5 Southern Recipes: Dixie Chicken Shortbread, Cornbread Fritters, Baked Bananas, and More!

By Kevin Williams

What is the connection between a southern cookbook filled 322 deep Dixie recipes and the Amish?  Well, turns out that Culinary Arts Press in Reading, PA which published a variety of Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks also published Southern Cook Book - 322 Old Dixie Recipes.

Recipes are super ethnography tools that act as a cultural time capsule.   And, man, as an eater, authentic, original southern cooking...it just doesn't get much better than that.  The book - SIGH -  does contain blatant racist overtones.  It was published in the mid-1930s a full 30 years before Jim Crow would be topped in the American South.  If you can get past that just focus on the recipes, you have quite a treasure.  If you can't get past that, then, you wouldn't want any part of the book.  I've always been able to compartmentalize pretty well (sometimes too well) so I can look at the book and contextual the racist parts as part of a different time and focus just on the recipes.  But that's just me.....Now, as to where I got my copy?  I have no clue.  I found it the other day while cleaning a box in my office.  I can't imagine myself ever buying this.  It's possible a reader sent it to me.  I just have no recollection at all.....

Southern Cook Book....

The Southern Cook Book and this Amish cookbook shared the same publishing house in the 1930s

The book is full of amazing recipes that reflect southern culture and tastes, recipes for homemade hoe cakes,  Tallahassee hush puppies, jambalaya, and rhubarb sauce are among many, many great recipes.  Here are 5 that I thought you'd enjoy!

CORNBREAD FRITTERS

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 /2 teaspoon 1 egg

Milk to make a stiff batter

Mix the meal, flour, egg, salt, and baking powder.  Beat in the egg and add milk to make a stiff batter.  Drop from a spoon into deep boiling fat and fry until golden brown.  Drain on brown paper before serving.

SOUTHERN SPOON BREAD

2 cups cornmeal

1 ½ cups sweet milk

2 cups boiling water

1 teaspoon salt

3 large tablespoons butter (melted)

3 eggs

Sift the meal three times and dissolve in the boiling water, mix until it is smooth and free from any lumps. Add the melted butter and salt. Thin with the milk. Separate the eggs, beat until light, and add yolks and then the whites. Pour into a buttered baking dish and bake in a moderate oven about 30 minutes.  This should be served in the dish in which it is baked.

DIXIE CHICKEN SHORTCAKE

1 large chicken, cooked

2 cups chicken stock

2 tablespoons flour

1 pound mushrooms, cleaned

2 tablespoons butter, melted

salt and pepper

1 pan corn bread

Remove the skin and bones from the cooked chicken. Cut meat into small pieces. Make a sauce using 2 cups of the chicken stock and thickening it with the flour.  Saute the mushrooms in the butter. Add the chicken and mushrooms to the sauce. Cut the cornbread into 4 inch squares and split. Cover the lower halves with some of the chicken mixtures. Lay on these the top crusts and cover with more of the chicken mixture.

BAKED BANANAS

6 bananas

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 /2 cup sugar

Remove skins from bananas. Cut into halves lengthwise and place into shallow pan.  Mix the melted butter, sugar, and lemon jice and pour over the bananas.  Bake at 250 for 30 minutes.

CHICKEN AND FRUIT SALAD

3 cups white meat of chicken

1 orange

1 apple

15  large grapes

15 salt almonds

1 banana

1 cup mayonnaise

Cut cooked chicken into small pieces.  Remove seeds from orange sections and cut in half.  Cut grapes in half.  Split almonds. Slice banana. Add the mayonnaise and mix all the ingredients slowly but thoroughly. Serve chilled on lettuce leaf.