baked apple is part of the miracle of its transformation, an elegant German riff can be found in
äpfel im schlafrock
, or apple in a night-gown—the “gown” being a wrap of thin, rich pie-crust dough in which the raisin-and nut-filled apple bakes.

Mail order:
Honeycrisp, tel 518-695-4517,
honeycrisp.com
(click Rome Apples).
Further information and recipes:
From My Mother’s Kitchen
by Mimi Sheraton (1979);
The Joy of Cooking
by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker (2006);
The James Beard Cookbook
by James Beard (2002);
saveur.com
(search baked apples with calvados);
epicurious.com
(search brown sugar baked apples).

Pulled pork on a soft bun.

Man has smoke-cooked meat over fire since ancient times—and Caribbean natives of the “new world” were certainly doing likewise, calling it
barbacoa
long before the colonists got in on the act. The modern idea of American barbecue grew directly out of the barbacoa tradition, and smoking whole hogs over pits is a technique now common in both North Carolina and Virginia.

Since then, barbecue has been strongly associated with the southeastern United States. But the specialty, once relegated to wide-open rural spaces, has moved to the big city in a
renaissance that is easily understandable, given the lusty appeal of these succulent meats. With some contingents swearing off meat and meat by-products entirely, or just lowering their meat consumption and upping their vegetable quotas, still others have only deepened their devotion to richly glazed, fragrant barbecue, elevating its mouthwatering bites of crisp fat and tender, juicy flesh to something approaching cult status.

“I think about barbecue like some people think about wine. The good stuff? You know it when you taste it.” So says Keith Allen, pitmaster at Allen & Son, one of North Carolina’s most important barbecue joints. But in truth, things aren’t so simple, and depending on where you are, your definition of “the good stuff,” and even of the very word
barbecue
, may vary. The variety inherent to the barbecue landscape is strongly linked to geography, which gives barbecue lovers that much more reason to travel.

In North Carolina, it’s all about hog. Along the eastern and coastal part of the state, pork shoulder (Allen & Son’s specialty) is slow-cooked over hardwood coals; drenched in a hot, tangy sauce of vinegar and red pepper flakes, the meat is tucked into a soft white bun and topped with cool, sweet, mayonnaise-based coleslaw. Head west, where the Piedmont plateau’s sand gives way to clay, and it’s not just the soil that turns red—it’s the barbecue, too. Western Carolina barbecue, also known as Lexington-style, means a slow-cooked pork shoulder seasoned with a vinegar-and-pepper sauce and sweetened by ketchup. In Texas, barbecue means smoky, pit-cooked beef brisket. Like Texans, Kentuckians also eschew pork for their barbecue, but they slow-cook mutton doused in a sauce of vinegar and Worcestershire.

In most regions, however, barbecue is synonymous with pork. In Louisiana, barbecue is
cochon au lait
: pulled meat from a suckling pig that has been split, spatchcocked, and suspended on a frame or pit-roasted over hardwood coals, served in a split sub roll with slaw in the manner of a po’boy. In central South Carolina, pulled pork is dressed in a mustard-and-vinegar sauce and served in a bun or as a plate lunch, while in Kansas City, Missouri, the meat is placed atop slices of white bread with generous amounts of thick, sweet sauce that combines acidy tomatoes with sticky sweet molasses. In Memphis, Tennessee, a pungent dry-rub seasoning lends a spicy crust to the meltingly tender smoked pork ribs; no sauce need apply.

Where:
In New York
, Hill Country, tel 212-255-4544,
hillcountryny.com
; Mighty Quinn’s barbecue at multiple locations,
mightyquinnsbbq.com
;
in Chapel Hill, NC
, Allen & Son Barbecue, tel 919-942-7576;
in Raleigh, NC
, Clyde Cooper’s Barbeque, tel 919-832-7614,
clydecoopersbbq.com
;
in Charleston, SC
, Bessingers Barbeque, tel 843-556-1354,
bessingersbbq.com
;
in Memphis
, A&R Bar-B-Que, tel 901-774-7444,
aandrbbq.com
; Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous, tel 901-523-2746,
hogsfly.com
;
in Chicago
, Carson’s, tel 312-280-9200,
ribs.com
;
in Kansas City, MO
, Arthur Bryant’s, tel 816-231-1123,
arthurbryantsbbq.com
;
in Lockhart, TX
, Kreuz Market, tel 512-398-2361,
kreuzmarket.com
;
in Pearland, TX
, Killen’s Texas Barbecue, tel 281-485-2272,
killensbbq.com
.
Mail order:
For state of the art grills, Grillworks, tel 855-434-3473,
grillery.com
; for barbecue sauce,
clydecoopersbbq.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Barbecue! Bible
by Steven Raichlen (2008);
southernbbqtrail.com
(includes barbecue-based films, oral histories, and directions);
cookstr.com
(search memphis magic; barbecued spare ribs; neely’s barbecue sauce).
Special events:
World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, Memphis, TN, May,
memphisinmay.org
; Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, New York, June,
bigapplebbq.org
.

