Epiphany, pt. 2: the recipes

fig. a:  Anson Mills Sea Island Red Peas

You've read some background on Hoppin' John, now here are the recipes:

1.  John Thorne's master recipe for Hoppin' John in Serious Pig reflects the passion and erudition that went into his chapter on Rice & Beans.

John Thorne's Hoppin' John

1 cup black-eyed peas or cowpeas, soaked and prepared for cooking

1 small chunk of lean slab bacon, sliced thick OR a cracked ham or beef bone OR a chunk of salt pork, sliced and simmered in enough water for 15 minutes to reduce its saltiness

1 onion, chopped

1 cup raw rice

1 hot red pepper, fresh or dried, seeded and diced OR Tabasco sauce to taste

and all, some, or one of the following, according to your taste

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

minced fresh parsley

a little thyme

salt and pepper

Bring 5 cups of water to a boil.  Add the beans, with the bay leaf (if using), and let them simmer for about 45 minutes.  (If you are using a cracked pork or beef bone, you should add it now, too, and ignore all the bacon/salt pork instructions, frying up the onion in a bit of melted fat or oil and adding it when you add the rice.)  While the beans are cooking, prepare the bacon/salt pork by frying it until the pieces are crisp.  Either reserve these until the end of cooking (to lend a touch of crispness) or put them into the beans when the rice is added.  Fry the onion in the fat once the pork has been removed until it is translucent but not brown.  Either way, reserve the fat.

At the end of 45 minutes, taste the beans for doneness; your tongue should be able to mash them against the roof of the mouth.  If they are soft, but not mushy, they are done just right.  Eyeball the remaining liquid in the pot--there should be at least 2 1/2 cups.  If not, add more water.  Pour in the rice and mix in all the other seasonings, the bacon/salt pork bits (unless you're holding them for the end), and all--or as much as you want of--the cooking fat.  Stir the mixture well and bring the liquid to a simmer.  Let cook for another 20 minutes.  Then turn off the heat and let the Hoppin' John rest for 10 minutes.  Taste.  The beans should be just a little more tender, the rice perfectly cooked.  Crumble over the reserved bacon or sprinkle over the crisp salt-pork bits, if any, and serve.  

Serves 4 "very well indeed."

2.  Matt and Ted Lee's The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook features another thoughtful and reliable take on Hoppin' John, which makes great use of their tasty Rich Pork Broth (see below).

Lee Bros. Hoppin' John

1 cup dried black-eyed peas or field peas

2 tbsp olive oil

1 smoked hog jowl (or 1/4 pound slab bacon or 4 slices thick-cut bacon)

1 medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped

6 cups Rich Pork Broth (see below)

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp salt

14-oz can crushed Italian tomatoes

1 1/2 cups long-grain rice

Wash the peas in a strainer, place them in a medium bowl, and soak for 4 hours in water to cover.

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart pot over medium-high heat and brown the hog jowl on both sides, about 5 minutes.  (If using bacon, omit the olive oil and simply render the fat in the pot for 5 minutes.)  Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the broth, black pepper, red pepper, and salt and bring to a boil.

Let the broth boil vigorously for 10 minutes, then add the drained peas.  Boil gently over medium-high heat, uncovered, until the peas are tender but still have some bite, about 25 minutes for black-eyed peas, 30 minutes for field peas.  Add the tomatoes and rice to the pot, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer vigorously for 20 minutes, until most of the broth has been absorbed but the rice and peas are still very moist.

Remove the pot from the heat and allow the Hoppin' John to steam, covered, until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 5 minutes.  Remove the hog jowl and pull off any meat.

Fluff the Hoppin' John with a fork.  Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle the shredded hog jowl over top, and serve.

Serves 6 hungry people.

And here's that recipe for their pork broth:

Lee Bros. Rich Pork Broth

shoulder bones from a bone-in pork shoulder or 1 pound pork shank bones and trimmings

1 large onion, chopped

2 large celery stalks, chopped

4 bay leaves

6 cups cold water

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Place the bones, onion, celery, and bay leaves in a medium stockpot and cover with cold water.  Bring to a vigorous simmer over medium-high heat, then turn the heat to low and simmer gently for 1 hour.

Strain the broth into a bowl through a fine-mesh strainer.  Discard the solids.  Measure the amount of broth that's left.  Taste the broth.  If you don't plan to reduce it further, season it gently with salt and pepper.  

