Louisiana, Teach me Something
My River Road Recipes Cookbook with a Cold Mint Julep
My cookbook journey arrived at River Road Recipes (seventy-third printing, June 2002), a cookbook originally published in 1959 by the Junior League of Baton Rouge.
This textbook for Creole and Cajun cooking has sold over one million copies. Although this cookbook didn’t have many stories accompanying the recipe like other cookbooks, I enjoyed reading the names of contributors, living and deceased.
As I went through the book that had belonged to my mother, there wasn’t evidence of usage like food stains or handwritten changes to recipes. Just mom’s signature inside the front cover in a black Sharpie.
As I started reading, I noticed measurement of ingredients described as, “one package of...” or “a slither of….” or “a few dashes of....” Measurements were obviously relative to the writer, and relative to the community who was more familiar with the dish.
I made dirty rice and failed at the first directive of cooking: “read the recipe in its entirety.” If I had, I would have seen that the recipe would feed 30-40 people. However, I was committed to making the dish and adjusted as needed.
According to Southern Discourse, dirty rice, like many southern dishes has roots in slavery. Much of what they ate was made with food their owners threw away (pig tails and feet, livers, gizzards, etc.), in addition to aromatics like onions and pepper added to white rice.
As I began cooking, I recalled that the recipe was for a large crowd when I needed to add nine cups of liquid. Remembering I was making a smaller amount, I reduced the amount to three cups to be absorbed by the rice. Once it was finished, it smelled okay, looked plain, and didn’t have much flavor.
I served the rice with Kardea Brown’s Barbeque shrimp and roasted cabbage. That was a perfect pairing. Since this was a southern dinner, I finished it off with a mint julep cocktail I’ll write about in a future blog post.
What Louisiana taught me…
Do not lean on your own understanding. I am not skilled in adjusting recipes for a crowd to a family of 4-6. Next time I see a recipe for a crowd, no matter how good it looks, I’ll pass.
There are many versions of dirty rice. I found many versions of dirty rice with sausage and giblets or ground beef and chicken. This recipe began with cooked rice. Most don’t. I look forward to one day making this dish with the zest and flavor I am looking for.
It’s okay to adjust as you go along. Although my goal was to make the recipe as is, next time I will add more seasonings and salt during each step, and more meat.
The writer and the audience are important. I don’t think in 1959 the writers expected the book to be sold to millions. I think it was written for a community of people who were part of a certain social status. That felt evident with specific steps I felt were missing and the measurement of ingredients such as “a package of….”
There are many recipes in River Road I want to make. I’m not giving up on this classic cookbook, but the dirty rice recipe from Mrs. Matt G. Smith, I may not revisit.
