Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502230033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES FOOD EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
There, you would be urged - and Lord knows you'd be tempted - to partake until you pop of mouthwatering homemade chicken, biscuits, rolls, pork, rice, greens, green beans, pinto beans, black-eyed peas, potato salad, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, corn pudding, yams, pies, cobblers, cakes and other "soul food" staples prepared by the good sisters and brothers of the church.
Sometimes a cook might willingly reveal his or her recipe. At other times, though, it might seem easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to discover what gives a dish its special flavor, characteristic texture or otherwise distinctive "soul."
This secrecy might be, as author/historian/cook Angela Shelf Medearis observes, because, "Most of the `soul food' that is part of the African-American culinary heritage is a direct result of slave cooks `making do' with the few foodstuffs they received."
This meant adapting measurements and cooking methods to accommodate the ingredients at hand, so that recipes changed with each preparation of a dish.
Medearis further writes in "The African-American Kitchen - Cooking from our Heritage" (Dutton), "The plantation kitchen was the slave cooks' domain, and they reigned supreme there."
To ensure ongoing supremacy, it behooved cooks to develop distinct trademarks for their dishes and to guard the secret of how the trademarks were achieved. Finally, lacking the necessary skills, most slave cooks could not have recorded their recipes even if they had wanted to do so.
During a recent random sampling, several local foods professionals graciously or grudgingly revealed a few secrets of their cooking's soul:
Merita Cooke has been in the foods services industry for 14 years and in Roanoke since April of '94. She's a pantry person at the Jefferson Club and is taking classes toward becoming a chef.
"For the past three years, I've really been trying to eat healthy," Cooke said. "I try to cut fat and sodium. I love spicy food, but I season it with Mrs. Dash, lots of garlic, onions and pepper, but not hot sauce, or use lemon juice instead of salt."
Cooke said that her recipes, included here, were collected during a tour of 25 churches that she took during the 1970s.
Cutty Edwards' 16 years in the food business include as clubhouse manager for the Roanoke Country Club, director of catering for the Sheraton Inns and, since August '94 as manager of the Radisson Patrick Henry hotel's Hunter's Grill restaurant. He said he can cook, but seldom does.
"African Americans originally used a lot of natural seasonings - onions, garlic - to get flavor and texture. I think we're getting back to that because of the need to cut back on salt because of our high rate of hypertension," he said.
Surprise! Edwards said he didn't have a recipe for one of his favorite side dishes. "You just make up some stewed tomatoes, using bread crumbs, garlic, butter and, thyme," he said.
Harrison Hale learned to cook from his father and started catering and party planning during the early '70s, in a business that started as a fluke when he provided food for a railroad official's daughter's wedding. His mastery of good-grade beef, especially tenderloins and rib eye steaks, got one of his recipes included in a cookbook published about 15 years ago by the Roanoke Symphony. He said that he'd love to get a copy of the cookbook because the one he'd had access to was lost in a fire.
"The secret is to start with a good, aged piece of beef," Hale said. "Then use the proper seasonings and don't overdo them. For most fowl, beef or lamb, I stay mainly with thyme and garlic powder. Oregano can kill or enhance, and rosemary is usually too harsh."
Robert "Bob" Hughes, owner of Hughes Brothers Catering and Omirr's restaurant and nightclub, has 40 years of cooking experience, including 61/2 years in the Army, a stint at Junior's restaurant (internationally renowned for its cheesecake) in Brooklyn, and the New York Hilton hotel.
"I don't believe in recipes," Hughes said. "I think they're made to suit the person who wrote them. Food, especially soul food, has a better flavor without them."
Which explains why he couldn't/wouldn't share the recipe for his popular personal adaptation of seafood scampi. He did, however, say, "Just a pinch of sugar brings out the flavor and color in foods like tomatoes, green beans, dried beans and greens." And he warned against drowning fresh cabbage or greens with too much water. "If you wash them but don't dry them, then cook them slow, they'll release enough water of their own," he said.
Caterer/party planner Jeannie McCadden said she grew up watching her mother and grandmother cook, and had a natural knack for cooking. "But it was almost like a rite of passage. There were times when they'd turn a little so you couldn't quite see what they'd done or throw in a pinch of something that you weren't quite sure what it was.
``Then, one day, I guess when they felt I was ready, they'd tell me a secret of how to make something the way they did. Even today, my mother still keeps a few secrets. I still don't know how to make a chocolate cake like hers."
McCadden, who still has the toy oven that started her on the path to cooking when she was 10 years old, said to make foods more healthful and cut down on calories and cholesterol, she often uses "light" low-calorie breads for sandwiches and uses egg whites or egg substitutes in cakes. She uses paprika to add flavor and color and help foods brown, and lemon juice or lemon zest instead of salt.
"If you're baking with artificial sweetener, you can add a little to the batter if you want. But if you sprinkle the sweetener onto whatever you've baked right when you take it out of the oven, it will absorb the sweetness, and it's very good. I personally like Equal best," McCadden said.
Husband and wife Lowell Reeves and Alice Reeves in 1986 turned their dream into reality with the opening of Lowell's Restaurant and Supper Club. Alice, who does most of the cooking, said that she has cut back on the use of pork for seasoning and is using more vegetable-based oil and shortening to help cut cholesterol.
"I don't measure. I don't write it down. I learned by the `dump and mix' method," she laughed.
A while back, she stumbled upon the spice blend that seasons the eatery's popular fried or baked chicken. She did write that formula down, but sorry, it's a secret.
Recipes for:
PORK CHOPS WITH APPLE STUFFING
OKRA TOMATO SALAD
LITE 'N CREAMY MACARONI CASSEROLE
TOASTED COCONUT POUND CAKE
SLIMMIN' SWEET POTATO TART
SWEET POTATO BISCUITS
SPICED MOLASSES OR GINGER COOKIES
SIMPLE "CHIX" CASSEROLE
DOWN-HOME GREENS
BEST-EVER BEAN PIE
HOT SEAFOOD DIP
by CNB