Pour the broth into a container with a tight-fitting lid.  If you're going to use it within 48 hours, keep it in the refrigerator.  Otherwise, place it in the freezer, where it will keep for at least 1 month.

3.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the simplest Hoppin' John recipe can be found in Ernest Matthew Mickler's White Trash Cooking.  

Cook enough black-eyed peas with hog jowls until they are tender.  Cook a cup of rice for every 2 or 3 hungry people.  Stir the rice and peas together and serve.

However, Mickler correctly notes that black-eyed peas aren't the only option.  In the words of his friend Kaye Kay, "You can make it out of crowder, field or cow peas."  

4.  Also unsurprisingly, the most intricate Hoppin' John recipe can be found in Sean Brock's Heritage:  Recipes and Stories.  As prodigiously talented as Brock is, he's got a knack for taking Southern classics and busying them up and even getting finicky with them.  This recipe for Lowcountry Hoppin' John being a case in point:   it features three distinct stages (including an usual drying-of-the-rice step) and almost 20 ingredients (!).  A luscious Red Pea Gravy is an element that forms naturally when you cook up a good batch of Hoppin' John, but Brock insists that it stands out even further, and he uses a blender (!) to achieve this end.  In my mind, the genius of this recipe has to do with its attention to ingredients, especially its insistence that Anson Mills Sea Island Red Peas and Carolina Gold Rice--both of them heirloom varieties, both of them of an exceptional quality--be used.

Sean Brock's Hoppin' John (Hoppin' Sean?)

Peas

2 quarts Pork Stock or Chicken Stock

1 cup Anson Mills Sea Island Red Peas, soaked in a pot of water in the refrigerator overnight

1 1/2 cups medium dice onions

1 cup medium dice peeled carrots

1 1/2 cups medium dice celery

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 

1 fresh bay leaf

10 thyme sprigs

1/2 jalapeño, chopped

Kosher salt

Rice

4 cups water

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 

1 cup Anson Mills Carolina Gold Rice 

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

Red Pea Gravy

Reserved 1 cup cooked red peas

Reserved 2 cups cooking liquid from the peas

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Cider vinegar 

Sliced chives or scallions for garnish 

For the peas:

Bring the stock to a simmer in a small pot. Drain the peas and add to the stock, along with all of the remaining ingredients except the salt. Cook the peas, partially covered, over low heat until they are soft, about 1 hour. Season to taste with salt. (The peas can be cooked ahead and refrigerated in their liquid for up to 3 days; reheat, covered, over low heat before proceeding.)

Drain the peas, reserving their cooking liquid, and measure out 1 cup peas and 2 cups liquid for the gravy; return the rest of the peas and liquid to the pot and keep warm.

Meanwhile, for the rice:

About 45 minutes before the peas are cooked, preheat the oven to 300°F.

Bring the water, salt, and cayenne pepper to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, add the rice, stir once, and bring to a simmer. Simmer gently, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the rice is al dente, about 15 minutes.

Drain the rice in a sieve and rinse under cold water. Spread the rice out on a rimmed baking sheet. Dry the rice in the oven, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Scatter the butter evenly over the rice and continue to dry it, stirring every few minutes, for about 5 minutes longer. All excess moisture should have evaporated and the grains should be dry and separate.

For the gravy:

Put the 1 cup peas, 2 cups cooking liquid, and the butter in a blender and blend on high until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add cider vinegar to taste.

(The gravy can be made up to 3 days ahead and kept in a covered container in the refrigerator; reheat, covered, over the lowest possible heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.)

To complete:

Use a slotted spoon to transfer the peas to a large serving bowl. Add the rice and carefully toss the rice and peas together. Pour the gravy over them, sprinkle with chives or scallions, and serve.

Serves 6 to 8 hungry souls.

[excerpted from Sean Brock's Heritage:  Recipes and Stories]

Hoppin' John is a complete meal, so you don't really need to serve it with too much else if you're serving it as a main.  A brightly flavoured fresh salad makes a lot of sense.  So does a batch of skillet corn bread.

fig. b:  butter & corn bread

What will Benjamin "B.J." Dennis's recipe for Hoppin' John at tonight's Lowcountry/Gullah Nation feast entail?  There's only one way to find out.  I can tell you that he's enormously proud of his Hoppin' John and the traditions that it embodies, and that he'll be using Anson Mills Sea Island Red Peas and Carolina Gold Rice to create this definitive Lowcountry delicacy.

