Monday, November 24, 2014

Thanksgiving Week Focus on Food: Hushpuppies!

Speaking of food, you just have to sneak over to my online journal Redux and read R.T.Smith's amazing ode to the hushpuppy.  (Warning:  you will end up starving and longing to drop everything so you can start building a catfish pond.)

Here's an excerpt:

...Now I’m not about to define “hushpuppy” in some partisan and proprietary way, though it is kissing cousin to a fritter, neighbor to cornbread and a far cry from a crepe.  I’m not even going to dictate how to concoct the ideal knee-knocking, unforgettable, whiplashing-scrumptious hushpuppy, other than to recommend some basic components and say that you’ve got to tickle the oil right up to about 400 degrees, which is also the temperature the mercury will register if you stick a thermometer under the tongue of most anyone in my family when their ire is aroused.  Our tribe’s tendency to run hot and express our displeasure in unruly and emphatic fashion should right away clarify a couple of things: the oral method is the only fever measurement method worth trying on us, and don’t stand between us and anything we prize or favor, especially our preferred provender.  But don’t get me wrong here; we are neither rabid nor deranged, only enthusiastic.
     My family at one time, individually and collectively, knew how to make a hushpuppy so delicious it would make you cut a buck and wing and forswear indoor sports and week-night church....  


Read on:  http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2014/11/149-where-i-come-from-hushpuppy-is-not.html