When I picked up the latest copy of Gourmet Magazine and saw that the theme of the month was Southern cooking, I just knew – before I even pulled back the cover – that bacon would be bursting out the seams of this issue. And boy was I right.
- I actually didn’t even have to open the magazine before encountering the first bacon reference. On the cover is a list of a few recipes that are featured inside, and the first item on the list is Fried Chicken with Bacon (aka “fried grease with more fried grease”). It’s not often I say this but God bless the South.
- An article by recently deceased chef and author Edna Lewis attempts to define ‘Southern.’ Of the many things listed, Miss Lewis declares that “Southern is Bourbon Street and Louis Armstrong. Southern is a seafood gumbo of crab, okra, tomatoes, scallions, onions, green pepper, bacon, garlic, and herbs.”
- A recipe for the previously mentioned seafood gumbo then appears a few pages later. And although it is clearly not seafood, a half pound of chopped bacon is the first ingredient on the list.
- I only had to turn a couple more pages to find the next recipe involving bacon – Simmered Greens with Cornmeal Dumplings.
- And with just one more page turn you are greeted by a recipe for Smothered Steak that is cooked in bacon fat and then sprinkled with bacon. Those Southerners really do ‘get it’…
- In an article about the Atlanta restaurant scene, the author veers off track for a moment when he quotes the sous-chef at Watershed who, in defending Atlanta, says “there is a long history of trying to rub the southern off…it’s as if Atlanta has always been trying to wipe its fingers clean of bacon grease.” Um, perhaps that is the PROBLEM?
- But the author quickly recovers by mentioning the “braised greens with house-cured bacon” at Bacchanalia which has “emerged as a showcase for local ingredients and regional riffs.”
- Following the article about dining in Atlanta is a recipe for Brown-Butter Creamed Winter Greens that also contains bacon. So I guess Atlanta is still embracing bacon afterall.
- By the way, while not specifically bacon related, the following description from an article about whole-hog barbecue had me dreaming about moving to North Carolina for a brief moment: “The air surrounding each of the region’s top pits is so heavily perfumed with the scent of halved hogs sizzling on a grate, their fat dripping onto white-hot hardwood coals, that your hair, your clothes, and your car will glow with the sweet aroma for hours after you leave.”
- OK, now that I’ve collected myself again…back to the bacon. Scott Peacock, Edna Lewis’ final caretaker and chef at the previously mentioned Watershed, prepares a brunch for friends. “Bacon brings soul-soothing richness to winter salad.”
- Later in the same article about Peacock, the author writes: “We ended the day at Watershed, a sleek, airy restaurant in a former auto-repair shop, and he (Peacock) beams when the kitchen sends out the BLT salad – cool, immaculate iceberg lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, hefty slivers of flavorful bacon, and square, toasty croutons, all tossed gently in a homemade mayonnaise. Peacock is right: This could be the best salad in the world. His mother used to make it in a big Tupperware bowl, and he remembers eating the soggy, delicious leftovers from the refrigerator.”
- The recipe for Fried Chicken with Bacon and Pepper Cream Gravy that was mentioned on the front cover appears towards the end of the magazine in an article suggesting ways to “Get Your Dixie Kicks.”
- In an article about Nashville, a city known well for music and food, the author reminisces about her early childhood in Tennessee when “nothing in the world was dearer to me than a bacon and apple-butter sandwich.”
Gourmet definitely made up for Bon Appetit’s slacking this month…