Fried chicken in the Mississippi delta

[Stand_watie]

This thread

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/viewtopic.php?pid=62299#p62299

brought this to mind.

My dear old grandmother, who grew up in the impoverished mid-south of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and north-eastern Arkansas, made the best fried chicken I have ever tasted. She lived approximately from 1910 to 1999.

Recently (end of July), I had occassion to meet up with a bunch of cousins that I've never met before in the oddly named town of "Piggot, Arkansas", on just the other side of the delta. One of those cousins makes fried chicken just like gramma.

I was in such a hurry to leave (due to my scheduling), that I didn't have time to eat, fortunately my mom, and my cousin who cooked for me, pressed a paper plate full of the goodies of fried chicken, smoked ham, biscuits, mashed taters, creamed corn, etc upon me before I left for home.

So I ate it on the way home. I almost cried from the flavor.

Southren Americans are frequently accused of being "fat" by other Americans. My friends, there are very compelling reasons for this. Very compelling.

[spinr]

Southren Americans are frequently accused of being "fat" by other Americans. My friends, there are very compelling reasons for this. Very compelling.

Saw a bumper sticker this weeking that ties in rather well with that thought...

Eat Healthy, Stay Fit, Die Anyway

:/

BTW, what parts of W.N.C. did did your grandmother frequent?

[280plus]

Where's the recipe?

[Perd Hapley]

I had occassion to meet up with a bunch of cousins that I've never met before in the oddly named town of "Piggot, Arkansas"

What?  My momma's family hails from Piggot.  The Wards, to be exact.  I don't think there are any left there, now.

It might interest you to know there is a Hemingway house in Piggot.  He married a St. Louis girl whose family "summered" in Piggot, and they lived in the summer house during their short marriage.  He wrote some things while there, don't recall what.

Strangely enough, even though my Southern momma is a good cook, I never really liked fried chicken.

[Waitone]

My ex's mother did glorious honor to a chicken.  Her dinner rolls were something to cry for.  Alas, no written instruction (Can't spell the word this early) and has never been duplicated by her children.

Now let me get cynical.  Why is it every time a story about obesity comes out the first thing on the plate is southroners and fried chicken.  Sterotypical reportage.  If southroners are fatter as a region the cause includes fried foods but ain't limited to fried foods.  I've lived in the south most of my adult life and I know of no one who subsists on fried foods.  

There!  I feel better.

[The Rabbi]

It isnt just fried foods (although where else do you find fried okra on a menu?).  It is ham.  Or biscuits and gravy.  Or vegetabes cooked long with fatback.  That diet worked great when people were busting butt in the fields 8-10 hours a day. It is a disaster when people sit in offices.
And btw, I love fried chicken and fried okra or fried squash.

[Stand_watie]

It isnt just fried foods (although where else do you find fried okra on a menu?).  It is ham.  Or biscuits and gravy.  Or vegetabes cooked long with fatback.  That diet worked great when people were busting butt in the fields 8-10 hours a day. It is a disaster when people sit in offices.
And btw, I love fried chicken and fried okra or fried squash.

My mother described my grandad's eating habits to me once - how at breakfast he'd mop the bacon grease out of the frying pan with his toast and eat it. Ow! My heart hurts! He was 61 when he passed away of a massive stroke. At least it was instaneous and painless, by my gram's account, and ironically at breakfast. She said he just leaned over and put his head down on the table like he was going to sleep, closed his eyes and was dead.

He grew up working in cotton fields, and spent the last 40 years of his life in a foundry. He never was more than a few lbs overweight.

[Perd Hapley]

And btw, I love fried chicken and fried okra or fried squash.

What, no love for ham?

[The Rabbi]

And btw, I love fried chicken and fried okra or fried squash.

What, no love for ham?

Ham is delicious.  But I don't eat it.

[Silver Bullet]

Where's the recipe?

That's what I want to know; otherwise, isn't this thread just a tease ?  

Meanwhile, the best fried chicken I've found is Popeye's.

[280plus]

Yeaaaa, Popeye's spicy, mmmmmmm...

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

Fistful, you wouldn't happen to have a cousin or uncle by the name of Pat Ward, would ya?

Rabbit.

