As necessary as the groom might be for the proper Delta wedding, a Southern girl must never—nevuh!—be congratulated upon obtaining one. To do so is an insult to Southern womanhood. It hints that the bride has caught, rather than been caught. The proper form is to congratulate the groom and wish the bride-to-be happiness. This chivalrous convention must be observed if the bride is destined to give birth to a surprisingly large preemie immediately after the last “I do.” Congratulating the bride is the height of rudeness, and rude is the worst epithet there is in the Delta. When Jane Allen Tolliver was mugged on a trip to New Orleans, she pronounced it “just about the rudest thing that ever happened.”
The groom is inevitably underfoot on the day of the wedding, but he must be tolerated, while the bride, her mother, and—a distant third—his mother soak up the limelight. The two mothers, if not already best friends, either bond for life or develop a lifelong enmity during the negotiations over who gets to wear what color—you can’t have the two leading matrons in the same pastel shade. The mothers’ entrance into the church, breathlessly awaited by all, far outshines the groom’s. The groom’s mother is supposed to wear beige and be nice—that means quiet. Her son’s job is to pay the minister—and to say, “I do.” His parents are responsible for the rehearsal dinner, and being unobtrusive—and if possible presentable. One snobbish mother was distraught that her daughter was marrying the son of an elevator operator. Mrs. Silly Snoot put it in the write-up in the Democrat that the father of the groom was a “vertical engineer.”
The groom at most hopes not to embarrass himself too much on his wedding day. This is not as easy as it sounds. He may be kidnapped or have his unmentionables painted with purple impetigo medicine that glows. Dead fish may be hung from the hibiscus in his mother’s yard. At St. James’ Episcopal Church, at other times a Delta-wide symbol of ceremonial perfection, the groomsmen inevitably find it hilarious to steal his shoes and paint “Save” on the sole of the groom’s left shoe and “Me” on the bottom of the other one. When the unsuspecting bridegroom kneels, the entire church is filled with refined giggles. You’d think St. James’ grooms would learn to check their shoes, but they don’t. It works every time. A Presbyterian groom faced another peril at St. James’: He started reciting his vows in a heavy English accent, unconsciously imitating the rector’s. No, the rector wasn’t an Englishman. A pretend English accent is the Episcopal minister’s version of speaking in tongues. The rector had been a star in his seminary’s English accent workshop.
Sometimes a bridegroom fails at even the most minimal of tasks set for him. For example, it is bad luck for the groom to see the bride on the day of the wedding before she walks up the aisle, a resplendent vision of Southern womanhood. An inconsiderate groom may approach his lady on the day of the festivities, setting off loud shrieks from the bride, her mother, and all the distaff side of the wedding party. Southern women just love to shriek, and if you can’t abide this, marry a Yankee. Which brings us to Billy Cushing, a Yankee bridegroom; he also happened to be a Catholic. Naturally Billy insisted upon being married at St. Joe’s, the Catholic church in Greenville. A gothic gem on Main Street, it was the perfect setting for a wedding. Olivia Morgan, who proudly called herself “a convent girl,” because the convent figured in the long list of schools to which her conscientious but ultimately defeated parents had sent her, always urged people to bundle up if they were headed to St. Joe’s. “It’s cold as flugeons in there,” she would aver knowledgeably, using a Southern expression the precise meaning of which is lost, and always adding meaningfully, “And those people hold forth longer than Baptists.” But this was a summer wedding, and the church was decked out beautifully; of course, some of the bride’s friends almost flipped when they noticed the plastic rosaries the statues were “wearing.” They suggested going to Farnsworth’s on Washington Avenue to buy nicer “jewelry” for the tackily dressed Christian saints. It seems that poor Billy’s job was complicated by Father Igoe, much-loved and stone deaf. Father Igoe was subsequently killed on the railroad track by a train he never heard coming. But back to the wedding. As usual, Father Igoe couldn’t hear the vows. Billy became so frustrated he shouted, “I do! I do! I do!” as we tittered nervously.
Sistuh Girl Gibson, the bride, was not Catholic. Although willing to submit to Catholic nuptials, she had a set-to with Father Igoe over the wedding veil. He insisted she don this symbol of womanly purity, but Sistuh Girl—living symbol of other aspects of Southern womanliness—refused. Father Igoe may have been deaf as a post, but he was not blind, and you should have seen his face when a veil-less Sistuh Girl started up the aisle on the arm of her father. “At least,” a Delta wag not unacquainted with Sistuh Girl’s particular brand of joie de vivre noted approvingly, “she was true to herself.”
We should mention that the Delta boasts several aristocratic old Catholic families. The Plunketts, for example, were early settlers of Washington County, where Greenville, the hub of the universe, is located. They claim descent from P. G. T. Beauregard, the great Creole general. His bloody (or was it rusty?) sword hung on their landing. Old Mrs. Plunkett must have been tempted to use it on Henriette (please don’t pronounce the H—P.G.T. wouldn’t have) after she climbed down a ladder from her fine Catholic girls’ boarding school into the arms of not just a waiting Baptist, but a waiting Baptist preacher.
