Don't Squash the Squash

But you can cook it to death.  That is the Southern way, right?

I felt like blogging today, without great detail, or research, or historical insight, though I may come back later with a more detailed history of squash casserole.  Then again...I may just cook some and eat it.

So, y'all, forgive my funky mood, and put to use perhaps a few tips on this classic summertime dish.

1)  Throw out most every recipe you already have, or at least take a red pen and slash through the primary directions.  Don't you EVER pre-cook and DRAIN.  First off, it's a yankee way, and secondly, it rids the squash of nutrients and flavor.  Why end up adding extra flavors because you parboiled the taste out of the squash?

Here's how to prep for squash casserole.  Chunk it up, or slice it, it matters not, just so long as it's to a size you want.  Put the squash in a pan (that's basic), lightly salt, add sugar (we are talking about Southern food, right?), perhaps a tablespoon, a hunk of butter (salted, so be aware of how much salt you're adding extra).  Now sliver up a big ole Vidalia onion and add it to the pan.  Mmm, I'm hungry already. Add water until covered.  Boil that baby down.  You heard me, boil it near dry so you lose no liquid but to the food Angels.  This way you concentrate all those wonderful flavors, and it's ready for the baking dish. 

Now "near dry" means about a 1/4 inch of squash liquor left in the pan.  Yes, you may literally cook near every drop of water until you sort of caramelize your squash mix.  That can create a more intense flavor (remember, you added sugar), but HEED MY WORD!  Don't leave that pan on the stove, and KEEP STIRRING!  That thang will scorch before you know it.  I know!  Stay with it, keep your heat medium once it starts boiling, and stir, stir, stir.  Scorched, burnt squash does not make a palatable casserole.

2)  Now is a good time to add a few pimento peppers!

3)  My mother liked to add grated carrot (step 1), but I generally don't think of this, and like the pimento peppers better.

4)  Now get out your big measuring cup.  Mix up an egg, about a 1/4 cup of sour cream, and as much milk as you need based upon how much liquor you left in the squash.  Remember, on either step if you think it's too runny, just add additional Ritz cracker crumbs at the end when you top it off.

5)  Pour and swirl in the egg/sour cream/milk mix with the handle end of a wooden spoon.  You don't have to incorporate this fully.  You can, but you don't have to.  It's all gonna cook up together anyway.

6)  Now you're all seasoned up and nearly cooked.  The rest is easy!  Stay lazy.  Cube your Velveeta cheese and bury those little pieces throughout the squash mixture in the baking dish. 

7)  Velveeta really works better than anything else in the way of cheese in squash casserole, I think.

8)  Did you notice I didn't add melted butter?  Think back.  It's already in there!  More just won't add anything much flavor-wise, so don't waste the calories.

9)  Cracker crumbs on top.  Again, I don't butter, but you can.  You're cooking!

I'm so hungry right now!  I just picked some young yellow crook-neck squash from the garden.  I think it's time to cook.  Y'all have questions or suggestions, or if you really need to know the history, well, just let me know.  I'm headin' to the kitchen.

Thanks for reading!

"Doc, that was a damned bad oyster." William Goebel, 34th Governor of Kentucky

I quote in my title the suppressed dying words of our Commonwealth's only assassinated Governor, who was shot the day before he was sworn in, lingering as Governor in name only for but 4 days.  Referencing his last meal, Goebel's final remarks were preserved for posterity by Kentucky humorist and writer Irvin Cobb who questioned the noble & sage words quoted by the general press at the time, discovering the Governor's final thoughts weren't on politics & the people, but upon a last meal that lingered nearly as long as he did!

Governor William Goebel, Assassinated in Front of the Kentucky State Capitol

We don't know much about Goebel's love of oysters, but he wasn't alone in his cravings.  Despite being land-locked, though with a major river highway directly to New Orleans, Kentucky early on adopted this bi-valve into its food heritage.  Yes, just like our coastal Southern sisters, Kentucky has an interesting yet virtually forgotten early culinary relationship with oysters.

