Leftovers

One of the realities of writing is that sometimes not everything you cook up makes it to the plate. Maybe what was written is irrelevant or off-topic. Maybe the overall document is just too long and something had to go. Maybe it’s just "scata," as my Greek friend at the newspaper used to say. "Scata" does happen, and just because it happens in a different language don’t make it smell more swell. It just makes it a more appropriate comment for an office setting. Unless the office is in Greece.

So below you will find an “out-take” from the book Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook, An ex-slave’s recipe for living. (Funny how "out-take" is the reverse of “take-out…” does that make the definition of “out-take” a container of food you bring with you TO the restaurant? Or maybe “take-out” is something that a producer puts INTO a motion picture, after it has been edited? I’m just saying…) 

But back to the topic at hand. I wrote the words below for the book but they were either not part of the final manuscript or altered in some way. I’m not one for wasting words; they are much too precious to me. And besides, I like these out-taken take-outs. And my granny, the best country cook I ever knew, would have liked these leftovers too. So this is for you Mom:

When I was a child I asked my granny how to make biscuits. I sincerely wanted to know. Granny lived in Alabama City—now Gadsden—and she was as kuntree as the day is long. “Aw, foot,” she said, throwing her head back with a laugh that revealed two buck teeth beneath a bristly upper lip. “Ah doan no, Leeser.” Only after repeated requests did she offer a vague description, with more hand flourishes than facts, of a process involving flour and lard and buttermilk. How much flour? Enough to sop up the buttermilk. How much buttermilk? Enough to absorb the flour. How long do you cook them? Until they’re done. 

Of course, Granny was vague because Granny didn’t know. Truth was, she just cooked, with the precision, if not the “preciseness” of a talented chef. And we all just ate it up like we’d never eaten before, at Granny’s house. 

Many a skilled black woman cooked the same way in Charleston before and after the war. Most likely, it is how Janie cooked too. Janie, like many other black cooks, may have developed some of her own recipes, although it was white women who usually wrote them down. When some of Charleston’s best-loved receipts were finally assembled for publication, one thing the editor realized was that the difficulty was not in convincing the cook to share her secret; it was in translating the gesturings of the Grannys of the Lowcountry into a recipe that could be replicated. 

Cooks were plentiful in postbellum Charleston, especially newly freed black cooks, a situation that was agreeable to their white employers. Like most black cooks, Janie probably was more familiar with the business end of her employers’ kitchens than the women who hired her. While many found it difficult to secure work in post-war Charleston, Janie never seemed to be without a job. Her journal, primarily a personal account of Charleston history through the early 20^th century, is also a kind of employment history. It is her resume, in which she recounts the families who employed her during her career.  

In Janie’s time, a letter of reference would suffice to secure employment. Judging by the folks for whom she worked and the length of employment at each home, Janie’s pride in not needing “papers,” as she wrote in her journal, was not mere puffery. She must have been a coveted cook, a hard worker, a pleasant person to be around, and a trusted friend who could be counted on to watch homes and children unsupervised. 

Not only were families larger then, but the servant staff was larger as well. The job of cook was not work for the weak. Over the course of her career, Janie’s duties included daily trips to the city’s Market for fresh meat, fruits and vegetables, visiting a neighborhood green grocer or purchasing from street vendors. The term “perishable” applied to most food in the 19^th century. Food that would spoil without benefit of today’s refrigeration was either bought and eaten quickly or tossed out as Charleston eagle fodder. Keeping food longer meant buying 100-pound blocks of ice, made of water drawn from Charleston’s artesian wells and delivered daily by horse-drawn wagon.

The families for whom Janie worked may have kept gardens as well, providing produce for the household. She may have tended some gardens in her lifetime. Canned foods were available during Janie’s years, but she likely did her share of canning and preserving as well. As cook, Janie would have been responsible for preparing cuts of meat or whole birds for cooking, perhaps even chasing a chicken down in the yard on occasion.  There was plenty of time standing over a hot stove without the luxury of air conditioning, and a heaping portion of bending and lifting heavy iron pans or pots full of water, not to mention washing, chopping, and cleaning. Rice, for example--so much an edible commodity that they named a variety "Carolina Gold"--was a fixture at almost every meal. To bring it to table required spending copious amounts of time washing, rinsing and sifting the grains over and over again in a cleaning and culling process to remove all the dirt and gravel. 

   

I do believe I would have loved eating Janie’s leftovers, just like my Granny’s. I’m thinking scratch-made cat head biscuits with apple butter, creamed corn right off the cob, pickled okra, greasy green beans, fried chicken, and peach cobbler for dessert. Whole milk. Black coffee. And the top button of my capris undone before it popped off on its own. Take some home with me? Well, if you insist; maybe just a small plate for later. No sense wasting it just because we didn't eat it all up in one book deal, I mean meal.

I'm hoping you agree; even Janie's take-outs are good to chew on. Bon appetit.