Cookbook serves up South Carolina cuisine

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:00 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend | The Lowcountry of South Carolina has a rich cultural heritage, and a big part of that is its distinctive cuisine. Pat Branning of Salisbury, who lived in South Carolina for 25 years, knows that as well as anyone.

Branning is the former women's editor for WSB, Atlanta, where she hosted broadcasts about the arts, entertainment and food culture of the South. Later, she hosted television shows in Beaufort for S.C. ETV and was a regular contributor to "Islander" magazine, "Beaufort" magazine and the local newspapers.

Branning currently lives in Salisbury with her husband, Cloide. Together, they work to help the underserved and uninsured in health care through a nonprofit organization called Wellness4America.

Somehow, Branning has found time to write a cookbook called "Shrimp, Collards and Grits," which contains recipes from the creeks and gardens of the South Carolina Lowcountry. The cover of the cookbook features the Barnwell House, which was the Brannings' home when they lived in South Carolina.

The recipes included are those preserved through generations of great Southern cooks, Branning says, and represent what people ate when they got together, along with updates on dishes popular today.

Pat explains what compelled her to collect Lowcountry recipes.

By Pat Branning

For The Salisbury Post

"Shrimps, Grits and Collards" is all about the food but also the memories of how things were. It has to do with sleeping yard dogs, natives picking vine-ripe tomatoes in the vast fields of St. Helena's Island, dirt roads and the sounds of Gullah hymns rising from a nearby church.

It's about Wednesday nights at the famous Beaufort Yacht Club, the sounds of laughter and dice games, and Larry Taylor fixin' everything there was to fix — especially his fried chicken. Then there was that notorious fella named Skeet who mastered the art of traveling through town with his long legs jumping from roof top to roof top.

It's remembering how local fishermen stood on the river banks gathering up pluff mud, mixing it with fish meal, getting ready for their nightly trips down the river to shrimp bait.

Everywhere I went, whether it was an oyster roast, a church gathering or a political supper, there was some sort of shrimp-corn-sausage stuff.

One night I approached a man with a toothpick in his mouth and asked him what it was. Looking in disbelief and trying not to lose patience with me, he said, "Frogmore Stew." Did that mean they put frogs in their stew?

It kept happening — these funny sounding words kept cropping up. Words such as Purloo — or was it pilau, and was it related to Kentucky burgoo?

Of course, there was this chatter about Chicken Bog or Hog, and what was that? Best I could figure out, it was chicken "bogged" down in rice and a boggy, soggy mess. Folks in town loved it and served it often.

Venturing over to Harry's restaurant on Bay Street is where you could order the blue plate special. These were local fixin's at their finest. It was known to have the best mess of collard greens and catfish chowder you ever ate, biscuits with cream gravy and, of course, shrimp gumbo. When you ate fried chicken at Harry's, you picked it up with your fingers and ate it right off the bone. At one of the tables several men were talking about ribmeat and fatback and things like "streak-o-lean." They got into a heated argument with one of the waitresses about the superiority of one over the other.

The real fun came at discovering the various barbecue places. To qualify as an authentic Southern barbecue experience, there are several "must-haves." Concrete or wood floors and wooden tables covered with plastic are the first criteria. And white bread — no fancy rolls. Frilly curtains at the windows and ferns hanging outside are a dead give-away that this is no real barbecue place. Never trust or eat where the waitstaff is skinny. Three things are consistent about South Carolina barbecue, and they are sweet tea, white bread and slaw. And for gosh sakes, never say you are going to attend a "pig-pickin." Only city folks call it that. It's proper Lowcountry language to say "barbecue" or "cookin' a hog."

When all is said and done, it's rice that signifies the real food culture of the Lowcountry. Rice is what made plantation owners wealthy in the 1700's after it was brought over from East Africa, probably Madagascar, to South Carolina, making South Carolina the major rice growing state until the Civil War. Rice grows best when partly submerged in water, so the tidal flats were ideal conditions.

Tomatoes, corn and hominy, the hulled and dried kernels of corn from which the bran and germ have been removed, were also significant, with hominy being served daily.

From the West Indies came the compelling influence of spicy foods, such as cayenne, mustard, peppers and pepper sherry. From Africa came benne seeds, an East Indian herb. These seeds arrived in America on the necks of African slaves, who wore them for good luck and planted them near their quarters on the plantations. House slaves knew how to use them to make delicious dishes.

The Africans also brought okra, meat jerky, greens, yams, black-eyed peas and corn meal. Working in the kitchens of the big plantation owners, they combined these then-exotic spices and herbs into long-simmering delicious stews and wonderful tangy deep fried foods.

Included in this book are authentic recipes contributed by the Gullah people of the barrier islands who are the descendents of these slaves. Their heritage is rich and compelling and their verbal tradition has been passed from generation to generation in a rich dialect extolling the virtues of their deep rooted spirituality. Their food reflects their passion for their land, their creeks and estuaries and the love of all God's creation. It's intriguing to fathom the depth and soul of the Gullahs and their African ancestry.

The plentiful harvest of the sea has always been the basis of Lowcountry dishes since the Indians harvested oysters, clams, shrimp and crabs. It's hard to resist South Carolina's best recipes for she-crab soup, roasted oysters, and today's signature dish for sophisticated Southern dining, shrimp and grits.

You'll find plenty of meals you'll want to make over and over again because they are tried and true, easy and universally loved.

Contributing artists Nancy Ricker Rhett, Steve Weeks and Linda Sheppard display original works of art throughout the pages of this cookbook, making it a special tribute to the gracious and unique coastal Southern town of Beaufort.

"Shrimp, Collards and Grits" is available at The Literary BookPost in Salisbury.

See related story and recipes at http://www.salisburypost.com/Lifestyle/111109-Lowcountry-Thanksgiving-recipes