I can speak from experience that oysters constitute an important place on at least the holiday table in Bluegrass celebrations.  As long as I can recall, my mother, Margie Anne Skaggs Gardner (Miss Margie to many of her 2nd & 5th grade students for 3 decades) has prepared oyster dressing for Thanksgiving, and often for Christmas, primarily to satisfy my father who, like the good Governor, has always enjoyed a good oyster.  I even today remember my fascination with the creature from a young age, for while the sometimes all too vivid green interior held me back from relishing the treat for some time until my palette matured, I still watched my mother in the making of the dressing, and for years cherished a tiny pinhead-sized blue-black pearl recovered from the flesh of one oyster she was ready to bake with butter, cream and crackers.

I'd really never thought too much about the irony of a love for oysters in a state nowhere near the sea.  Then some years ago I was approached to research an old crate of great antiquity upon which was stenciled, "Wm. Sowders;  Celebrated  Kentucky Sauce... Hodenville, KY."  As I began studying this relic, I uncovered a story of early Kentucky's, and especially Louisville's, love of oysters. My reply to the owner of the crate explained,

"In the decade prior to the Civil War, in that era when Louisville bars & restaurants held striking similarities to those in New Orleans when accounting for the numbers of fresh oysters served, William Sowders, local fish monger, became known by 1860 as the largest oyster dealer in Louisville, supplying the succulent delicacy as far as Nashville through loosely associated trade with his half-brother, Stephen P. Holcombe.

Apparently fresh oysters on ice were brought upriver from New Orleans and canned oysters came in by train from Baltimore at that time to Louisville and were wholesaled by local oyster dealers to restaurants & bars, both in the city and to outlying areas, even on down the Ohio River to far western Kentucky. Some of these oyster sellers even constructed haphazard counters for patrons to grab a quick meal of raw oysters.  As many will recall, the "Louisville Oyster Roll" remained a unique bar food there many generations. It may still be served in some older, out of the way watering holes there.

Oyster Inn, Louisville, KY 1928, with its shell-covered facade, courtesy University of Louisville

Per local food historian and cookbook author Marion Flexner in her classic Out of Kentucky Kitchens, "The rolled oyster is a distinctive Louisville culinary invention.  It is a fist-sized, croquette-like affair composed of three or four juicy oysters encased in a smart jacket of cracker meal or white corn meal.  Rolled oysters can be eaten with the fingers at alfresco backyard picnics, or given the place of honor at a Sunday night supper.  Dip them into your favorite catsup or tartar sauce between each bite. If you have never eaten them before, you have a real taste treat in store for you. 

The two old-time restaurateurs who battled (verbally) about how this particular concoction came into being are Al Kolb and Mr. (Phillip)Mazzoni.  Al insists his mother brought the recipe to Louisville from New Orleans.  Mazzoni's story is that back in the 1870s a Frenchman who ran a tavern on 3rd Street had a batch of oysters left over.  Not knowing what to do with them, he had one of the cooks whip up a flour and water batter and mix the oysters in this.  Then, because they were so small, three or four were rolled together in cracker meal to make one gigantic croquette."

A 1936 Piggly-Wiggly Display of Mazzoni Oysters, courtesy University of Louisville

Which ever version of the story is correct, it's a sure bet that both of these early Louisville restaurants were well acquainted with the Sowders family.  William Sowders' oyster & seafood enterprise was established originally as a mere "fish stall" in Louisville at least by 1851 per newspaper references, and was firmly established as the more lucrative and substantial "Sowders & Halcomb" per The Louisville Directory & Business Advertiser for 1859-60 . At this time, on the eve of the War, the city directory shows him with an "Oyster Depot" on 3rd Street between Market & Jefferson.   Interestingly, Sowders' Depot was on the same street at Phil Mazzoni's saloon!