[Silver Bullet]

Yeaaaa, Popeye's spicy, mmmmmmm...

Ah ... I forgot to specify "spicy".  Their red beans and rice is good, also, and about 90% of the time the biscuits are excellent.

[Perd Hapley]

Ham is delicious.  But I don't eat it.

How do you know what it tastes like?  Straying from the Law of Moses are we?  Rabbi, are we gonna have to stone you?  

[Perd Hapley]

Fistful, you wouldn't happen to have a cousin or uncle by the name of Pat Ward, would ya?

No cousins or uncles.  Any relatives more distant than that I wouldn't know much about.  Is Pat from Piggot?

[trapperready]

My mother described my grandad's eating habits to me once - how at breakfast he'd mop the bacon grease out of the frying pan with his toast and eat it.

That diet worked great when people were busting butt in the fields 8-10 hours a day.

I'm not real familiar with Southern food, but "hearty meals" were certainly staples throughout the Midwest, particularly amongst farmers and miners. There's a little delicacy from the UP called Trenary Toast. It's basically a very dry, thick cinnammin toast which is typically eaten with breakfast. It's actually really good dunked in a cup of hot, black coffee.

However, the local guy who sells it comes from a family of miners. He says that his dad and uncles used to take a boiling hot cup of joe, add a big chunk of sharp cheddar cheese, and then dig out the molten globs with the Trenary Toast. Then, they'd eat a few eggs, some bacon and head to work.

Now, folks drink decaf Starbucks non-fat lattes and munch Lipitor like candy. Man-boobs used to be something saved for the carnivals and freak shows... now you can just poke your head around into the next cubicle.

[The Rabbi]

Ham is delicious.  But I don't eat it.

How do you know what it tastes like?  Straying from the Law of Moses are we?  Rabbi, are we gonna have to stone you?  

I grew up like the other 92% of Jews in America and then found my way back.

[Guest]

http://www.piggott.org/tourism/index.htm

http://hemingway.astate.edu/

During the 1930s the barn was converted to a studio to give Hemingway privacy for writing while visiting Piggott.  Portions of one of his most famous novels, A Farewell to Arms, and several short stories were written in this studio.

--

Southern Fried Chicken.

One secret to putting a "scald" on that chicken, is Cooking with Cast Iron.  Cast iron heats evenly, and in regard to frying, like this here chicken, chicken is not greasy, moist and tender on the inside, and the "crust" is crunchy and not greasy either.

Recipes are passed down in families. While it is true, these recipes are passed down to the Ladies [Southern Belles]  Men also passed down recipes.

Marriages have been arranged over a Courtin' Couple with same/ similar recipes. Courtin' Couples sharing family recipes, Like Souther Fried Chicken , means some serious "Courtin' & Sparkin' going on.

In contrast, hangings and shooting occur over the slander insults of finding out 1) recipes were slandered , ( your momma's fried chicken was not good)  2) stealing a recipe not yours and taking credit, 3) getting caught frying chicken in something other than cast iron.
That last one, they shoot you, hang you and shoot you again.


 I cannot tell you what-all passed down to me.

This will get one in the ball park.
 Right off the bat, forget the part about  a plastic bag...BROWN Paper sack is Proper.  Would not want you shot before you get started good.

Oh, about them Biscuits to go with that gravy. Scratch Biscuits, don't let me hear you pop a can of store bought...make 'em from scratch.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Poultry/SouthernFriedChicken.htm

[Stand_watie]

BTW, what parts of W.N.C. did did your grandmother frequent?

Spin 180, I don't know, and I don't think she did either. She moved nearby to eastern Tennessee when her dad died when she was eight or ten, and would have gotten there by foot or by mule, so it must have been within spitting distance of the border of Tennessee. She met my grandad there (border Tennessee) and when they married they followed the work up into the delta of Arkansas, then followed the industrial jobs during the end of the depression to  Missouri, Illinois and finally Michigan.

Completely unrelated to that, my family  lived in Winston-Salem when I was a kid - from 1974 to 1978.

[Stand_watie]

P.S. I said "delta", Piggot actually isn't really the delta. One of the wierdest things I ever saw, was after driving through the delta for hours and hours, there's just *BANG* a hill and all of a sudden your in a entire ridge of foothills of some sort. My map tells me it's incredibly long and narrow and goes right back to delta not far beyond Piggot.

