My friend Diane sent me a link to a wonderful documentary about southern cooking master Edna Lewis. I had never heard of her, but being from the South myself, this lady had me at hello. There is much I love about the culture of the food of my childhood, and when Miss Lewis (as she was called) talked about southern cooking from her own life, its easy to see how much a love of food and the life lived around it can create traditions that last a lifetime. The Gift of Southern Cooking is now on my kitchen counter. Brunswick Stew, fried chicken, and cornbread...these childhood basics will be revitalized in my kitchen. I want my children to know what all this tastes like, and that it's where I come from.
For a Labor Day cookout with friends, Emma and I made Edna's Fresh Apple Cake with Caramel Glaze (I found the recipe here). Emma is so easy to cook with these days, she measures out the ingredients easily, with surprising precision, and of course, she knows the cook gets to taste everything, just to make sure.
The house smelled amazing, apples and Fall are such a happy combination. The caramel glaze poured on top of this cake seeps down into it through the many holes poked through the top, how can this taste anything but good. The consistency of the cake is a bit pudding-like, full of cooked apples and pecans (a favorite Southern ingredient I grew up with), but not too sweet. To be honest, the kids didn't go nuts for it, I think it was because they thought it would be sweeter (may a scoop of vanilla ice cream would have done the trick). I think that is exactly why this cake is a perfect end to a meal, or even breakfast.
I recently explained to Peter how my childhood Sundays were centered around food. Churches all over town let out by noon (or you and your stomach were counting the minutes if it went past noon) and everyone gathered afterwards for a midday meal. The food was familiar, and the women who cooked it all could have done it blindfolded. Peter couldn't believe how much time this whole affair took. But why not? It seems like we are all in such a hurry, especially on the weekends. No one left the table to hop back on the computer, or even turn on the television (unless a ball game was on). It was much slower, which is probably another reason I remember the food more.