The culinary terminology here at the middle 19th century is of interest and warrants further mention.  In addition to oyster "depots" such as Sowders operated where customers could buy oysters in bulk, by the bucket for home, or "stand and eat" them freshly shucked, the 1859/60 City Directory also references "Oyster Saloons" where Bourbon & bi-valve met in a most unique culinary fashion.  A more thorough exploration of these specialty restaurants, associated generally with the coastal South, can be read on the "Southern Foodways Alliance" blog, a link to which is attached.  https://www.southernfoodways.org/pirates-prostitutes-and-the-search-for-a-respectable-oyster-saloon-in-the-lone-star-state/

Louisville wasn't the only lover of oysters, as Governor Goebel may have implied.  Kentucky's Capitol City celebrated the delicacy as well.  Gray & Todd, grocers in Frankfort, advertised in The Daily Commonwealth for the 11th January 1858 the availability of pickled oysters on one page, and on another,

FRESH BALTIMORE OYSTERS

We have this day commenced receiving Fresh Baltimore Oysters, and will continue to receive them daily during the oyster season by Express, and sold exclusively for cash by GRAY & TODD.

Louisville, though, seemed destined to link itself with seafood in a grander, more permanent fashion, primarily in regard to oysters.  Despite William's quick rise to fame in the upper South as an oyster man, he hadn't exactly overwhelmed his competitors in the process of cornering the state's oyster market.  With the publication the following year of the Louisville City Directory of 1861, coinciding with the declaration of war between South & north, Sowders found himself contending with 9 other oyster "depots" operating in Louisville, 4 of them on the same block with him!  Perhaps because of this paradox of increased regional demand for oysters along with increased competition in providing them, Sowders not only continued to market fish, but branched out as well to wholesale fruit, poultry, and freshly caught local game, in addition to expanding his sights to a burgeoning market for condiments in the form of his "Celebrated Kentucky Sauce." 

 Later on, in the 2nd half of the 19th century, the business included his children, operating as "William Sowders' Sons." After becoming ill in the early 1880s his widow Hannah became the primary active operator of the business until selling out completely to a firm in Baltimore, MD in 1884. Hannah Jane Ayland Sowders (1850-1918) was well known & respected in a primarily male business climate for her business savvy. She was even a member of the Louisville Board of Trade. In fact, it appears she was the only female member of the late 19th century who actively owned & operated a business. 

Before selling out, the 1883-84 Kentucky State Gazetteer & Business Directory listed Hannah both as a wholesale/retail vendor of "Oyster, Fish and Game, Also Fruit & Celery," as well as "Sauce Manufacturer," confirming for us the sideline culinary venture begun by her husband and very likely made an hour or so south of the city of Louisville back in the more rural central Kentucky community of Hodgenville in LaRue County where William Sowders was born.  It may have even been bottled and warehoused in Athertonville, the county's commercial center where the nation's largest sour mash whiskey was distilled.  From the Athertonville depot along a private spur of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Sowders could easily distribute their product by rail back to Louisville and beyond.  What exactly this sauce was remains a mystery, but most likely it was either a catsup or, more realistically, a pepper sauce to compliment the oysters served at William & Hannah's famed "Oyster Depot." 

The market Hannah maintained on behalf of her husband remained a fixture in the Louisville culinary community well into the 20th century, as attested to by the 1908 Caron's Directory of the City of Louisville, listing the Sowders Fish Company at 151-153 West Jefferson under the management of D. W. Loewenstein.

Hannah's sale to a larger, national oyster distributor documents for us the changing world of late 19th century food movements and sales, not just in the South, but throughout America.  The 1886 publication The Industries of Louisville, Kentucky and of New Albany, Indiana, details the demise of small scale mongers and oyster men of the upper South as coastal, even northern, food packing and shipping companies reached down to grasp a Southern market. 

"A. Booth & Sons, of Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco, are the largest packers
of oysters and fish in the world. Besides the three main supply depots mentioned, they
have various branch houses, at St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Indianapolis and Pitts-
burgh; at Astoria, Oregon, devoted to the canning of salmon ; at Collinsville, Cal., and
Escanaba, fruit; at Bayfield and Washburn, fish.

