2018_September-October.indd

BOOK EXCERPT

Fried Okra This is not a wet-battered fried okra. Nothing my mother cooks from the garden is battered that way. It defeats the purpose of fresh food, she believes. WHAT YOU WILL NEED 1 pound okra, small, young, and tender ½ to ¾ cup cornmeal
 1 teaspoon salt
 ½ teaspoon black pepper 2 tablespoons bacon grease HOW TO PREP If you are picking okra, or selecting it at a curb market, small is better. Pods even as big as your index finger may already be getting tough, and if you have ever bitten into a piece of okra that seems like a piece of thin bark off a chinaberry tree, you know what we mean. Cut the okra into pieces of about 1 to 1 inch. It is fine to keep the tips, but discard the stem. Add just a little water to the bowl of cut-up okra, toss the okra in it, then pour off the rest of the water. Add the meal, salt, and black pepper to the bowl, and, with your hands, mix it in good. Heat your grease in a cast-iron skillet, and add your okra. It does not matter one whit if the okra pieces are not completely covered with cornmeal. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, and then over medium-low for another 20 or 30. “Okra takes a while,” my mother said. It should be so deep green it is almost black, and the meal should be crispy. This is not the deep-fried, battered, still-raw okra you get in restaurants, she said. “That ain’t okra,” she said. Note to the reader: Rick Bragg is the author of multiple books, in- cluding the best-selling Ava’s Man and All Over but the Shoutin’. He lives in Alabama.

Sweet Corn WHAT YOU WILL NEED 3 to 3½ cups fresh sweet corn, cut off the cob 1 teaspoon salt
 ¼ teaspoon sugar
 ¾ stick butter (at least) HOW TO PREP Shuck and remove the silk from your corn. Scrape the corn kernels off the cobs. How many ears you need will depend on the size; just try to end up with at least 3 cups. You will want leftovers of this; it is even good cold. In a cast-iron skillet, combine your corn, salt, and sugar with about ½ cup water, and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 to 15 min- utes, then add the butter and cook over low heat till the water has cooked out and the corn is stewing in the butter and its own sugars. Time is relative. We like it a little crisp, and some people only cook it for about 20 min- utes in all, for an even crisper taste. To be honest, “it’s hard to mess up sweet corn.” She did not say, “Even you could do it,” but I think she meant to.

Fried Green Tomatoes WHAT YOU WILL NEED 1 cup lard or bacon grease 2 green tomatoes, as large as possible, just starting to turn 1 cup flour
 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon black pepper HOW TO PREP Heat your fat in a cast-iron skillet till it’s good and hot, then lower the heat to medium. Slice your tomatoes about ¼ inch thick. Mix your flour, salt, and pepper, and dust the to- matoes lightly with the dry flour, and cook until golden brown, then turn, and repeat. A little of this goes a long way. For most peo- ple, two or three slices is enough. Most people are used to battered, deep-fried green tomatoes cooked in cornmeal. This is obviously not that. Such a method, she be- lieves, is fine for corn dogs at the fair. If she is cooking for a large group, she will sometimes reduce the amount of fat, pile wheels of tomato in, and cook them slowly, stirring with a big spoon. This breaks up the tomatoes, and you end up with a kind of scramble of green tomatoes and crisped flour, which is pretty good, too. The secret to any green tomato for frying is to pick one that has just, just started to turn and is showing the slightest bit of ripeness. These will be sweeter. “It makes all the difference in the world,” she said.

“ She does not own a measuring cup. She does not own a mea- suring spoon. She cooks in dabs, and smidgens, and tads, and a measurement she mysteriously refers to as ‘you know, hon, just some.’ In her lexicon, there is ‘part of a handful’ and ‘a handful’ and ‘a real good handful,’ which I have come to understand is roughly a handful, part of another handful, and ‘some.’”

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