[Silver Bullet]

sm,

Thanks for the recipe post.    :/

Hope I have enough ammo and rope to make it through to the end of the recipe, though.  

[French G.]

My mom used to make quite good fried chicken before becoming a tree-hugging liberal that does not fry things.

I think the most important phase is the grease. The worse for you the better, this means lard!  My mom, a proto-health nut usually used Crisco (cue hardening arteries sound) as a sub. Got to have it hot, cast iron fry pan of course. The rest was pretty straight forward, dip it in budweiser and dredge it in flour, salt, and pepper. Better than anything I get in the stores these days.

[Perd Hapley]

My mom quit making the good stuff, too, just for health sake.  Her politics are about the same, if she has any.

[Guest]

About this Southern Cooking -

Folks have some incorrect thinking. Media don't help, which should come as no surprise.

A lot of these Medical Problems folks go about narrow down to two things.

1. Genes
2. Marketing.

Genes - Some folks get bad genes, just predisposed to having the problems they do, from Cholesterol to Blood Pressure to bad bones and such.

Marketing  is such that if you feel fine , healthy as can be, after about 15 minutes of TV and commercials, reading a magazine ad or one in a paper, you can find something wrong with you and the Doctor can too when you go in all worrried and convinced you are sick and writes up all them tests, exams , specialists and meds.

Me?

Hey, my Doctor buddy's shared with me a long time ago "When you around Doctors and Nurses, that means Sick and Dying folks are near. Stay away from Sick and Dying by staying away from Doctors and Nurses".

Exception is around them shooting, fishing and hunting, just do not go near hosptitals and doctor offices is what that meant.

Fried Chicken, sure I eat it, had some today as a matter of fact.

Here is the misconception about Me and a LOT of Southern Folks. Best sit down...

I do not eat a LOT of fried foods. I eat a LOT of baked, broiled foods. I eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies.
I drink a LOT of water.

Folks have this idea in thier head, and they are wrong. Granted I have seen to have some good genes. Not sure where I got them, Barbara assisted in my geneology, and all these years what I have been told been lies.

My cholesterol barely registers, I mean last time checked Doc said I might have to eat Cholesterol just to get it "over and up into the min you need to keep folks getting mad at you".

Resting heart rate, low, I mean low. Blood Pressure the same. Got folks whacking instruments making sure they work.

Genes, still I do not abuse this nice benefit I am grateful to have. I eat healthy, if I want Fried Chicken, I eat it. I want fried pie, I eat it.

I rarely use salt, in fact about 2 days a week I will make an effort to shake a salt shaker and use it, just to get Iodine for thyroid.   I mean I really have to remember to do this.

Don't reach for my fresh Tomato, or my Honeydew, or Apple or Fresh Spinach for a salad, I'll bop you and but good.

I have some fresh peaches and black plums, get back, thems mine.



I worked in the med business for a bit, in the OR. We did organ harvests in there as well. Seen the 20-something year old that jogged, ate healthy, worked out and a - DRT from a heart attack.  Bad Genes.

Seen the 94 year getting knee replacement and blamed it buying an automatic transmission in that used truck he bought, when all these years he kept that knee exercised using a clutch in his other vehicles.  He is about to be 99, still uses a push mower, and griped about the safety handle and how finding a chicken fried steak when he gets out and about is getting harder and harder to find.

He says Chocolate cake, pie and fried pies are the best thing for a sex drive. Works for Men and Women. He thinks Men and Women don't need Viagra and whatnot.

After Chocolate comes Fresh cherries, cherry pie and fried cherry pies.

He makes a mean Cherrie pie, fried one too. He is kinda upset last heard, that younger gal he messing with, about to turn 80, up and died on him. She made great chocolate stuff. Them too always staying over at other's place, said they be swapping recipes and making chocolate and cherry desserts.

"Not sure she just had bad genes, or too much cherry pie at one sitting..."

South and its cooking has been stereotyped, fine.  I dare you to try and snatch a fresh tomato out of one of hands.

If we want fried chicken, we do so, but we don't eat just fried stuff all the danged time!

[doczinn]

Fried=Golden Delicious