The house here, employing a force of nearly twenty hands, under the excellent man-
agement of Mr. James K. Davidson, is in a most flourishing condition, and occupies the
large and commodious quarters from 300 to 310 Third street. The concern was originally
established as long ago as I850, by William Sowders, conducted after his death by his
widow, and bought out by Messrs.' Booth & Sons in 1883.

The " Oval " and " Diamond '" brands of oysters packed by them have an excellent
reputation in this vicinity, and the annual sales of all goods handled by the firm here
aggregate about $150,000.

In addition to the great specialty of oysters, the house handles immense quantities of
fish, game, celery and other dainties, always carrying the most complete stock of these
in their season. Their sources of supply being unlimited, and under the supervision
of Mr. Davidson. the capable and energetic manager, who has been engaged in this
same line for fifteen years, the house has received a flattering share of confidence and
patronage."

The sale of the company by Hannah Sowders doesn't mean the family left the business entirely.  On the contrary, for it appears that L(e)onora Sowders, daughter of William & Hannah, carried on management of operations, following in her mother's footsteps as a female business leader in Louisville in the unexpected trade of seafood.  Caron's Directory lists Lenora as President of "Sowders & Co." with her brother James Sowders manager of their 1st street stalls, and her older half-brother Samuel a fisherman for the firm.  Clearly, William Sowders created a legacy that his family actively carried on for many decades after its founding.

William Sowders' personal origins are sketchy at best.  He was born ca. 1821, possibly in that part of Hardin County that later became LaRue County. His mother was a Renfro, likely tied to the family near Upton and with ties to Green & Hart Counties as well. His father, James Sowders, remains a mystery, but we know he died when William was a child.  Margaret Renfro Sowders then remarried Thomas Holcome, who as well died, leaving her a widow two times.  A lad of perhaps 12, William's family removed from the pastoral countryside of LaRue County and south central Kentucky in 1835 for the commercial riverside packet and steamboat landing at Shippingsport, an early settlement ultimately incorporated into the city of Louisville.  Here his half-brother and future partner, Stephen Holcombe, was born.  The boys' mother, Margaret, would eventually marry a 3rd time, the 3rd Dec. 1846, to Thomas Percival Thompson in Jefferson County, providing them both with a father, and perhaps improving their somewhat impoverished childhood circumstances.

 12th Dec. 1843 William married Elizabeth "Betsy" Sweeney, with whom the couple had children Samuel, Margaret, John, & Charles before they divorced.  With his 2nd wife Hannah Ayland he fathered Jennie, William, James, Eva, and Leonora.  William died March 13, 1884 in Oldham County, KY, possibly due to a brain tumor. He was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

William's half-brother, Stephen Holcombe (spellings vary), though formerly a Mississippi River boat gambler plying and playing the river from New Orleans to Memphis, went on to a lifetime of ventures regarding food, ultimately feeding the soul as well as the belly of those who hungered.  Apparently a staunch Confederate, he catered early on in the war to the approaching Southern troops, finally opening a restaurant & grocery in Bowling Green, Kentucky, then selling out for a handful of Confederate war bonds when Federal troops forced the Southern army out of what had temporarily become Kentucky's Confederate State Capital.  Holcombe returned to Nashville, and the Faro table, not the dinner table. Ironically, Stephen's Holcombe answered a greater call, becoming a minister and "preacher of the Gospel."  His full life's story is recounted in Rev. Gross Alexander's biography, Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work."

All that said, my feeble efforts in the scholarship of oysters and their relationship to the 19th century Kentucky table pale in comparison to the detailed work done by the Murray State (Kentucky) Archeology Program back in 1988.  Entitled "CURRENT RESEARCH AT THE GOWER HOUSE (15Lvl 78), LIVINGSTON COUNTY, KENTUCKY," the paper that resulted from this dig at such an early Kentucky inn of far Western Kentucky along the Ohio & Cumberland Rivers is an exceptional investigation into our love affair with oysters so early on in Kentucky, underscoring my own assumptions of the important cultural, culinary & economic ties between New Orleans & the Bluegrass, and even on to little Hodgenville, Kentucky, home to "Soward's Celebrated Kentucky Sauce." It makes me ponder just how far down river folks where splashing a bit of local sauce on those Gulf oysters!

