Johnny Bullard

Sean Dietrich is a marvelous writer who lives in the Florida panhandle but who grew up in south Alabama. I love his writing, and I shall always be grateful to my friend, Marilyn Sapp, Live Oak, for “turning me on” to him.

His description of place, time, season, of people are so real, you can see them, hear them, touch them, feel them, and in a recent article I could taste the food he described.

It is something I am going to discuss in this article, items of food dear to the north Florida native and Southern hearts, which are one and the same, that may be somewhat difficult to describe for someone from another part of the country to “take in,” that’s comprehend for all you folks who are not from here.

Let’s start with mayonnaise, Duke’s or Hellman’s and, to me, you can stop right there. We use a lot of it in the Deep South. We love it on everything from our “sammiches,” ever had a banana or tomato sandwich slathered with good mayonnaise. My aunt would say when we would make her sandwiches, “Don’t bring me a dry sandwich!” We knew what that meant. She wanted plenty of mayonnaise on it. I agree with her, nothing is worse than a “dry” sandwich.

Here are a few of our loves in the Deep South, made with mayonnaise that are hard to explain to those not from the Deep South. Let’s start with pear salad. I have seen folks from other parts of the nation going to a covered dish in our area and looking upon a beautifully presented platter of pear salad and turn to me and say, “What is it?” “What is it?” It is one of the staples of the Southern table on special occasions, and even I can make it and do take it to covered dish events at the White Springs United Methodist Church where they still love me, and I do love them. I can attest I usually take three items, baked ham, a huge platter of pear salad, and two of my Mama’s coconut or pecan pies. No one complains, and trust me, all are failure proof from my end.

In our area, making a platter of pear salad, like assembling a relish tray, something else I had someone (and I immediately knew they were not from here) ask me what I meant when on my Social network posts, sometimes I would put for Sunday dinner, that’s lunch to your city folks and more refined areas, you write each Sunday you all have a relish tray, “a relish tray.” What is one? Oh Lord, I thought, but being an old school teacher, I complied describing what was meant by a relish tray; a simple one for me, some of my mother’s homemade bread and butter pickles, celery sticks stuffed with grated cheddar cheese and mayonnaise, store bought sweet gherkin pickles, and sometimes deviled eggs, presented on a clear glass platter, however, often the deviled eggs have the honor of their own tray or plate, sprinkled with or without paprika, as you wish, and to me, you can jazz them up all you want, but the egg yolk, a little salt and pepper, mayonnaise, some sweet relish, mixed and put in the white half of the egg and “voila,” pure comfort.

Now, as you can surmise from what I have written thus far, it is no wonder in the Deep South, we may have to begin taking Lipitor a little earlier in our earthly walk than some folks start. Very few traditional Southern households on special occasions are going to serve roasted chicken unless it’s bogged up in dressing nor will you see an anemic salad on the table, nor a pot of collard greens cooked with bouillon cube. It is not going to happen, and God forbid you should have anything made with Splenda. I laughed at a friend Thanksgiving before last, as she told me about her family Thanksgiving. “My husband’s sister came from up north, and she and her husband were on the sugar free diet, no sugar in anything. I tried to comply, and I am here to tell you, I hope they don’t come next year. It was the grimmest Thanksgiving we ever had. That following Sunday, I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving meal for my children and grandchildren with all the trimmings. I felt I had to. I had let them down. That southern Mama and Grandma love. Many of you know what it is. Rather than to tell you all the time, they cook their love into dishes for us and we do feel it.

Let’s move on to another dish made with mayonnaise in our area; cole slaw. Now, I am somewhat of a purist in the Southern Sense when it comes to cole slaw, and I cannot stand cole slaw made with large amounts of vinegar, I just don’t like it. I cannot bear tart slaw. I like it with shredded cabbage, maybe carrots, onion, salt and pepper to taste, some good sweet pickles or dill pickles, and lots of good mayonnaise. I have a friend who makes a great cole slaw using dill pickles. Remember this, if that cabbage tastes too flat just “pick it up” with a little sugar. I tell you, locally, Raleigh Brown at the Brown Lantern in Live Oak makes a Cole slaw to “die for.” I could eat a bowl anytime with just soda crackers, that’s saltines to those of you who need interpretation. That good.

I tell you the first time I saw the face of a friend raised in Massachusetts when I fixed a Southern slaw dog; that’s a hot dog with cole slaw on it either served on piece of white sandwich bread, what we call “Light bread” in the South or a hot dog bun, I wish you could have seen the expression. “What is it?” they asked. “What is it? What is it? Let me fix you one.” I did, and she was hooked. Never again did she think that a hot dog just smeared with yellow mustard was quite as delectable.

Now two of the holy of holies of Southern culinary culture again, made with mayonnaise, pimiento cheese and chicken salad and, for both, yes to the mayonnaise and to good mayonnaise when making it. These are not those dishes where you can “fake it till you make it;” you either can or can’t, one of the two, and I have had some pimiento cheese, well, it was presented to me as pimiento cheese that I quietly spit in the napkin when no one was watching and quickly tried to wash it off my tongue with a huge sip of sweet tea.

The only chicken salad I ever spit in a napkin was made with cheap mayonnaise, and I could not imagine anyone going to all that trouble and not using Dukes or Hellman’s, but they did, and I didn’t like it at all. Call me a food snob. I may not know a thing about the great soufflés or the perfect béchamel sauce or hollandaise, but if it’s made with mayonnaise in the Deep South, I can pretty well be an expert on it.

I will just express here, I had some folks for an afternoon soiree where I served pimiento cheese. The little girl looked at me with a Pittsburgh accent and asked “What is it?” After she had polished off a sleeve of Ritz crackers with about a pint of it in her very sated stomach, she was a happy lady indeed and begged for my recipe. I gave it to her. They have to live in frost and cold all the time so be kind, give it to them, give it to them. Add joy to the world.

Well, I could go on and on, but I did love Sean’s description of staying up all night typing out a church cookbook back BC before computers and copied and put them together and was paid the grand sum of $4.00 for doing that. Like the cole slaw, the pimiento cheese, the chicken salad, the deviled eggs, and I will add one more potato salad, made by so many southern mothers and grandmothers it was a labor of love.

My mother knows how to “pick me up” every time, and it is with some of her homemade pimiento cheese or chicken salad made with love, and I feel that love in each bite, as I have felt it sharing meals with dear friends, and Southern love, from warm hearts that could speak the word “Joy” and make it three syllables “Jo wuh ee,” but that’s okay, we know all about food cooked with the “Jo wuh ee” and “Love.” Now I will tell you all, the recipe below is not my mother’s recipe, BUT I have tried it, and it is wonderful. Printed recently in “Garden and Gun” Magazine and from the Tupelo Honey Café in Asheville, North Carolina. If you can’t make this, I suggest Palmetto Farms store bought, it’s marvelous.

Tupelo Honey Café Pimiento Cheese Recipe

Ingredients

• 8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp. stone-ground mustard
• 1 tsp. mustard powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 tbsp. minced fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup finely diced roasted red bell pepper
• Tortilla chips for serving

Preparation

Combine the cheese, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, stone-ground mustard, mustard powder, salt, pepper, parsley, and roasted bell peppers in a large bowl. Transfer to a microwavable dish and microwave for about 20 seconds or until warm, or put in a baking dish in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes or until heated through. Serve with tortilla chips.

Recipe from Tupelo Honey Café

From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs, wishing you a day filled with joy, peace, and, above all, lots of love and laughter.