Shrimp Creole

When I was a young teenager, in the late 1950’s, my family vacationed in Atlantic Beach/Morehead City North Carolina. The bed-and-breakfast where we stayed was in Atlantic Beach. There was a small marina attached and in residence were a creative and playful black standard poodle and a really dumb Dalmatian. One of my favorite dog stories is about the poodle. One afternoon the proprietors decided to try out a trimaran, a very new hull design for that part of the world, and wouldn’t let the poodle go with them. I stayed on the dock with him as he watched the boat go out, make a big loop, and come back in. As the boat approached, he waded out in the water and waited for his people. When they stepped off the boat he carefully shook all over them. It was deliberate because he didn’t shake until they were within range. He also chased butterflies.

The only food available on the island was breakfast at the inn and fast food. If we wanted a real meal we had to go across the bridge and causeway to Morehead City.

After a hard day of shell-hunting, salt and sand there was nothing like getting clean and dressed up and going for a good dinner. I remember walking on the dock where the shrimp boats came in, the salt marsh, salt water, fish and creosote making a not-quite-unpleasant smell on the soft evening breeze. Sometimes a shrimp boat would come in while we were there. The holds were emptied and the fish sorted out from the shrimp and packed in ice. The shrimp were dumped onto long tables, where young boys would snap the “heads” off, leaving just the tails to be packed in ice and shipped north.

At the time, Morehead City was the farthest-north shrimp fishery. Almost all shrimp were sold frozen, but these were sent by truck directly to the New York markets, where they commanded a premium price as fresh. There were cats, of course, one of whom refused to eat anything but fresh shrimp. I know how it felt.

The shrimp dock had a restaurant attached, but they offered only the standard: fish, shrimp, bay scallops, crab cakes, soft shell crabs, cole slaw, hush puppies, and French fries. All fried, all accompanied by tartar sauce. It was all good because it was all fresh, but it got to be too much of a same thing to eat it every night.

Just up the road apiece was a different restaurant. It billed itself as Italian, but that was only part of the story. That’s where the good shrimp were. They bought fresh shrimp from the dock so it hadn’t been frozen. They offered “Cold Boiled Shrimp” which was basically a giant shrimp cocktail with a really good horseradishy cocktail sauce. And then there was shrimp creole. It was wonderful. Lots of shrimp in a chunky sauce of tomatoes, green pepper, onion, and celery served over rice. It was my introduction to shrimp creole and I measure all shrimp creole recipes by that dish.

In the years since, I have duplicated that shrimp creole. I used to use just canned tomatoes and chop them up but the variety on the market has improved and I can get diced canned tomatoes. When I can find it, I stir in some filé powder (AKA gumbo filé): powdered sassafras leaves used for thickening and flavor. If I can’t find the kind that has ground thyme in it I add thyme leaves. One of the saddest things in my life is that my grandchildren don’t like it.

Over the years I’ve been served some disastrous messes that masqueraded as shrimp creole. Most of them use tomato sauce instead of tomatoes and leave out any real flavoring. I’ve now given up eating any shrimp creole but my own. In New Orleans, believe it or not, I was served something that was really shrimp in tomato soup over rice. It was dreadful, but we were in a real tourist trap. We should have known better because there was no line outside. It was the only bad food we had in the Crescent City.

Every time I smell the “holy trinity” of green pepper, onion, and celery sautéing it brings back those vacations at the beach. The bed-and-breakfast with the standard poodle and the Dalmatian in residence; hunting shells, trying to swim in a gentle surf, getting sunburned and trudging through the sea oats on the dunes; dressing for dinner and enjoying shrimp creole and cold boiled shrimp; and dancing at the dance pavilion with Coast Guardsmen from the locally based CGC Chalula and Marines from Camp Lejeune.

(c) 2008 Katherine DeWitt

My Son and the Tiny Hot Peppers

When I was still gardening, I once ordered seeds for several unusual kinds of peppers from a home grower. He sent along a packet of seeds with a note that said, “Try these. I don’t know what they’re called but they’re pretty and they eat good.”

They were pretty. The plant made a small bush with bright red little gems of peppers all over it. I grew it in a pot and it was probably the most decorative vegetable I ever grew.

But there was that promise that “…they eat good.” They were tiny, perhaps ¾ of an inch long. Knowing the theory that all peppers have the same amount of heat per pepper no matter how small or large, I was really cautious. I was correct. Those were the hottest freaking peppers I ever tasted and were useful only in a large amount of chili or other stew.

I had a number of friends, mostly male, who prided themselves on enjoying the hottest of food. They were the people who ate the hottest of curries, asked for the hottest of Thai food, and thought Tabasco to be mildly hot. I thought I’d challenge them.

I always offered two peppers. Strangely, the reaction was almost universally the same: The subject of the experiment nibbled a tiny bit off the tip of the pepper, his face took on a peculiar expression as if concealing a tightly-held scream, and he deposited the remainder of the peppers into the trash. One victim turned sort of purplish red. Only one of my chili-lovers didn’t take the bait. He looked at them and put them into his shirt pocket for later use. He didn’t bother to taste them. He had either met them before or knew the “same amount of heat no matter the size” principle. He had also lived in the Southwest and eaten more than his share of peppers and Tex Mex food.