Lowcountry on the Lower Main

Montreal - Charleston Connection

B.J. Dennis + Foodlab

Saturday, May 16

5:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Société des arts technologiques

1201, blvd. St-Laurent

Montreal, QC

See you tonight!

aj

Epiphany, pt. 1: the story

fig. a:  the remains of the peas

Hoppin' John is not only the quintessential Southern New Year's dish, and a dish of huge symbolic value in the days leading up to Epiphany.  It's also a dish of mythic importance to Southern culture, and especially African-American culture.

The etymology of the name is uncertain.  Some claim that "hoppin' John" is a bastardized version of pois à pigeon, especially if one removes the à as one often would when speaking pidgin French (leaving one with "pwaah-peejon").  Pigeon peas were a type of legume brought from Africa to the Americas, and one that was widely used in the Caribbean, where the roots of "hoppin' John" can be traced.  Others have come up with all kinds of other dubious explanations, many of which are quite whimsical.*   What is certain is that the dish is part of a subset of rice & bean dishes that one finds all across the Caribbean, the American South, and those regions of Latin America that had a slave culture--hence, Brazil's renowned feijoada.  What's also certain is that Hoppin' John is quite specifically a product of the Lowcountry regions of North Carolina, Georgia, and especially South Carolina, as well as parts of Louisiana, places where the cultivation of rice was a crucial part of the antebellum economy.  You can find variations on Hoppin' John all across the South (and beyond) these days, and the dish has long been a staple of the poor Southern-white tradition Ernest Matthew Mickler called White Trash Cooking, but the dish is of absolutely central importance to the Lowcountry's proud Gullah culture.

John Thorne makes a crucial point about African-American foodways in his masterful chapter on Rice & Beans in Serious Pig.  In trying to come to terms with the spiritual significance of Hoppin' John, as well as the level of devotion to it, Thorne writes the following:

To understand the great and poignant imaginative power that has held this dish true to its origins through the centuries, we must first face the fact that when one talks of the foods that slaves "brought with them from Africa," we are allowing ourselves to elide a painful reality.  The only thing that Africans brought with them was their memories.  If they were fortunate enough to have been taken along with other members of their own community and to stay with them (which rarely happened)--there was also the possibility of reestablishing out of these memories some truncated resemblance of former rituals and customs.  But of physical possessions, they had none.  [Thorne's emphasis]

Thorne goes on to describe in harrowing detail the passage from Africa to the Americas and the slavers' eventual realization that serving meals that were at least tolerable was essential if they were to successfully deliver their human cargo alive.  Gradually, variations on native African dishes were introduced to the meals the slaves were served, including beans, rice, and yams.  These gestures were meant to ameliorate the conditions for the slaves just enough that they might make it across the Atlantic without being entirely physically and mentally broken, but they were just that-- gestures.  Thorne continues:

[The] hollowness of such self-serving "humanitarianism" can be seen in the slavers' obtuseness regarding the essential component of this diet:  the beans.  

Instead of the Africans' beloved cowpeas or black-eyed peas, both of which are small, delicate, and sweet, the slavers served them horse-beans, a large, coarsely textured type of fava bean that was used primarily as feed in England.  This substitution "exacerbated rather than alleviated the nightmare."  When the slaves were eventually reunited with their own peas--not because they were allowed to bring them along on the voyage, but because the slave traders finally started stocking them as provisions--the event was of monumental importance, and held "a sweetness that still reverberates down the centuries."

fig. b:  peas & "peacans"

Those reverberation can be felt throughout the city of Charleston and the Lowcountry more generally.  You can find variations on Hoppin' John on menus all across the region, and it's a dish whose relative success can make or break a restaurant's reputation.  You can also find the dish's essential elements--either black-eyed peas, field peas, or red peas, and Carolina gold rice--everywhere.  In December 2013 we came back from the Carolinas with all kinds of mementos, but perhaps the best souvenirs we brought back from Charleston were the black-eyed peas and the field peas we got at Ruke's farm stand.  They were certainly the ones that held the most evocative potential--potential that was fully capitalized when we made Hoppin' John ourselves at home.