Ultra-thin, crunchy, and both salty and sweet, the light brown benne wafer is the traditional sesame seed cookie of the lowlands of South Carolina. A standard item in the Southern pantry since the antebellum era, the cookie has a complex past:
Benne
is the Bantu word for sesame, and both the term and the ingredient arrived in South Carolina in the seventeenth century, brought there by slaves from the Niger-Congo region of sub-Saharan Africa. Its influence on South Carolina is similar to the influence that okra, brought by West African slaves, has had on Louisiana cooking.

Long cultivated throughout the Middle East and Africa, and a key ingredient in many Asian cuisines, sesame seeds are one of the world’s most ancient foods. The Bantu believe that eating benne seeds brings luck (a good thing since it’s almost impossible to eat just one wafer). A natural source of protein, the seeds bear a nutty, sweet aroma and, especially when toasted, a creamy, buttery flavor. Freed from their usual role as a crunch-adding condiment, in these flat, crackling cookies the seeds—mouthfuls of them—are the whole story.

Mail order:
Byrd’s, tel 800-291-2973,
byrdcookiecompany.com
(search benne wafers).
Further information and recipes:
Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking
by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart (2012);
The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen
by Matt Lee and Ted Lee (2013);
saveur.com
(search sweet benne wafers).

Biscuit
. The word alone summons up images of cozy, tender, and snowy puffs dripping with melted butter and perhaps a droplet of honey, a meal-or snacktime bread that seems to symbolize Southern hospitality at its best. Served hot, they are a welcome indulgence in settings of all sorts, whether they are split apart and liberally buttered at the family table or sandwiched with good, salty country ham and passed at cocktail parties.

The humble, raised-dough quick breads raise a few questions of their own, the first of which concerns what exactly is meant by
biscuit
. Strictly speaking, the word itself comes from the Latin words
bis
and
coctus
, meaning twice baked: the method for making the hard, breadlike rusks that sustained seafarers on long voyages during the Middle Ages. The term
twice baked
means
biscotti
in Italian and
zweiback
in
German and also refers to those similarly treated cookies. Oddly enough, the traditional Southern biscuit is not twice baked, but carries the name nonetheless.

In the days before commercialized yeast and baking soda were on hand to add the air that would expand in oven heat and so enable the biscuit to rise, there is evidence that another type of biscuit was made. Beaten biscuits, which have all but disappeared now save for those made by a few tradition-minded home cooks, were small, dry, and smooth, made of a flour, lard, and milk dough that was literally beaten (with a pestle, a heavy skillet, or, legend has it, actual fists) repeatedly in order to incorporate air. By the 1850s, leavening agents were commercialized to take on much of that chore, and the labor-intensive biscuit gradually disappeared.

The laborer is still an important piece of the equation, as a great biscuit is rarely a standardized product. It is the provenance of the baker, in the case of the South usually a grandmother, to define her own biscuit using her own special formula. In general, a truly excellent Southern-style biscuit should be about one inch tall, golden on the outside, and white, light, and fluffy on the inside, with a slightly ridged top. It should taste pleasantly, appealingly floury, with slightly buttery overtones often achieved by using old-fashioned buttermilk instead of usual milk—buttermilk being the ingredient many a Southern cook swears by, along with the White Lily brand of flour. The classic shortening is lard, but on this subject debate is rife; some cooks prefer to use Crisco, and some even swear by margarine.

Whatever their particularities, hot homemade biscuits are integral and irreplaceable components of traditional Southern breakfasts, church socials, Fourth-of-July picnics, and countless other occasions, rituals, and celebrations. And of course, as biscuits and gravy, they’re the centerpiece of a decadently soppy side dish best accompanied by a few equally decadent pieces of fried chicken.

Where:
In Nashville, TN
, Loveless Café, tel 615-646-9700,
lovelesscafe.com
;
in Chapel Hill, NC
, Crook’s Corner, tel 919-929-7643,
crookscorner.com
;
in Asheville, NC
, Biscuit Head, tel 828-333-5145,
biscuitheads.com
;
in New York
, Waverly Inn, tel 917-828-1154,
waverlynyc.com
;
throughout the South
, at multiple locations, Biscuitville,
biscuitville.com
.
Mail order:
Sister Schubert’s, tel 800-999-1835,
sisterschuberts.com
; Callie’s Charleston Biscuits, tel 843-577-1198,
calliesbiscuits.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Gift of Southern Cooking
by Edna Lewis with Scott Peacock (2003);
Biscuit Bliss
by James Villas (2003);
Callie’s Biscuits and Southern Traditions
by Carrie Morey (2013);
saveur.com
(search liz smith’s biscuits; honey buttermilk biscuits).