Another important task of the groom: providing the biggest engagement ring he can possibly afford. A Southern girl dreams of being able to nonchalantly extend her left hand, blinding, and ask, “How is mah finger like a lemon pie? [Pause.] ’Cause I got mah ring on it.” She hopes that you will be blinded by her ring and, if you are one of her dearest friends, also by envy. So does her mother. “You never want your daughter to come home with an engagement ring she could wear safely on the New York subway,” summed up one matron, indicating that perhaps the Delta mother is not entirely lacking in predatory skills.
In the takes-one-to-know-one category, the mother has taught her daughter that the male of the species is a fairly simple creature who enjoys the challenge of hunting small birds, large deer, and hard-to-get women. A hard-to-get girl knows to always get off the phone first and never accept a date later than Wednesday. Something else that brings out the Delta male’s hunting instincts—her daddy owns a farm with all-new John Deere equipment on the sandy loam banks of Deer Creek, the richest soil in the Delta. Think of it as a dowry.
An engagement ring is just the beginning, though, fortunately for the groom, he doesn’t have to supply the rest of his beloved’s humble material requirements—at least initially. The bride will be competing with her own siblings to get grandmother’s flat silver and Mama’s hollowware. Every Southern town has a jewelry store of choice. Farnsworth’s was always ours, though it was perfectly acceptable to shop at Schloms. Farnsworth’s, however, had a consultant to help the bride select china and silver patterns. In the old days, the late lamented Brodnax Jewelers or Julius Goodman, another now-defunct store in Memphis, which did silver pattern exchanges, were even more desirable. That faulty line of thinking still exists today: Whatever you find in Memphis or New Orleans or Atlanta is far superior.
A Delta girl always looks for generosity in a man. When Bub Avery, a leading light in the local construction industry, fell madly in love with Anne Epps Highsmith, who lived in the country on a dirt road, he thought he knew how to win her heart: “I’ll pour you a four-lane highway out to your house,” he vowed, perhaps not unaware that the road would make his courting easier. This was tempting, and just the kind of indication of prosperity a Delta girl appreciates. Anne Epps had been hot to trot for quite a while. Still, she rejected his suit and became engaged to the boy from the next farm over, a lifelong friend. No four-lane highway needed—and her diamond ring was so big that, if she dropped it on any road, it could puncture the tire of a pickup truck.
The Delta bride frequently searches the world over—at least as far as Jackson or Memphis—for her ideal husband and then chooses the boy next door. We’d be hard-pressed to name all the Delta husbands who carried their wives’ schoolbooks in third grade. Boys from outside the Delta sometimes don’t understand us, and, when they visit, get culture shock. We’ll never forget the look on one young man’s face when he came down from the University of Virginia to visit his girlfriend. One of our more fun-loving matrons fell into the bottle and got knee-walking drunk at a party. When no longer able to walk—on her hands or knees—she collapsed spread-eagled on the living room floor. The beau glowered. Whatever happened to the cavalier tradition? We drove him to the airport bright and early the next morning, a vein in his temple throbbing. Culture shock is not uncommon when Delta girls bring suitors home.
Anne Epps took her search even farther afield than Memphis. She went to London. Her mission seemed to be to show how much fun colonials have. However, we could tell that she was making a huge mistake when she took her fine English beau to the dingiest bar in the French Quarter and proceeded to jump onto the tabletops and dance the night away with jolly jack-tars from a naval installation. It was apparent that the colonies weren’t making quite the right impression we’d hoped on Anthony Lloyd-Boyd. We were just devastated that Anne Epps didn’t get to become Lady Lloyd-Boyd. We were already planning to be the toast of London, what with our cute accents. We were going to slay the noble lords and ladies by speaking Lelanese, the most exaggerated Delta accent, indigenous to Leland, Mississippi.
One of the best ways to find the right man is to marry Mother’s best friend’s son. This ensures “a similar background.” That is Delta for “of the same social class.” You have to telegraph messages on this subject—e.g., if your daughter brings home the wrong boy, don’t say he’s not as well bred as Daddy’s hunting dog Fang Jr.—simply pretend he’s not present. He will get the message the third time you get his name wrong. A Delta mother, even today, wants a bridegroom from a fine family with old money (or, failing that, a rich family with lots of shiny new money). When one girl was having boyfriend problems, her mother told everybody in town that he was just plumb tacky—and so were his parents, grandparents, and all other antecedents. The couple became engaged the next day; Mother had to pile in her car and drive the length and breadth of Greenville explaining that her new son-in-law-to-be was descended from a famous Civil War general. You can’t be too careful: One paragon of motherhood in Alabama wrote the governor of Mississippi, whom she had never met, to inquire after her daughter’s fiance’s lineage. We shudder to think what might have happened if the perplexed governor, who had not heretofore regarded himself as being in the matchmaking business, had not called him “a nice young man.” Needless to say, the groom’s family never entirely forgave her.