Because of its particular legacy, Hoppin' John is by definition a humble dish.  In its most elemental form, cowpeas or black-eyed peas are cooked with a  fatty cut of pork in a simple broth.  Raw rice is added at just the right time and allowed to cook fully.  Seasonings are minimal, usually consisting of salt and black pepper, salt and red pepper, or all three.  Sometimes herbs might be added.  Other recipes include an onion and/or some garlic.  The peas are not served on rice, the way red beans & rice is served in New Orleans--they're fully integrated.  And while it might sound simple, the secret to a truly transcendent Hoppin' John--one that does full justice to its history and traditions--has to do with technique, as well as with ingredients.

It's because of this combination of spirituality and elementalism that Charleston chef extraordinaire Sean Brock places Hoppin' John at the very center of his introduction to Heritage:  Recipes and Stories.  Hoppin' John is his foundational story.  It's his foundational recipe.  It's the dish that he claims formed him the most as a chef.  It's the dish that holds the key to understanding his Southern cuisine.

And it's because of this combination of spirituality and elementalism that rice & peas will be at the very center of Benjamin "B.J." Dennis' Gullah Nation Feast at the Foodlab this coming Saturday, May 16.  Dennis is another highly touted chef from Charleston, and he's been in Toronto this week for the Terroir Symposium.  Michelle was wise enough to get in contact with B.J. a few months ago when she heard he was going to be in Canada, and we're lucky that he'll be teaming up with the Foodlab to bring some authentic Lowcountry cuisine to the Lower Main.

Believe me, this guy is not messing around.  We picked up his shipment of rice & peas on the weekend and it looked something like this:

fig. c:  rice & peas

That's right:  25 pounds.  Each.

So, yeah, you can expect some serious Hoppin' John on the menu.  You can also expect such Lowcountry classics as oysters & grits, and shrimp with Gullah peanut sauce.  

Dennis has established his reputation on his deeply soulful Southern cuisine, and his savvy when it comes to tracing the roots of Gullah cuisine back to the West Indies and West Africa.  In fact, in 2014 he prepared a feast he called "From the Land to the Sea" that was designed as just such a culinary voyage.  Saturday, he'll be focusing on taking us from Montreal to Charleston.  But if you get in the groove, his cuisine might very well take you further.

aj

P.S.  Stay tuned for some tried & true Hoppin' John recipes...

*  These include:  

--an alleged Charleston ritual that involves hopping around a table before a big feast

--the nickname of a Charleston waiter who was famous for his hyperkinetic behaviour

--a guy named John who would get excited and come "a-hoppin'" whenever his wife served rice & peas

--an obscure South Carolina custom that involved the use of the phrase, "hop in, John," whenever a (presumably male) guest was invited over to eat

--Edna Lewis wasn't from the Rice Belt, she was from Virginia, so she didn't claim any special affinity for Hoppin' John.  She grew up with black-eyed peas, but only discovered a whole host of other beans and peas when she moved to Charleston for a spell.  It was then that she first encountered Hoppin' John, too.  She provides yet another version of how the dish received its name in her book In Pursuit of Flavor, one that's particularly blunt:  "There is a dish that originated in Charleston called Hoppin' John, which we had never heard of in Virginia.  Supposedly, Hoppin' John was a cripple who peddled beans in the streets of Charleston and so a local dish made from red beans and rice was named for him."

and so on...

Southern Belles, Northern Climes

fig. a:  Nancy Hall & Co.

Of all the culinary finds that we’ve made over the last several months since we established a piedmont pied-à-terre in Northern Vermont—and they have been numerous—the one that’s had the most profound impact on me was the most unexpected one.  It also happened to be the humblest.  This fall, in Vermont, of all places, I rediscovered the sweet potato, and the circumstances were surprising to me.

