The record-union., 1895-01-17
THE SOUTHERN MENU
Guinea squash, Corn FrItters and Other
Palatable Concoctions.

AaldtdDie SoHcOcC!OnS.
The average Northerner who attempts
to compile menu to tickle the South
ern palate usually makes mess OF it.
Some of the bills of fare from Northern
sources that are from time to time to be
seen In Southern publications are well
calculated-not designedly, however, it
is TO be hoped-to make the Southern
houSekeeper drop and expire from that
tired feeling" About nine times in ten
the alleged Southern dishes in the bills
are pure tictions, and almost without a
single exception the menu is unsuited to
this latitude and to the palates Of people
who know better.
No Southerner in good health and in
his right mind ever eats "hominy with
milk and sugar. for breakfast, notwith.
standing the dish is undoubtedly safer
than Salmon with egg sauce' Tor sup
per. Hominy in this part OF the country
is dressed with butter or little meat
gravy, and IS eaten with chop or steak,
or bacon and eggs, or brOlled ham, etc.
Hominy thus served is standard break
fast dish in the South and is lit Tor
King. 1t needs no sugar or cream or nut
meg, and to put either on II is to commit
crime against gastronomy. The same
observations apply to rice, the standard
dinner dish of the South, which the y orth-
ern menu-makers tell US to serve with
sugar and cream.
The cooking of rice, by the way, is an
art which has not yet been acquired il
the North. Properly cook ed, each grain
OF rice stands trn, dry and separate
from It's fellows, yet is as soft as dead
ripe fruit, and the whole mass as white
as snow. In the North they boil the
grains into gIutlnous mass, utterly de-
stroying its beauty and individually and
then sweeten it. Sometimes Southern
folks sweet6n rice for sick people or all
M ric
Again, they make a pillau of rice and
peas; this they call "hopping-j john" and
it IS a food tit for all upright and healthy
men. Other pillaus, made OF rice and
chicken, or okra and bacon, or birds, are
distinctively Southern dishes, and the
person who sits down to either dish with
an appetite has reason 10 thank heayen
for his good fortune. Rice is also used
| in soups and gumbo, But sodden rice
| dressed with cream and sugar, for break
| fast-bah! Out upon the infidel who sug-
! gests it!
There are dozens and dozens of real
| Southern dishes that delight the souls of
| those who eat them when prepared prop
| erly-sugared sweet potatoes, guinea
| squashes, corn fritters, etc. - but the
! orthern-bullt menus seldom or never
| mention them. They tell US TO eat hom-
| my with sugar for breakfast, and salmon
with egg sauce for supper, One may
we'll wonder how he would get through
the night and where he would be the
next morning after following such di-
rections. He would need, like some of
the papers that publish such bills of fare,
to have a patent inside'' to stand the
ordeal.
There are in the South, however, peo-
! pie who pretend to like the Northern
| bills of fare. 1t is all pretense. They
| affect oatmeal because the Northern peo-
| pie eat oatmeal. The Northerners eat it
merely because they do not know any
thing about hominy and rice properly
| cooked, and their Southern mimics eat 1t
| because they think it is more toney
| Such people, we feel constrained to say,
sacrifice both their brains and their stom-
achs to ''styles. ."-Savanuah News.