Delta mothers develop creative ways to dispose of what they regard as an unsuitable match. In addition to ignoring him, she may indicate that the girl’s family will no longer be able to defray the cost of the bride’s education and that the burden will fall upon his young shoulders. The mother must be able to avail herself of an unexpected opportunity. Timidly asked by the mother of a son courting Anne Dudley if alcoholism ran in the Dudley line, Big Anne jumped at the chance: “Rampant!” she practically screamed. She dwelt at length on Uncle Timothy’s DTs and the time Uncle Billy gave away his farm to the church in a blackout. In no time flat, the would-not-be mother-in-law had plenty of ammunition. Big Anne didn’t even have to drop the hint that the boy’s family might have to take up Anne Dudley’s tuition at the fashion institute.
Oddly enough, the Delta mother does not tell her daughters about sex. “I just talk hypothetically,” purrs one Delta mother. “I say things like, ‘I could practically get pregnant every time your daddy looked at me.’ ” In the Delta, this is known as telling your daughter the facts of life in graphic detail. “If you ever want to know about sex,” a married big sister told her little sister, “call me collect. I’m not sure Mama knows.” Yet—somehow—the Delta girl does know. She is born knowing how to wrap herself around a man so fast that the boa constrictor ought to take lessons from her. Like the boa constrictor, she may toy with or tease her prey mercilessly before zeroing in for the kill. Unlike the boa constrictor, she knows when to stop. Generally. “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” is a mantra she has heard all her life. The only other real difference between the Delta girl and the boa constrictor is that the boa constrictor doesn’t want a diamond ring. Mothers of boys constantly warn their sons not to fall into the arms of a boa constrictor, the kind of boa constrictor that has a ring finger.
A chapter about a groom, as you can see, is really about the bride’s mother. Mother is deeply involved in a daughter’s search for the right young man, as you may be gathering. Olivia Morgan Gilliam’s mother even wrote her love letters for her. This was a practice that foreshadowed Miss Olivia’s habit of enlisting her brainy sister-in-law to write her reviews for the book club. She resigned when her sister-in-law refused to write one more book review. Old Mrs. Gilliam’s love letters were such gems that two of Olivia’s beaux compared their billet doux on a long train trip. They were not amused to discover that the missives were identical. They confronted Olivia Morgan. Old Mrs. Gilliam was outraged: the very idea of a gentleman showing a lady’s letter! That is what she wrote in Olivia’s identical replies to the young reprobates. Both cads apologized.
Much to the chagrin of Delta parents, all too many girls go through a honky-tonk angel phase during which they dance their feet off with gallant young rednecks at juke joints. It’s a lot of fun. Unfortunately, some get engaged before emerging from this period. The great-great-granddaughter of a governor (not the one who found himself providing marital references) did this. The family was beside itself, except for Great-Aunt Isabell, who had a thing for rakes. She even forgave the boy for sitting in the governor’s chair and shattering it to smithereens. When the wedding took place, the church was a sight: On one side were ladies in pantsuits with what is known as the “Pentecostal do”—it’s bigger than regular big hair—and on the other were tamer “helmet heads” and funereal facial expressions, except for Aunt Isabell, who was giddy. “You didn’t need an usher,” said one guest, “to tell you which side was the groom’s side.”
Sometimes the Delta mother is torn when it comes to marrying off her pride and joy: On the one hand, she wants a fine young man from a fine old family who is planning to build a big fine house right next door to her. In her heart of hearts, she thinks it is a good idea to wait until the right man comes along. On the other hand, she is eager to have a big party, the sooner the better. Mrs. Pritchett from Rosedale got so carried away with the notion of being the first mother in the Delta to have an outdoor champagne fountain at the reception that she insisted on having the big event when it was practically freezing. She was determined that her fountain would kick off the bridal season and thereby garner a prominent place in write-ups in Memphis Commercial Appeal. A champagne fountain can be tricky, especially if the family is hard-shell Baptists. We’ll never forget the Baptist family who substituted peach punch, made from canned peaches, for champagne—it clogged the valves of the fountain and guests were forced to dodge sporadic blasts of shooting peach glop. If you’re going to have a champagne fountain, have real champagne, the best you can afford. Bad champagne gives you a bad hang hang, as Delta girls like to say. Another sign that you’re at a Baptist wedding: Not only is the “champagne” really lime sherbet, but the mints, bridesmaids’ dresses, and cream cheese sandwiches are all dyed to match it.