First of all, after years of living in a relatively sweet potato-deprived area—namely, Quebec, just miles to the north, and just a border away—I found myself among people who were actually, genuinely passionate about sweet potatoes.  The kind of people who flock to the market stands that specialize in sweet potatoes and have strong opinions about how to select the right specimen.  The kind of people who trade sweet potato recipes with one another at the stand as they make their selections.*  

Secondly, I found myself confronted with the widest variety of sweet potatoes I’d ever encountered, which is somewhat remarkable given that I spent years and years south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Sweet potatoes are appreciated all over North America, of course—especially around Thanksgiving—but New England isn’t exactly renown for its contributions to sweet potato culinaria.**  These Montpelier area farmers, however, were cultivating sweet potatoes in all different shapes and sizes, in colours ranging from bright yellow to dark purple to royal blue, and with varying flavour and textural qualities.  The varieties I encountered included everything from the Carolina Ruby, to the Japanese Yellow, the Japanese Purple, and the Hawaiian Blue, but the one that stole my heart was that seductress Nancy Hall, a comely tan-coloured sweet potato with lovely orange-yellow flesh--a true Southern belle.

fig. b:  Nancy Hall sweets

In the end, I didn’t actually try that many types of sweet potatoes—once I found four or five that I loved (!), I stayed true to them (especially Nancy)—but Michelle can testify to the sheer number of sweet potatoes I consumed, as well as to the frequency with which I ate them.  She can also attest to the singularity of my sweet potato fever.  I like sweet potatoes in a number of soups and stews, but nine times out of ten I prepare them in the simplest manner possible:  baked.

fig. c:  baked garnet sweet potato 1:  before

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Preheat oven to 400º F.  Wash and dry your sweet potatoes.  Prick the sweet potatoes with a fork in a few places on one side, and one side only.  Place them on a heavy-duty sheet of aluminum foil (or a regular sheet of aluminum foil that’s been doubled).  Put the sweet potatoes (with the aluminum foil underneath) in the oven, and bake for 60-75 minutes.  The sweet potatoes should be emitting droplets of syrup from the perforations in their skin and they should be extremely tender.

Place on a plate, split with a knife, and slather with butter and a pinch of salt.  If you’re feeling lucky, add a dollop of sour cream, too.  Devour the sweet potato in two stages:  first, scrape out its flesh, savouring each and every bite; then, use your fork and knife to cut the skin into bite-sized pieces, and relish its deeply caramelized pleasures.

fig. d:  baked garnet sweet potato 2:  after

Of course, Vermont’s sweet potato season has been over for a while, but you can still find cellared organic sweet potatoes kicking and around from time to time, not to mention conventional garnet varieties imported from Down South, some of which are still quite excellent.

There’s truly nothing like the taste of a Grade A sweet potato—especially a locally grown,  organic one—when it’s been properly baked, bursting with syrup and luscious on the inside.  Every time I taste a really good one I’m reminded of a pivotal scene from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), a passage that, in my opinion, stands as one of the single greatest treatments of food in the history of literature.  The Nancy Hall is a sweet potato famed for its Proustian powers of suggestion, for its ability to conjure memories of fabled meals from one’s Southern childhood.  You can feel those powers in Ellison’s vivid prose.  And part of what makes the experience so profound for the narrator—the titular “invisible man”—is that he encounters these “yams”*** in the winter cold, on the snowy streets of Harlem—a quintessential rural Southern flavour relocated to the urban Northern context courtesy of the Great Migration.  When he does, they function as a balm at a particularly low point in his life, but they’re also a poignant reminder of the “invisible man’s” status in New York, and in America more generally.  The novel’s stirring and evocative treatment of race and class is captured here in full effect.  And if there’s an account of the essence of true street food that’s more beautifully written than this one, I haven’t encountered it.

I… walked along, becoming aware that I was muttering to myself again.  Then far down at the corner I saw an old man warming his hands against the sides of an odd-looking wagon, from which a stovepipe reeled off a thin spiral of smoke that drifted the odor of baking yams slowly to me, bring a stab of swift nostalgia.  I stopped as thought struck by a shot, deeply inhaling, remembering, my mind surging back, back.  At home we’d bake them in the hot coals of the fireplace, had carried them cold to school for lunch, munched them secretly, squeezing the sweet pulp from the soft peel as we hid from the teacher behind the largest book, the World’s Geography.  Yes, and we’d loved them candied, or baked in a cobbler, deep-fat fried in a pocket of dough, or roasted with pork and glazed with well-browned fat; had chewed them raw—yams and years ago.  More yams than years ago though the time seemed endlessly expanded, stretched thin as the spiralling smoke beyond all recall.

I moved again.  “Get yo’ hot, baked Carolina yam,” he called.  At the corner the old man, wrapped in an army overcoat, his feet covered with gunny sacks, his head in a knitted cap, was puttering with a stack of paper bags.  I saw a crude sign on the side of the wagon proclaiming YAMS, as I walked flush into the warmth thrown by the coals that glowed in a grate underneath.

