The Food of a Younger Land (32 page)

Thick pine planks set up on saw horses become serving tables. The big juicy chunks one by one are raked from the coals and carved on the tables with bits of charred hickory still clinging to their outsides, and the thick slices are slipped into buns. But first the meat is drenched in barbecue sauce, for which each ranch has its own recipe and about which there is much controversy. This sauce is as much part of the Latin heritage of the Southwest as are the crumbling Spanish Missions. Along the Rio Grande it is a dark crimson blend of tomatoes and chili peppers with the latter so hot and strong that a drop of it, spilled on the plank table, will leave a charred spot after it is wiped away. But as you come north the chili peppers weaken and finally disappear, until near the Canadian border they offer you nothing stronger than a watery scarlet store catsup.

“While Barbecue has covered half a continent, Son of a Bitch, its companion dish, has not, and I therefore offer its recipe for the benefit of the dainty city bride, who is constantly straining the resources of her apartment kitchen to tempt her husband with new plats du jour after a weary day in the office.

“First milady will take the entrails of two medium sized steers, but she will extract from them only the heart, liver, kidneys and intestines, which she will carefully clean. This done, she will cut them into chunks the size of her fist and toss them into a medium sized copper wash-boiler on her enameled stove. To this she will add a soupçon of potatoes (say a peck of peeled ones), about the same amount of unpeeled tomatoes and a quart can of hot green Mexican chili peppers. This is allowed to simmer for about three hours, without ever coming to a boil. After it has been thickened with a 5-pound sack of corn meal and salted to taste, then her Son of a Bitch is done and there will be enough for all, particularly if a dozen of her husband’s old college chums, a company of U.S. Marines and a few taxi-drivers happen to drop in unexpectedly for dinner.

“While the recipe is substantially the same all along the north bank of the Rio Grande, the name occasionally varies, and in New Mexico the dish is called Prosecuting Attorney.

“The Old West has a fine tradition of freedom and a noble cuisine to back it up. So far this has stalwartly resisted the corrupting inroads of the dainty recipes of the ladies’ magazines. As long as this cookery is maintained intact I have no fears for its political future. And yet there should be a note of warning: no race will spring to man the barricades with its stomach stuffed with Waldorf Salad nestled in a leaf of lettuce plus a dab of store-bought mayonnaise on top.”

—W. L. White, in the
Emporia Gazette
, August 15, 16, 1939

Col. Edward N. Wentworth, Director
Armour’s Livestock Bureau
Union Stock Yards, Chicago

Re: America Eats
(Comments on Mr. Newsom’s letter to Mr. Draper)

Colonel Wentworth reviewed the suggestions made in his letter to Mr. Van de Mark of October 31 (copy attached) and contributed some interesting sidelights on the matter of regional preferences in meat, principally in reply to questions raised by Mr. Newsom in his letter of October 16 to Mr. Norman Draper, Director, American Meat Institute, Chicago.

Steaks:
The South and West prefer the T-bone cut, while the East and North eat the sirloin, because the South and West, being farther from the supply of finished beef (Midwest corn-fattened), and therefore more dependent upon local animals (unfinished), require choicer cuts (the T-bone, containing more tenderloin, is in that respect superior to the sirloin).

Regional Preferences:
Livers, hearts, brains, and sweetbreads are sold almost exclusively in the larger cities. The public taste elsewhere simply has not come to accept them, although the total sale is steadily increasing. Sweetbreads are sold principally to hotels. Colonel Wentworth suggests that it is possible to show that the consumption center for these items, formerly in New York, is moving steadily westward.

H. J. MOSS

A
quarter of a century ago, Nebraska was still prairie chicken minded, though in a rapidly diminishing way. Then came the Chinese pheasant, which made its appearance in the state in considerable numbers.

There is a certain allure attached to this now famous delicacy, which takes men, and even women, afield in great numbers and forms the theme of general conversation during the season, which is at its high point in October.

The pheasant, almost on a plane with peacocks and pea hens in beauty, is peculiarly relished as a food. It is all white meat and ordinarily very tender. Hunters, flushed with success, return by the hundreds bearing half a dozen or more of these birds. Acquired not, however, without considerable expense and effort.

The birds are usually still in the rough and require a careful picking, drawing and trimming. The feeds which follow are mostly family affairs but are also the theme of bigger get-to-gethers. The birds are often drawn before the hunters return and stuffed with hay, which seems to preserve their flavor but rarely are they picked. The new method is to dress them and pack with a small piece of dry ice. That is distinctly modern.

People work themselves into a general state of excitement at the mention of pheasants. When the triumphant hunter (if he is lucky) returns, the neighbors are called in and the spoils viewed with “ohs” and “ahs.” Their value is strangely enhanced.

The feast is highly dramatized and everything takes on a glamorous atmosphere. Everyone exclaims at the delicious quality of the main entree. Whole organizations often call their members together for the big feed. Actually they eat mostly of mashed potatoes and trimmings, but yet pheasant is the main theme. Liquid refreshments in quantity often are another big feature but it is all in the name of pheasant. They may be chicken fried or baked or stewed but they remain in a class all their own. Outside of ducks and rabbits, pheasants are Nebraska’s big wild game food event.

H. J. MOSS

O
ther food game in Nebraska has come and gone. Many varieties have entirely disappeared from the plains and fields, but rabbits still abound in goodly numbers—some say that they are on the increase—and are delicious eating.

If anything, the evolution of rabbit cookery has led to a high degree of perfection, as opposed to earlier methods of preparation, which seemed to be perpetually in an experimental stage. Improved facilities for cooking have much to do with this, no doubt.

The pioneers and settlers of the nineteenth century used plenty of rabbits, but apparently many exercised little imagination in the handling and cooking. Some roasted the carcass over open fires, others used the kettle for plain stewing, and the frying pan was overworked. The latter process was the most popular, apparently, as fried rabbits came to be associated with fried chicken more and more.

While many were entirely satisfied with this method, others began to introduce some original ideas of their own. The trouble with just plain frying was that the meat, though well done on the outside, was underdone within and tended to be slimy.

Among other recipes, one in particular was much talked about in the early 1900s. It was none other than soaking the dressed rabbit in vinegar and then flouring and frying. Baked rabbit was also given this treatment. The result was not bad, but sometimes a little sour, somewhat like the rabbits that had fed too much on willow and other bark.

In the first decade of the twentieth century farm women paid a little more attention to the matter of making rabbit meat more palatable. The result was a more thorough investigation, by trial, of various methods in bringing bunnies to the table in their most presentable and appetizing form. It most certainly wasn’t haphazard frying, but a combination of stewing and frying or baking, preceded by a more elaborate preliminary preparation.

This involved a thorough dressing process followed by a salt water treatment and freezing. The actual cooking, itself, was not so complicated. The frozen rabbit carcass was articulated and thawed, then simmered in a mild solution of soda water, which was poured off. After which fresh water was added with fat and the cuts of meat allowed to stew for one hour to two hours, depending upon the age and size of rabbit. Thus the rabbit was stewed down in its own juices until only the fatty liquid remained. This led to a complete browning in the pan by either frying or baking. In case of frying or baking the lid of the cooking utensil was eventually removed. The result was a revelation—tender, crisp-browned, separated chunks of meat. One could by picking up, say, a leg and giving it a jerk cause the meat to drop away from the bone and be temptingly available to the fork—or even fingers.