Bell-Gower House, ca. 1800, Livingston County, Kentucky

Scholars, and those with an interest in further reading, please take advantage of this link to the Murray State oyster research. http://infosys.murraystate.edu/KWesler/Symposium%20OHVA%20Volume%2012/V12_p039-057.pdf 

Langston Hughes, you'd a loved my Grandma's raisin pie, in the Sun, or the shade.

I forsake local politics, and local history, for a spell to ponder again on regional foodways.  Now I know y'all don't get real motivated at the thought of a raisin.  Let's just be frank, it looks too much like a mouse dumplin' to place alongside Southern staples like pecans or grits.  It doesn't exactly whistle "Dixie" at all unless perhaps macerated in the best of Kentucky's Bourbons, and even then it fails to connote any real sense of place, unless that place be southern California maybe, and I sure have no understanding or history of that place. 

So just how is the raisin "Southern" in regards to our regional food identity?  Honestly, I've had to dig a bit, and even then was forced to speculate to some degree.  I at first thought the raisin may have become welcomed into the local larder during the Depression as a storable & cheap sweet, but soon found that hypothesis to be pretty much wrinkled as the raisin itself.  My momma, in fact, while a child of the Depression, got me on the road winding a little farther back than her first memories.

Her momma, my grandmother, Miss Annie, was the devotee of the raisin pie in these parts.  Now I'll admit, I was somewhat squeamish about them when I was little.  They are, in nature, a tad gelatinous for the palate of most young children, but fresh from the oven, if afforded a good taste with a blind eye, a raisin pie can win over even the pickiest of toddlers.  That intense grape sweetness carried to the tongue in that creamy silky filling is pretty unforgettable.  I can taste Grandma's raisin pie right now, all these many years later. 

Neysa Jo's (that's my sweet wife) aunt really got me on this food quest.  I don't know what sparked her interest, but not long ago, out of the blue, she asked if my mother had a recipe.  I "assumed" as much, since it was our family version of mincemeat, so I asked.  I should have remembered that I didn't remember my mother ever making them, and my grandmother, known for her collection of clippings and penciled notes, didn't always write down her favorite stand-by desserts.  Such was the case for raisin pie.  No recipe.  Well, nothing I could copy, but....she could, if I wanted, tell me pretty much how to make one.

What followed was a dictated recipe in detail, to the point I though she was reading it.  No. There was no script.  Just a memory of standing beside her mother in the kitchen, as I'd done with both those ladies, seeing the process instead of reading a printed recipe.  Like the memory of a taste or a smell, it lingered.

Now Aunt Carolyn was satisfied, but I was curious about this pie I'd nearly forgotten about, as I sure didn't see it on anybody's table in recent times.  I wondered if it was common in Kentucky, or if it had migrated here when Miss Annie was a young housewife.  The full answer I'm still working on, but Mother's recitation was soon countered in a fashion that left even me speechless (for a little while).  Seeking comparable recipes, it wasn't long before I found not just a similar pie, but rather it was as if my mother HAD been reading off a published recipe, only it was from a 1906 cookbook entitled How We Cook in Tennessee! 

Do understand, Miss Annie had the proud cooking heritage of a maternal line stretching back to Colonial Virginia, but a paternal ancestry right out of Middle Tennessee.  What my mother so clearly remembered was mirrored almost word for word and ingredient for ingredient in this Jackson, TN compilation of Tennessee favorites printed when her mother was but 2 years old.  It made sense, growing up in "Pinch-Um" in Taylor County, Kentucky, that Miss Annie was taught how to make raisin pie by her Grandma Poteet in a tradition brought up from the Volunteer State into south central Kentucky where so many Tennesseans had settled.