A wedding is so important to the Southern mother that she attends other weddings solely to spy. She feels she must check up on what other mothers have done. Sometimes you get the impression that a Southern mother is so eager to have a big wedding that she will marry off Little Baby Dahlin’ to just about anybody—a Yankee, an obvious peckerwood (different from the plain vanilla redneck in that the peckerwood traditionally resides in a mobile home), or a closet queen. That last will initially delight the manners-obsessed Southern mother-in-law: He is so sweet that he takes an interest in the bridesmaids’ dresses and pronounces po’ de crème correctly. One such groom-to-be came to his senses and moved to the French Quarter in New Orleans in lieu of getting hitched at the First Baptist Church. He had picked the bride’s Vera Wang dress himself, and for a dreadful moment, we thought he’d taken it with him.
One of the most fertile (please, not that way—this was the 1950s) hunting grounds for the Delta belle to find a marriageable beau was the Greenville Air Force Base. We’d be hard-pressed to estimate how many girls might have become old-maid school teachers, not that there’s anything wrong with this, if not for the base. This was in the era of the dashing young cadet—there were dashing lieutenants, officers, and gentlemen, who often had attended schools even better than State or Ole Miss. And how did the Greenville girl make the acquaintance of these young flyer boys? Well, tea dances, of course. The tea dance is an even more genteel version of the ballroom dance, held in the afternoon. Miss Ethel Payne, who worked at the base and was the daughter of one of Greenville’s most beloved doctors, organized the dances. She got literally hundreds of Delta girls married off. Several local lasses ended up marrying into prominent families, thanks to Uncle Sam’s putting the air base in Greenville—and Miss Payne, for putting the boys and girls together in an irreproachably refined setting. In addition to Miss Payne’s tea dances, there were less genteel boogies at the hangar, where a swing musician named Charlie Barnett played—these dances were known as “swing and sweat with Charlie Barnett.” We feel certain the girls at Miss Payne’s tea dances did not sweat—they glowed (genteel for “perspire”).
The best thing about dating a boy from the base, by the way, is that, if he was a pilot, he could buzz your house. This consisted in risking his life to fly low enough to shake everything in the house. We considered it the height of sophistication and wit. If a Delta girl’s house shook like the Russians had just dropped a bomb (and in that era we worried that they might, the bridge across the Mississippi River being so important and all), it meant you had a date that night.
Whatever the closing of the air base did to the economy of Greenville and the entire Delta, far worse, it eliminated a lot of good marriage possibilities. But it was good while it lasted. The colonel who ran the base is now a squire in Leland—which means that one more Leland girl found a mate. Some of the young men, of course, had to be educated in our ways—one who married at St. James’ forgot to give the rector an honorarium and had to mail it back, but he sent it to the wrong church. And we thought he was such a prize because he was a graduate of W. Nell (Washington and Lee, to you)! His mistake, however, was easily rectified—or should we say rectorfied? The Presbyterian minister handed it over to the redoubtable rector at the next Rotary lunch.
Dancing has always had a mystique in the Delta—we’d hate to think of all the mismatched couples that initially got together because of a shared love of dancing. Girls and boys were sent to Mrs. Pinckney’s ballroom dance classes, held in the same community center hallowed by Miss Payne’s tea dances. They spent the afternoon dancing to “Sewanee River Rock,” which was already about twenty years out of date by the time Mrs. Pinckney heard about it, and drinking imaginary punch from the imaginary punch bowl. Still, acquiring ballroom skills is worth the effort. Ladies in their eighties still reminisce about the length of their stag lines. Miss Olivia Morgan, who always got a misty look in her eyes when she spoke of stag lines, confessed her secret trick: She whispered the name of her favorite song to all the boys, flirtatiously hinting that she’d love to dance with them when it was played. “My stag lines wrapped around the ballroom floor,” she recalled in old age. In fact, those may have been her last words on her deathbed.
Not all Delta girls have such happy memories. Alice Hunt, who has two left feet, says that she moved to New York partly to avoid going to dances. “I spent my youth pretending to powder my nose in country clubs around the Delta,” she still recalls sourly. Alice Hunt apparently felt that being a powder-room flower was less humiliating than being a wallflower. Other girls locked themselves in bathroom stalls and stood on top of the commodes so nobody could see their feet. Dare we call them commode flowers?
Although no longer able to avail herself of the air base, the Delta girl would not be caught dead using Match.com, the Internet dating service used by apparent hussies elsewhere. Have these women no pride? Are they not NICE? Are they… ugly? Of course, the Delta girl doesn’t need Match.com. She has her own, state-supported Match.com: It is called Ole Miss. At Ole Miss, the Delta girl pursues advanced placement courses in laughing, drinking, and hair flipping. For some unknown reason, hair flipping drives Southern boys wild. In addition to mastering the art of the flip, joining the right sorority is crucial. A sorority will have a special relationship with various fraternities, and your choice of a sorority may well influence whom you marry. The gentlemanly hell-raisers of SAE tend to make a beeline for the proud Chi Omegas. Tri-Delts are nice and not as haughty as Chi Os. They love to answer the sorority house phone, “This is Delta, Delta, Delta, can I hep you, hep you, hep you?” Before marrying a Tri-Delt, a man should ask himself a question: Would she drive me nuts, nuts, nuts?