My poor son, though, was an unintended victim. He was about ten at the time and he had always claimed he didn’t like spicy food. He got his nerve up and popped a whole one, seeds and all*, into his mouth before I could stop him. I thought he was going to lose his breath, his heartbeat, and all other functions. We had milk, so he drank probably a quart or more trying to put the fire out. It worked to some extent, and he was finally able to breathe. Water finished the job.

He was much too young for the better remedy: wine or beer. The alcohol dissolves the oil and takes it away. The calcium in milk just helps neutralize the acid but it’s only somewhat effective. Sometimes buttered bread helps as the butter dilutes the pepper oil. Water does nothing because the oil clings to the inside of the mouth and water won’t wash it away.

After that, hot food never intimidated him again. No amount of spiciness could come even close to that incendiary little pepper that “… [were] pretty and they eat good.”
———————————————————————————————
*The seeds of any pepper are much hotter than the flesh.

(c)2008 Katherine DeWitt

Biscuits and Butter and Jam, Oh My!

I love old-fashioned southern buttermilk biscuits. Some of my earliest memories are of eating cold unbuttered biscuits out of a cookie jar at Mary’s. Mary was the matriarch of a family who, one at a time, worked for my grandmother for decades.

This was the old segregated south. It was either illegal or socially unacceptable to hire African-Americans for anything but menial jobs. My grandfather had employed Mary’s father or grandfather, I’m not clear which, in his lumber yard and construction business. He would have liked to make him foreman, but he told my grandmother he didn’t dare promote him over the lazy, drunken white guys. It would have cost him his business. I don’t remember the man’s name, but I know that he invented a “pocket” window for my grandmother’s pantry. The window opened downward into the wall.

Mary, then her sons and daughters, worked for my grandmother. I particularly remember Roberta. She had gone to Howard University, but came home to work and put her little sister through college. Roberta had the most beautiful handwriting I had ever seen. She was more my grandmother’s business associate than domestic help and I hope my grandmother paid her accordingly. I admired Roberta and tried to copy her handwriting. When her sister finished college, they both moved north and we lost track of them.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time at Mary’s house. The first house of theirs I knew was literally a log cabin with a lot of land around it. They had to walk to a spring for water and carry it all the way back. They did laundry in a huge pot outside, filled with buckets and buckets of spring water toted from that spring. Our laundry was sent out and I don’t know who did it. I never quite understood that, though Mary’s brood might have done our laundry. It would have made sense.

I was often sent to stay at their house. When friends and neighbors chastised my mother for it, she would ask, “Who would dare hurt her?” And she had a point. So I had some insight into the African-American community in our small town that made me an advocate for civil rights years later.

Back to biscuits. I am constantly amazed at the variety of things called “biscuits.” I judge all biscuits by the standards Mary set. Hers were “short” enough not to need additional lubrication such as butter. I suspect what made them taste so good was that she used lard for shortening. Lard makes a superior pie crust, too. Scones are just biscuits with sugar and sometimes raisins.

Roy Rogers used to serves a sort of Western biscuits. They taste as if they’re made with self-rising flour and almost the only fat in is brushed on the top before baking. I don’t think they’ve ever seen milk.

Popeye’s biscuits are awful. They’re hard and dry and look horribly machine made. I’m not crazy about their chicken, either. It’s even harder and dryer than the biscuits.

KFC makes pretty good biscuits. Not as good as Mary’s, but passable. They have a crusty exterior and a soft inside and taste almost like buttermilk biscuits. When I used to live close enough to a KFC I would go in a buy a dozen biscuits and nothing else.

Oddly enough, my local supermarket, SuperFresh, makes excellent biscuits so I don’t need to drive a half hour to the nearest KFC. Or make my own. Biscuits aren’t hard to make, they just take time.

The difference between a buttermilk biscuit and a baking powder biscuit is that one uses baking soda and soured milk for leavening and the other uses, tad ah! only baking powder. The tang of the buttermilk (or milk “clabbered” with lemon juice) makes the biscuits better. They should never, ever be made with water. Always milk and plenty of shortening. My mother liked the crust, so she rolled them out thin so there wasn’t much middle Some people cut them out really thick so there’s lots of soft middle. . I prefer a modest amount of middle. Cold biscuits lose the crispness of the crust, anyway.

I no longer eat my biscuits cold and unadorned. I heat them up and butter them. I love 'em with chicken or beef gravy, too. For breakfast, “Day old” biscuits get toasted: split, buttered, and put into the toaster oven to get crispy and brown. My mother used to do that for a special treat and I still do it for breakfast. I’ve never decided whether I prefer them with or without preserves so I always do half-and-half and alternate bites. I always use preserves, AKA jam, never jelly or marmalade. Jelly is for my grandson’s peanut butter sandwiches. Marmalade goes on English muffins or toast.

However they’re made, whatever is on them, whether they’re hot or cold, biscuits always remind me of that cozy cabin smelling of wood smoke and filled with Mary’s children and grandchildren. Because my little blonde head spent time with Mary’s family, and I knew Roberta, I never did understand prejudice and I have retained a lasting love of biscuits.

(c) 2008 Katherine DeWitt