“How much are your yams?” I said, suddenly hungry.

“They ten cents and they sweet,” he said, his voice quivering with age.  “These ain’t none of them binding ones neither.  These here is real, sweet yaller yams.  How many?”

“One,” I said.  “If they’re that good, one should be enough."

He gave me a searching glance.  There was a tear in the corner of his eye.  He chuckled and opened the door of the improvised oven, reaching gingerly with his gloved hand.  The yams, some bubbling with syrup, lay on a wire rack above the glowing coals that leaped to low blue flame when struck by the draft of air.  The flash of warmth set my face aglow as he removed one of the yams and shut the door.

“Here you are, suh,” he said, starting to put the yam into a bag.

“Never mind the bag.  I’m going to eat it.  Here…”

“Thanks.”  He took the dime.  “If that ain’t a sweet one, I’ll give you another one free of charge.”

I knew it was sweet before I broke it; bubbles of brown syrup had burst the skin.

“Go ahead and break it,” the old man said.  “Break it and I’ll give you some butter since you gon’ eat it right here.  Lots of folks take ‘em home.  They got their own butter at home.”

I broke it, seeing the sugary pulp steaming in the cold.

“Hold it over here,” he said.  He took a crock from a rack on the side of the wagon.  “Right here.”

I held it, watching him pour a spoonful of melted butter over the yam and the butter seeping in.

“Thanks.”

“You welcome.  And I’ll tell you something.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“If that ain’t the best eating you had in a long time, I give you your money back.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” I said.  “I can look at it and see it’s good.”  

“You right, but everything that looks good ain’t necessarily good,” he said.  “But these is.”

I took a bite, finding it as sweet and hot as any I’d ever had, and was overcome with such a surge of homesickness that I turned away to keep my control.  I walked along, munching the yam, just as suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of freedom—simply because I was eating while walking along the street.  It was exhilarating.  I no long had to worry about who saw me or about what was proper.  To hell with all that, and as sweet as the yam actually was, it became like nectar with the thought[…]

[…To] hell with being ashamed of what you liked.  No more of that for me.  I am what I am!  I wolfed down the yam and ran back to the old man and handed him twenty cents.  “Give me two more,” I said.

“Sho, all you want, long as I got ‘em.  I can see you a serious yam eater, young fellow.  You eating them right away?”

“As soon as you give them to me,” I said.

“You want ‘em buttered?”

“Please.”

“Sho, that way you can get the most out of ‘em.  Yessuh,” he said, handing over the yams, “I can see you one of these old-fashioned yam eaters.”

“They’re my birthmark,” I said.  “I yam what I am!”

[Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 13]

The wagon, the smoke, the coals, the skin, the syrup, the pulp, the butter, the steam, the street, the expertise, and the homesickness--it's all there.

Now, I’m positive I couldn’t make the same claim with any sense of validity--they're not my birthmark; neither of my grandmothers prepared them; my earliest recollections of sweet potatoes were part of the fairly typical Thanksgiving meals I experienced in childhood--but few foods provide me with as elemental a sense of pleasure as a baked sweet potato.  It’s like the old man said:  “If that ain’t the best eating you had in a long time, I give you your money back.”  I'm fortunate enough that I’ve been able to do quite a bit of good eating recently, but no dish was as simple, and none better.

aj

* This is not to disparage Montreal's vibrant food market culture.  There's no shortage of variety and no shortage of accompanying aficionados, it's just that sweet potatoes and sweet potato-philia are in short supply.

** For instance, they don’t appear a single time in Jonathan Norton Leonard’s American Cooking:  New England (1970), and they’re only featured in a few recipes in Evan and Judith Jones’s The L.L. Bean Book of New New England Cookery (1988) and are never given the spotlight the way other typical New England ingredients like apple cider (in all its forms), maple syrup, and corn are.  

*** Though sweet potatoes are often referred to as “yams” in North America, this is a case of mistaken identity.  As Alan Davidson explains, the terms are used to distinguish lighter-coloured, “firm” varieties of sweet potatoes from darker, “soft” ones:  “The flesh of the soft ones is apt to be orange, and that of the firm ones white or yellow.  In the USA the soft kind is sometimes called “yam;” a misnomer, as the true YAM is a different plant.”