Ole Miss isn’t the only state school that specializes in charm—and academics, too, of course. There is also the W—as the much-beloved former Mississippi State College for Women was affectionately known. It is now Mississippi University for Women (“and a few good men,” the college’s T-shirt brags—the few men being in the nursing department, which probably means you’d do better looking for a beau at State. On second thought, a male nurse might be ideal for a Delta girl, as nobody in the world takes being waited on better than the Delta girl). When Lamar Hitchcock, a particularly successful graduate, having a handsome husband and, something extra, a job, was invited to speak at career day, her panel was assigned a topic: “What I learned at the W.” As her turn to speak drew nearer, Lamar became more and more agitated. Just what, if anything, had Lamar learned at the W? English literature? Trigonometry? Well, perhaps not. Then a light went on in her head: She had learned something at the W. She had learned how to button and unbutton a coat properly, and the art of ascending and descending stairs gracefully. If you can count, that’s actually two things Lamar had learned while “studying” at the W. (You must always button from the top down and do the opposite when unbuttoning your coat; we don’t know why. When going up or down the steps, you must turn your knees every so slightly toward the banister; this way they won’t look splayed.) These were among the precepts taught in what was once the W’s only required course: charm class. “You might be able to get out without history or English,” Lamar says wistfully, “but not without the charm class.”
Another good place to look for a husband is church or Bible study. Our dear friend Anne Dudley—who has accepted no fewer than five proposals of holy matrimony—found number three at Episcopal Bible study. You might have two immediate reactions to this news. First: Maybe you didn’t know Episcopalians read the Bible—isn’t it for Methodists and Baptists? Second: You might have thought a young buck from Bible study would be a safe bet. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong—at least on the second point. We’ll just leave it at that, in case that good-for-nothing Orval is still living. But here’s the caveat: Always be especially careful of any man you meet in Bible study. This goes double for Bible salesmen, as some of the most hell-raising boys in the Delta traditionally get summer jobs selling Bibles door-to-door.
But sometimes a house of worship is just the ticket, if not to heaven, to spouse hunting. Old Man Stith, who was Young Man Stith back then, had excellent luck at the tiny Episcopal church in Glen Allen, Mississippi. He was visiting Mississippi and just naturally wanted to go to church—he was probably settling in for his usual sermon snooze, when a young lady, sailing up the aisle to take her place, caught his eye. Turning to a friend, he said: “Introduce me to that young lady, and you can be the best man at my wedding.” “No,” said the friend, “she is already engaged to be married—to me.” Still, the friend foolishly introduced Mr. Stith to his fiancée. Mr. Stith was invited to tea that very afternoon and in no time flat, his friend’s fiancée had a new fiancé—Old Man Stith.
A pampered Southern belle may not actually be planning to do much in the way of cooking meals once she is married. But that doesn’t mean Mother can’t serve a mouth-watering Sunday dinner. She may gently, if not always honestly, hint that Little Baby Dahlin’ helped her with the meal. We think lamb is the height of elegance, a dish to which the male seems intuitively responsive.
This recipe is for a 7-pound (or as close as possible) leg of lamb.
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ cup olive oil
Grated zest of two lemons
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon sea salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
1 or 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
The day before serving, combine lemon juice and olive oil. Add the lemon zest, garlic, parsley, oregano, salt, and pepper. Whisk until incorporated.
Score the lamb and pour the marinade into the cuts. Put the rosemary sprigs on top of the lamb, cover the container, and marinate overnight.
Bring the lamb to room temperature and grill until pink. Remember that the meat will continue to cook when taken off the fire.
Do not overcook! Lamb is better when closer to the rare/pink side. When overcooked, it is tough and tasteless.
Serves eight to ten.
1 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar (some people like confectioners’)
2 tablespoons mint leaves, chopped
In a small saucepan, bring all ingredients to a boil. Simmer a few minutes.
Strain and serve in a sauce dish garnished with a sprig of fresh mint. Unfortunately, the color is not good. You might consider adding (horrors) a touch of green food coloring.
A little dab will do you.
Makes about a cup.
4 apples
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
Fresh mint leaves
1 teaspoon Dry Sack
Lemon slice
Quarter the apples. Put the apples in a saucepan and barely cover with water. Cook (covered) until the apples are very soft, about 40 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Drain and reserve the juice. You should have a cup of apple juice. Add confectioners’ sugar and bring the juice/sugar mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until the mixture thickens. Mother’s always turned a light golden brown, at which point she added 
cup of chopped mint leaves. She would put the leaves in a measuring cup and use kitchen shears to snip, bruising the leaves to emit more flavor. Return to heat and cook about ten minutes more. Remove from stove and allow to sit a minute or two.
