| I grew up in New England, the home of 'plain | | | | for milk gravy and rolled thin steak strips in chicken |
| cooking', where corn on the cob is served as is with | | | | batter to make chicken-fried steak. |
| a slab of butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. We | | | | Down home southern cooking is no different than |
| boil salted meats with vegetables and call it - well, a | | | | New England plain cooking - at least at its most basic |
| boiled dinner. Our clam chowder is white, our baked | | | | level. Like any other regional style of cooking, it |
| beans have bacon and molasses in them, and no one | | | | makes use of the ingredients that are plentiful and |
| in the world has ever invented a food that was | | | | cheap. In New England we gussy up our dried beans |
| improved by the addition of curry. By the time I was | | | | with brown sugar and molasses, and serve them with |
| eighteen, I could boil a lobster, steam clams and grill a | | | | thick, sweet heavy brown bread dotted with raisins - |
| pork chop to perfection. Then I moved to Virginia, | | | | perfect fare for cold winter nights. In North Carolina, |
| picked up a roommate from North Carolina - and | | | | they simmer for hours with salt pork and onions and |
| discovered a whole new world of down home | | | | served with scallions for scooping and a side of flaky |
| country cooking goodness. | | | | biscuits cut out of dough with a juice glass. Salty, |
| To an All-American Italian girl from Boston, the menus | | | | spicy and flaky-good all at once, it's a down home |
| in restaurants were in a foreign language. | | | | meal that makes my mouth water just to remember. |
| Chicken-fried steak, grits, corn pone pudding, | | | | Some dishes just don't translate, though. There is no |
| strawberry rhubarb pie - sweet potato pie?? In my | | | | New England substitute for a Southern barbecue |
| mind, chicken and steak were two different meats, | | | | sandwich - shredded pork simmered with spices for |
| grits is what's on sandpaper, corn is a vegetable - | | | | hours and ladled over buns in a 'sandwich' that really |
| and what in the world is sweet potato doing in a | | | | requires a fork. The ubiquitous 'sloppy joe' just |
| crust? But I became a fervent convert to Southern | | | | doesn't cut it. It lacks the spicy-sweet tang and |
| cooking the first time my roommate made up a pan | | | | buttery texture of real slow-simmered pork |
| of the sweetest, tastiest, most perfectly | | | | barbecue. Nor is there anything that compares with |
| melt-in-your-mouth delicious Southern baking powder | | | | chicken fried steak - a dish that can't be described in |
| biscuits and topped them with sausage gravy. From | | | | words without selling it short. If you've had it, you |
| that day on, I was Sue's disciple, standing at her | | | | KNOW how good it is. If you haven't, the idea of |
| elbow as she diced scallions to make up a mess of | | | | dredging and dipping strips of beef and frying it like |
| pinto beans, stirred the milk into a pan of drippings | | | | chicken just doesn't do it justice. |