I have a friend; we’ll just call him “Bob,” or Mr. R. He calls me after my column appears to give me a critique. It is often positive, although I have been reprimanded once or twice. After my last column he called to tell me that just plain virgin coconut oil will not have the coconut odor that extra-virgin coconut oil has because it is more refined. I sorta knew that, but wasn’t sure. Now I am.
He also was interested that I had made the Atlantic Beach Pie — which again I urge you to try — and commented that he doesn’t buy sweetened condensed milk in the can, but rather, makes his own. I never heard of such! So, I looked it up via Google, and if you have two hours to be at home, I have supplied the recipe for you below. I don’t buy enough whole milk to do a price comparison, but I do think it will taste richer and, yes, less “tinny” than the store-bought version.
A few years ago, when I first started this column, I believe I shared a version of creamed (fried) corn that we made in my store back home. One of our cooks had brought us a huge case of corn from his grandmother’s farm in south Georgia. I put him to work shucking for an afternoon, and the next day I made corn salad and then old-fashioned fried corn. I steamed some sugar snap peas and mixed them with the corn. It was delicious and visually appealing with the bright green and the creamy yellow corn. I mention this because recently I attended a dinner in Nashville, Tennessee, for 100-plus, and one of the dishes was slow-cooked green beans with creamed corn on top. I think they were broad beans cooked long with smoked ham. The beans were in a big bowl, and on the top was the corn with about 2 inches of beans showing around the sides. The flavor combination was over the top.
The dinner I attended was held at The Parthenon in Nashville and was billed as “An Homage to Phila Hach.” Mrs. Hach hosted the first television cooking show in the South, extolling the virtues of Southern cuisine. She went on to become a cookbook author, restaurateur, innkeeper and catering chef to politicians and military flights. In 1976 she was asked by the Tennessee governor to manage a dinner at Centennial Park for 1000-plus dignitaries from the United Nations who were meeting in Nashville. It was the first time that this august group had ever met outside of New York.
She planned a menu that included country ham, green beans, turnip greens and cornbread. Not to be daunted by the no-alcohol prohibition of the park, she had state troopers bring Jack Daniels bourbon from Lynchburg to Nashville and then persuaded the local Coca-Cola bottling plant to make and freeze 1,700 mint juleps overnight to be served the next day for lunch. It was this luncheon that the Southern Foodways Alliance interpreted recently.
I thought about whether I needed to include a recipe for creamed corn. Most of us grew up knowing it as fried corn as it was almost always made in a cast iron skillet. I decided to include it. I chose this one by Ronni Lundy because it doesn’t include sugar (no sugar in corn; no sugar in cornbread, please).
Happy Eating! Remember there is great corn at our local farmers’ markets.
SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar (granulated or cane), honey, or maple syrup
4 tablespoons salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Over medium heat, warm the milk-sugar mixture until just steaming. Then lower the heat and simmer for about 2 hours, or until it thickens slightly.
Note: Some recipes do not use butter, but I think it will thicken up the milk.
CREAMED CORN
6 ears of corn
4 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons half and half
Salt and pepper
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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