Strain the syrup, pushing on the leaves to get as much juice and flavor from the mint as possible. Add 1 teaspoon Dry Sack and 1 slice lemon (squeeze the juice out). As this sauce turns out to be rather golden in color, it’s nice to add a sprig of fresh mint and a lemon slice just before serving.
Makes one cup.
We use Crosse & Blackwell jelly because that’s what we can get down here, and it was our mothers’ and grandmothers’ designer choice, upscale you know.
1 jar (12 ounces) red currant jelly
2 tablespoons finely minced mint leaves
1 tablespoon freshly grated orange rind
Melt the currant jelly over low heat. Add the mint leaves and the orange rind. Allow to sit until cool. Then refrigerate until serving time, overnight if possible.
Makes one and a half cups.
We know you call it hollandaise sauce—but Harley Metcalfe likes to call it Hollandale sauce in honor of Hollandale, Mississippi. Not everyone knows where Hollandale, Mississippi, is, but are they ever missing out. It is a small community of about 7,000 souls, three-quarters of whom are excellent cooks and hostesses.
Fresh asparagus bears little resemblance to the canned variety. We love the tiniest, thinnest spears possible. If you grow your own, you probably won’t get that beautiful, thin variety. Therefore, you must (after washing) take a potato peeler and peel about halfway up the stem. If you are fortunate and you get the thin version in your garden, then you can simply snap the stems off. I prefer to peel my asparagus.
Place the prepared asparagus in boiling water and cook for about 5 to 7 minutes. Do not lose that beautiful green color by overcooking! Roll the asparagus in a little unsalted butter to coat.
8 egg yolks
8 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 sticks unsalted butter, sliced
Salt
Tabasco
Dash of cayenne
Several hours before you are ready to serve, whisk yolks and lemon juice in a cold saucepan. Add sliced butter. Cover the pan and put in the icebox. When ready to serve, remove the saucepan and cook over medium to low heat, whisking all the time. After the sauce has thickened, season to taste with salt, pepper, and Tabasco. Add a dash of cayenne.
Makes two cups.
For some reason, men never fail to be impressed by Sally Lunn. Sally Lunn is a kind of bread that developed in England and was popular in the Virginia colony. From there, it spread to Mississippi.
1 package yeast
1 cup whole milk, warmed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
3½ cups flour
Preheat the oven to 325°. Allow the yeast to soften in warm milk. Cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and mix well. Add yeast-milk mixture. Add the vanilla.
Mix the salt with the flour and sift. Sift again.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat well. Allow to rise in a warm place until double in size. Beat down again and after a light kneading turn into a well-buttered loaf or bundt pan. Cover and let rise again for an hour or until doubled in size. Bake at 325° for approximately 1 hour or until golden brown.
Serves ten.
Spoon bread is another male-impresser. Newlywed or nearly dead, men love it. Therefore we think it’s another good dish for a groom candidate of any age.
Spoon bread is baked in a casserole (usually round) and served with a spoon as a side dish. There is not an old-time Southern cookbook that doesn’t have at least one recipe for spoon bread.
3 eggs, separated
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sifted cornmeal
1 cup whole milk, scalded
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar (optional, but I recommend)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a casserole dish with butter. Whip egg whites until soft peaks form. Set aside. Beat yolks. Set aside. Pour boiling water over the cornmeal. Add milk, salt, sugar, baking powder, butter, and egg yolks. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into the well-buttered dish. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve immediately. Spoon bread has a tendency to fall, but it is still delicious.
Serves six.
This is such standard fare. It’s safe (anyone will eat it) and men do love it… and that’s the point.
3 tablespoons butter
½ medium onion, chopped
1½ cup rice
1 can (10½ ounces) beef consommé
1 can (10½ ounces) French onion soup
½ cup very rich chicken stock
½ cup lightly chopped pecans
Preheat the oven to 350°. Melt the butter and sauté the onions.
Add the rice and stir. Add the consommé, French onion soup, and chicken stock.
Transfer to a 2-quart baking dish. Sprinkle with pecans.
Cover tightly and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Allow to rest, covered, for a few minutes before serving.
Makes eight servings.
Southerners are obsessed with their tomatoes. Even if the space is not available for a garden, we grow them in pots, bales of hay, anything!
