Georgia's Peachy Cuisine by Ruth Paget

Georgia’s Peachy Cuisine by Ruth Paget 

Georgia’s state nickname is the Peachtree State. Its juicy, yellow peaches that taste like mangoes tempt you to live on them year-round with a few other Georgia specialty items mixed in like pecans, peanuts, and sweet Vidalia onions. 

I have tried many of the following recipes during extended stays in Atlanta over the years and think these recipes from Georgia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker may interest readers:  

-peach guacamole 

-banana – pecan pancakes 

-peach muffins 

-sweet Vidalia soup 

-peach bread 

-peach-apricot green salad with feta cheese 

-carrot, broccoli, chopped pecan salad with mayonnaise 

-peach coleslaw 

-peach pasta salad -peach jello with cream cheese, marshmallows, and chopped pecans 

-sweet Vidalia onion soup -fried green tomatoes 

-North Georgia apple pork chops 

-Bourbon pork kebabs 

-peach wings -peach fried pies 

-peach cobbler 

-peach crisp 

Diners interested in following the Georgia Diet can find much to love in the Georgia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Alabama's Hot Summer Food by Ruth Paget

Alabama’s Hot Summer Food by Ruth Paget 

A meal of fried chicken, corn on the cob, cornbread, stewed collard greens with ham hock pieces, and iced tea is always welcome in Alabama, but cooks in summer there tend to do barbecue and cold foods to deal with the sweltering heat. 

As the world grows hotter, some of Alabama’s traditional ways of dealing with extreme heat and humidity might be appealing to chefs in other parts of the country and world. 

I thought the following recipes in Alabama Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker give a good picture of Alabama’s cool cuisine for beating summer heat: 

-Crawfish cornbread – the sweet, cooked tails of the “crayfish” are chopped and added to the batter in this recipe. Jalapeño peppers, cream style corn, and cheddar cheese also go in this dish. This recipe qualifies as a simple man’s hidden luxury. 

-Crawfish hushpuppies – “crayfish” hushpuppies made with chopped crawfish tails, onion, and buttermilk that are deep-fried balls of crunchy delight 

-peach preserves – made simply with chopped peaches, sugar, and water by boiling and storing in hot jars. These are perfect on pancakes, French toast, waffles, and ice cream 

-Creole eggs – a sauce made with onion, Andouille sausage, and Ro-tel tomatoes is poured over raw eggs in ramekins and baked. 

 -marinated slaw – this is just the thing to go with BBQ. It is made with shredded cabbage and chopped green bell pepper, onion, and celery with a vinegar and oil dressing. It is refrigerated overnight and served cold with BBQ. 

-cranberry salad – set in cherry Jell-O with cranberries, celery, pecans, and chopped oranges 

-orange gelatin salad – made with orange Jell-O, orange juice, cheddar cheese, crushed pineapple, mayonnaise, and evaporated milk 

-grape salad – made with green and purple seedless grapes, cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, vanilla, and chopped pecans 

-stewed collard greens with ham hocks – stew made with ham hocks and collard greens 

-muffeletta sandwiches – Louisiana’s heat beater is a favorite in Alabama, too. It is made with a black and green olive salad, pickled Italian vegetables, ham slices, salami, Swiss cheese, and provolone cheese on deli rolls. 

People who are looking for heat beater recipes can find many in the Alabama Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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South Carolina's Sunshine Food by Ruth Paget

South Carolina’s Sunshine Food by Ruth Paget 

I always liked going to South Carolina as a child, because I could go swimming every day. My sister lived outside the resort town of Myrtle Beach in a small town called Murrells Inlet. 

Après my daily nage, I would check the crab trap that hung off the dock to see if we would get some fresh crab for lunch to go in salad from the garden. If I was unlucky and did not get a crab, I still did not worry about lunch, because my sister had a freezer full of bass, grouper, red snapper, and shrimp. She also had cupboards full of canned crab. 

K. fried fish and made fritters from the shrimp and crab. I would run over to Pittypat’s Porch Restaurant next door and get a bag full onion-flavored, deep-fried batter balls called hushpuppies. K.’s garden provided us with salad and green beans. 

I was a happy kid who loved swimming and eating. I thought South Carolina was the greatest place for a vacation without even counting amusement park trips to Myrtle Beach. 

Now that I am an adult, I think South Carolina’s culinary heritage has dishes that the entire United States might be interested in trying, especially in summer when you do not want to heat up the house for too long. South Carolina is famous for delicious food that is not too hard to prepare. 

I thought the following dishes from South Carolina Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker capture the spirit of the state:  

-grilled figs topped with goat cheese and wrapped in prosciutto. Figs grow well in South Carolina’s hot, humid climate. 

-seafood cheese ball made with cream cheese, crabmeat, and seasoning. It is chilled and rolled in chopped pecans to coat the ball. Pecans also grow well in this region. 

-coastal shrimp fritters – The batter for these is like a lumpy pancake mix that is made with shrimp, chopped red pepper, and chopped onion before pan frying them into fritters. 

-South Carolina crab dip – so easy to make with vegetable seasoning mix, sour cream, and crabmeat and then chilled. 

-Warm Tomato Pie Dip – a baked dip made with diced tomatoes, chopped and cooked bacon, ricotta cheese, Palmetto cheese, and basil. 