The simplicity of this recipe brings one an overwhelming sense of "duh."  My 9 year daughter Augusta could make a raisin pie.  In short, it requires a cup to 2 cups of raisins (based upon individual taste, whether you want a dense pie or a lighter, creamier one), a cup of sugar (many cooks early on recommended brown sugar), two cups of water, a tablespoon of corn starch, and a pinch of salt and zest of lemon (1/2 of a lemon at most) and a tablespoon of vinegar (optional).  Boil for 15 minutes or until adequately thick.  Spoon into your crust and cover with lattice crust, baking until crust is done.  So simple, so delicious.

Afterward, I found yet another, earlier reference to the pastry in the South's food history. New York born but married to a Kentuckian, the former female newspaper editor and recipe collector Frances Emugene Johnston Owens had authored  Mrs. Owens' Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, self-published simultaneously in both Little Rock, Arkansas and Louisville, Kentucky in 1884.  In it were offered two versions of raisin pie.  I especially like the simplicity of the first, by Mrs. E. B. Baldwin, which read, "One cup raisins- seeded.  Stew until soft.  Thicken with flour, like gravy.  Sweeten to taste and bake with two crusts."  The next version, more complex, was provided by Mrs. M. M. Jones of, not too surprisingly, Nashville, Tennessee!

Frances Owens warrants further mention.  A fascinating and vital career was cut short when she and her daughter, Amy, were tragically killed along with over 600 others in the infamous 1903 Chicago Iroquois Theater fire.  Frances Johnston had been born in Sidney, New York in 1843, but married William Lawson Hathaway Owens of Maysville in Mason County, Kentucky, whose parents eventually settled in Louisville.  He being a printer by trade, the couple went on to establish a newspaper in the Dakota Territory before moving to Chicago where she converted her life-long collection of recipes into an important late Victorian cookbook which clearly resonated with Southern readers.  Her relationship with Mrs. Jones in Tennessee is undetermined, but Frances credited this lady with two other recipes in her book. 

OK, so raisin pie is from Tennessee!  Go Rocky Top!  Uh, not so fast.  Raisins are from southern California, remember?  Definitely NOT south of the Mason-Dixon line, though, come to think of it, grapes were grown here long before they were on the west coast, but that's a blog for another day.  Any way, surely Tennessee never claimed the raisin as it's own little dried fruit, did it?  But then again, bananas are associated with far western Kentucky and the town of Fulton, because that was where the bananas that had been unloaded at New Orleans were iced and loaded again for shipment to Chicago, so stranger food geographies are known in the South.  But raisins from California to Tennessee? 

Truth is, raisin pie may have no true Southern origins.  Like many foods, this one seems to have its roots in Pennsylvania but eventually made a Southern migration.  We know it was popular in America by the 1860s with no specific regional association, but by the 1930s, once California growers were making raisins plentiful & accessible to consumers across the country, the pie was a favorite even in the deep South.  For no good, recorded reasons, raisin pie just especially satisfied the sweet tooth of Tennesseans as the 19th century faded into the 20th.  This popularity was certainly aided by the effective marketing of the Sun-Maid company, who included the recipe for raisin pie on the packages of their California-grown raisins per the Sun-Maid Herald Vol. I & No. 1 for 1915.  In this early trade publication, we read that, "10,000 small cards were prepared for exclusive pie bakers, calling attention to the goodness of Sun-Maid raisin pie, and these are being sent out as called for....Small cards in two colors, for restaurant use in popularizing Sun-Maid raisin pie are being distributed by the largest pie bakers of the country, nearly all of whom are now baking raisin pie with steadily increasing demand for this product."  

A Sun-Maid Recipe Advertisement Featuring Raisin Pie, ca. 1920

Thus clever and efficient marketing created an American appetite, not just a Southern one, for raisin pie by the time of the 1st World War.  According to the Southern Foodways Alliance, the Tennessee tradition of professionally baked raisin pies is carried on today by Seaver's Bakery of Johnson City in East TN, very likely as a direct result of Sun-Maid's success in promoting its product.  But surely, as my mother and my grandmother and the good ladies of First Baptist, Jackson, Tennessee back in 1906 verified for us, Tennesseans, and Southerners in general, discovered a love of raisin pie that we continue to this day.