8 medium tomatoes
1 stick unsalted butter
2 boxes (8 ounces each) fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 cup sour cream
4 teaspoons flour
1 package (4 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons Dry Sack sherry
½ teaspoon Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco
¼ cup Progresso Italian bread crumbs
Preheat the oven to 375°. Peel the tomatoes and hollow. The easiest way to do this: Immerse the tomatoes in boiling water… just until the skin cracks (not more than a minute). Run under cold water to stop the cooking. Slip the point of a paring knife under the skin and the skin will come right off. Use an apple corer and remove the center of the tomato, being careful not to pierce the bottom. Cut ¼ inch off the top and use a pair of kitchen shears to remove the insides (do not discard, this is delicious stuff).
Turn the tomatoes over to drain. A cake rack works perfectly.
Melt butter in a skillet. Add the mushrooms and sauté.
Stir in the sour cream and flour. Continue to cook until hot.
Add blue cheese and stir until blended.
Add salt, pepper, sherry, and Worcestershire sauce. Taste, add Tabasco if needed.
Fill the tomatoes and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until brown and bubbling.
Serves eight.
If your daddy doesn’t own a pecan grove, here is another version. Southerners have a thing against buying their pecans. They will, however, buy almonds.
¼ medium onion, chopped
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup rice
1 can (10½ ounces) beef consommé
1 can (10½ ounces) French onion soup
½ cup slivered almonds
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Saute the onion in melted butter. Add the rice, consommé, and onion soup. Transfer to a 2-quart baking dish, top with almonds, cover tightly, and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Let rest covered for a few minutes before serving.
Serves eight.
These peaches look great as a garnish for the serving platter. We all know that good-looking food tastes better! We’ve tried using fresh peaches and it just isn’t the same. I’ve used a variety of chutneys, but Major Grey’s is the only variety available in most grocery stores in the provinces.
1 can freestone peach halves
Unsalted butter
Curry powder
1 bottle of Major Grey’s chutney
Preheat the oven to 400°.
Drain the peach halves. Pat dry, if necessary. Place in a baking dish cut side up and brush the peach half with melted butter. Sprinkle lightly with curry powder. Fill the indentation with chutney. Bake at 400° until bubbling hot, about 10 minutes.
Makes six servings.
This is one of those Sunday afternoon drinks that can knock you over in a hurry. Our friend Laurie Gillespie brought these to the lake house. Let’s just say that we are more than delighted that her husband is a doctor. After your company leaves, this is a great way to celebrate. Be careful—this is an insidious cocktail that only appeals to females… somewhat like aspic. Men would not be caught dead drinking this. But you may need it after entertaining the young man you hope will be the father of your grandchildren.
1 small can frozen lemonade
1 small can frozen orange juice
1 tea bag in 2 cups boiling water
6 cups water
2 cups bourbon
Mix all ingredients in a gallon container. Freeze. Stir occasionally. Drink. Easy enough.
Makes one half gallon.
This is another one from the late Mrs. Mayhall’s repertoire, a tribute to that great institution that helped so many Delta belles avoid the shame of spinsterhood. You may feel you can fly after a few.
3¼ ounce sloe gin
3¼ ounce brandy
½ an egg white
Juice of 1 lemon
Mix all ingredients and shake with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.
Makes one strong drink.
Southerners love to stuff things. We’ve gotten past the stuffed chicken that spurts juice at you. Stuffed figs, dates, and apricots, however, remain popular.
Slice a small pocket in each fig. Add a tiny ball of gorgonzola or blue cheese.
Wrap with a small piece of bacon (or not). Drizzle with a bit of good olive oil. Bake at 350° on a greased baking sheet until the cheese has melted and the bacon is crisp. Drain carefully.
Split each dried apricot and add a bit of cream cheese that has been flavored with crystallized ginger. Bleu de Bresse or Boursin can be used in place of the flavored cream cheese.
Stuff each seedless date with a piece of pecan, walnut, or almond.
Wrap with a thin slice of bacon and broil on a foil-lined sheet until the bacon is crisp.
Drain on a paper towel.
Soak dates in dry sherry for two days. Proceed with stuffing and broiling.
Dates can also be stuffed with flavored cream cheese. As a change, we like to mix chopped pecans and cream cheese as a stuffing.
A killer dessert. If this doesn’t get him, give up.
1 cup sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
3 cups scalded milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons coffee (waste not, want not… use your leftover morning coffee)
6 ounces dark chocolate (if you live in the provinces, you can use Baker’s semisweet chocolate, 6 squares—1 ounce each)
6 eggs, separated
¾ cup sugar
1 cup whipping cream, whipped
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Bourbon to taste
Make the custard early in the day. In the top of a double boiler, combine the sugar, beaten eggs, flour, and pinch of salt. Place the mixture over boiling water and slowly add the milk and cream. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens a bit. For this dish, it’s better to have a bit thinner custard. Immediately remove the mixture from the heat and add the vanilla. Cover and refrigerate.
Preheat the oven to 375°.
Warm the coffee in a small saucepan. Add the chocolate and continue to stir until the chocolate has melted. Remove from heat.
Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and add to the bowl of mixer. Add ¾ cup sugar, a little at a time. Beat well. Add the chocolate mixture to the yolks and incorporate. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold into the chocolate/egg mixture.
Grease a 10 × 15 jelly roll pan. Cover the greased pan with waxed paper and grease the waxed paper with unsalted butter. Pour the chocolate mixture onto the waxed paper and smooth.
Bake at 375° for 10 minutes. Leave the pan in the oven, door open, heat off, for 5 more minutes. If the cake begins to brown too much around the edges, remove immediately from the oven. Dampen a dish towel (wring out all excess water), cover the pan with the towel, and invert. Gently peel the waxed paper off the cake.
Flavor the whipped cream with the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and bourbon to taste.
Spread the cream evenly over the cake… saving a bit to garnish each slice.
Starting at one end, roll the cake tightly. Wrap and refrigerate. Allow the cake to chill at least an hour.
When ready to serve, put custard on top of each plate (I prefer a clear plate), top the custard with a slice of cake, top each slice of cake with a dollop of flavored whipped cream, a drizzle of custard, and a few berries A sprig of mint adds a nice touch. To absolutely gild the lily add a chocolate curl or shaving.
Serves eight to ten.
The bridegroom has been fed like royalty by his mother-in-law to be. After the wedding, he realizes that his new wife doesn’t know the first thing about cooking. She needs a recipe to boil water. This is an old recipe that is called Bride’s Biscuits because it is easy enough for a newly married lady to “fix.”
½ cup butter, softened
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Mix the butter and cheese until blended. Add the flour and “work” the mixture until a ball of dough forms. Lightly flour a smooth surface and roll the dough. Cut with a small biscuit cutter. Bake at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly browned.
Makes at least a dozen biscuits.
Fig preserves are the Southern version of an aphrodisiac. Also, while the bride is learning to cook, she might like to borrow some of her mother’s preserves to dress up her Bride’s Biscuits. This recipe comes from Marguerite Shepherd. She is one of the best jelly and preserve makers in Greenville. Marquerite makes everything from scratch, even picking her own fruit. A devoted member of the Thursday beauty parlor club at Hair Tenders, she supplies us with her bounty throughout the year.
You’ll need 30 to 35 figs for each jar. Wash figs and remove the stems. Drain well. Put figs in a Dutch oven and cover with sugar. Refrigerate overnight with the lid on. Bring to a boil (without lid) and reduce heat to low/medium. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until clear and glazed-like. With a slotted spoon, remove the figs and let them drain well. Using the smallest amount of juice possible, fill heated, sterilized jars with the figs. Cook juice 10 to 15 minutes longer. Pour juice over figs and seal. All the juice will not be used—but save it! It’s delicious used as fig syrup.
Marguerite puts her jars, without the lids, on a cookie sheet and heats them in the oven.
She uses a funnel to pour the juice into the jars, which keeps the jars from getting sticky and makes for a perfect seal.
You can do pears the same way. Marguerite likes the old-timey heavy “Club Aluminum” when cooking the pears. It produces beautiful, rich, golden preserves.
What not to serve: Men never care for aspic. But ladies love it, and, as daughters of the South, we simply must include at least one aspic recipe. This recipe is from our friend Lucy Shackelford, who inherited it from her grandmother Mildred Lacey. It is so delicious that you might even get raves from men. It is more highly seasoned than most aspics and uses V8 juice instead of tomato juice.
The secret of this aspic is that it is made to taste like a good Bloody Mary. Lucy admits to having used Major Peters Bloody Mary Mix several times, at the request of her father-in-law, Duke Shackelford.
3 cups V8 juice (divided use)
cup lemon juice (do NOT used processed kind)
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
Dash Tabasco
2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese (do NOT use low-fat cream cheese)
Salt and pepper to taste
Bring 2½ cups V8 to a boil, along with lemon juice, Lea & Perrins, and Tabasco. Soak unflavored gelatin in remaining ½ cup V8 juice and dissolve thoroughly into hot mixture. Mix 1 cup of hot mixture with the cream cheese until smooth. Pour cream cheese mixture into the bottom of 8 to 12 individual ramekins/molds (depending on size—about 1 to 1½ inches thick) or pour the whole thing into a 6- to 8-cup mold (if using one larger mold, double V8 portion of this recipe—do not double cream cheese part). Be sure to grease the mold well with vegetable oil, olive oil, or mayonnaise. Let this layer, which will be the top layer, set up in the fridge until fairly firm. When firm, pour remaining juice mixture over and place in fridge to finish congealing.
Optional ingredients to add to tomato layer include olives, chopped celery, lump crabmeat, boiled shrimp, etc.
To serve, unmold and sprinkle with some good Hungarian paprika and perhaps a few capers. Serve with homemade mayonnaise. Please do not use sto-bought mayonnaise!
Serves ten.