 -Plantation rice muffins – cooked rice is used in place of flour in these recipes. Rice used to be grown in South Carolina before other areas could do it more profitably like Louisiana. 

-Peach bread made with peaches and almonds 

-easy Lowcountry soup made with cooked shrimp or crab, chopped red bell peppers, chopped onions, and cream of mushroom soup. Lowcountry refers to southern South Carolina where the land is below sea level like the Netherlands. 

-Inlet shrimp salad – made with steamed shrimp, celery, and onion in mayonnaise. Served chilled. 

-Peach and shrimp salad – Fried shrimp combined with arugula, avocado, peaches, and onion. 

Peaches abound in South Carolina and show up in many recipes. I ate tons of ripe ones as a child and did have proverbial peach juice run down my arms. No worries! I just went back swimming to clean up. 

To evoke summer memories like these, readers might be interested in purchasing South Carolina Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Apple Economics in West Virginia by Ruth Paget

Apple Economics in West Virginia by Ruth Paget 

Mostly mountainous West Virginia has a plentiful apple supply thanks to the very real Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) who planted orchards around the state in the 1800s. 

The USDA (United States Drug Administration) lists one medium as containing 17% dietary fiber and 14% Vitamin C, making it a tasty and nutritious addition to your diet. When I cook with apples, I halve or eliminate sugar in recipes, because I think apples are already sweet. 

The recipes for apples in West Virginia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker cover the entire gamut of recipes from appetizers to desserts that you can make with apples that will please people of all ages. Simmons and Whitaker begin their apple selections with grilled fruit kebabs with midori-coconut reduction. This is an exotic hors d’oeuvres for the backyard barbecue. Finicky teens might just like grilled apples with dips offered like honey, sour cream and jam, and yogurt and jam. 

If you make homemade applesauce and let it cook down several hours you, you will get a thick, brown apple “butter” that West Virginians spread on toast or biscuits and use as an ingredient in cakes, quick breads, bars, and pies. 

Apples are so plentiful in West Virginia that there are several virus-chasing drinks made with them such as: 

-West Virginia Apple Cider Punch 

(made with apple cider, orange juice, lemon juice, and sparkling white grape juice or champagne) 

-West Virginia Hot Apple Cider Punch 

(made with apple cider, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon sticks) 

-Golden Delicious Wassail 

(made with apple cider, cranberry juice, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg and ginger to celebrate the harvest originally in medieval England) 

Other apple recipes in the cookbook evoke what was once a frontier state like apple cider syrup for pancakes, apple pancakes, and mulligatawny soup. More modern uses of the apple include:

-Molded Waldorf Salad 

-Pecan-Stuffed Pork Chops 

-Apple Chicken Stir-Fry 

West Virginia uses apple butter and apples the most in desserts that beg for a cup of strong coffee to go with them such as:  

-apple butter cake 

-applesauce cake 

-apple butter bars 

-West Virginia Butter Cookies 

-apple cookies 

-candied apples 

-caramel chocolate chip apples 

-apple butter pumpkin pie 

-apple crunch 

-apple cinnamon crisps 

-baked apples 

-apple peach bake 

What Simmons and Whitaker do not share in their great cookbook of mountain cuisine is that apples tend to be relatively inexpensive which make them a delicious and nutritious good deal. 

Apple lovers will find many good reasons to like West Virginia Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker. There are many delicious Appalachian recipes in this cookbook in addition to the apple ones that make this a nice addition to a kitchen library.

(Note: I still like to think that the big apple tree I climbed in behind my grandma Pennington’s home in Robbins Chapel, Virginia was planted by Johnny Appleseed.) 

There is a recipe in Gabriel Kreuther: The Spirit of Alsace by Gabriel Kreuther and Michael Ruhlman for apple beignets that is both apple economics and beer economics due to beer used in the beignet batter.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Tennessee Treasures by Ruth Paget

Tennessee Treasures by Ruth Paget 

Tennessee is world famous for its music (mountain music from East Tennessee, Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, and Memphis for Beale Street Blues), its barbecue, and its Tennessee whisky, but after reading Tennessee Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker, you can see that Tennessee’s rich cuisine deserves better recognition as well. 

The following appetizers and sides make resourceful use of Tennessee’s produce: 

-cowpea caviar – made with green, yellow, and red peppers; onions; tomatoes; and parsley 

-ham and cheese ball made with mushrooms and green onions 

-lime and cilantro creamy coleslaw 

-fried green tomatoes with onions and honey Dijon sauce 

A calorie-rich lunch for snowed-in mountain days follows: 

-sweet beer bread 

-smoked sausage lentil soup 

Tennessee whisky is the star of the following dishes: 

-George Dinkel Tennessee whisky pork chops 

-Jack Black barbecued ribs 

-Jack Daniels country-style beef ribs 

-Jack Daniels salmon 

Wine lovers might like the following cake: 

-muscadine wine coffee cake 

Tennessee Hometown Cookbook by Sheila Simmons and Kent Whitaker wraps up with a monthly listing of music and food festivals, which have oral storytellers, beauty pageants, carnivals, food contests, and children’s games. The cookbook packs a lot of information into 256 pages, making it a good purchase for a home cookbook collection. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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