Road Trip with SFA: Lebanese food in the Mississippi Delta

Right in the middle (or last third rather) of Pie-a-Day month, here I am on a work trip to the Mississippi Delta. That means no pie baking for me, until next Monday. My plan was to “bank” some pies, baking enough before I left so that I would have photos with me and could do the posts from my hotel room. But that was just a teensy bit optimistic, and in fact it was all I could do to pack and head for the airport in time to catch an early morning plane from NC to Memphis. There I picked up a rental car and zoomed down to Greenwood, Mississippi, for the first portion of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s annual symposium. It’s a one-day field trip focusing attendees on a particular aspect of Southern food and culture, including lots of feasting, conversations, information, education, and fun. This year’s subject is Lebanese food and culture in the Mississippi Delta, where immigrants from Syria and Lebanon have been lived and worked since the late 1800′s. Fascinating, moving presentations all day long, and spectacular tastes of the subject matter made for a memorable day.  Technical difficulties keep me from showing you photographs from today, but here are next best things: Links to the people and places that made it such a fine day.

At Viking Culinary Center in Greenwood:Culinary demonstration and Q&A with author and chef Anissa Helou

http://www.anissas.com/

Talk by Mary Louise Nosser of Vicksburg, MS

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Southern-Foodways-Alliance/434342385540

At fantastic bookstore, Turnrow Books, presentation by Jimmy Thomas, Editor of New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, entitled : “Mississippi Mahjar”. Turnrow’s kitchen’s Richard Byrd prepared tabbouleh, hummus, and warm pita bread (bread from Chef Donald Bender); and Richard also shared his delicious little pecan tassies. mmmmm

http://www.turnrowbooks.com/index.php

Blogpost by artist and historian Amy Evans Streeter, on the people and places that made today so delicious for me and my fellow attendees of the SFA Delta Divertissment

http://madeinmississippi.blogspot.com/2008/01/lebanese-food-in-mississippi-delta.html

Hot tamales, warm hospitality and delightful tales and stories from Pat Davis, Sr., son of Abe Davis and owner of Abe’s Bar-B-Q in Clarksdale, MS

http://www.abesbbq.com/

Spectacular feast of traditional Lebanese dishes (hummus, stuffed grape leaves, kibbe) and magnificent PIE!!!, at Chamoun’s Rest Haven in Clarksdale, MS, hosted by owners Chafik and Louise Chamoun, and attended by members of the Clarksdale Cedars Club

http://www.clarksdale.com/resthaven/Chafik.htm

NPR’s Kitchen Sisters get the story on Lebanese food in the Delta

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18547399

And here is a blog post featuring today’s pie, from Chamoun’s Rest Haven in Clarksdale: we had chocolate and coconut cream—fantastic!

http://www.folo.us/2009/03/08/delta-lebanese-cream-pie/

Okay, that’s today, and this is just the pre-show!  Am I lucky or what? Yes, I am. See you tomorrow, with more notes.

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Pie

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie

My friend Martha Hall Foose is a chef, author, teacher and storyteller. She combines homegrown Mississippi Delta smarts with professional culinary education, work in France, and world travels, and her writing and teaching open windows into the kitchen for her readers and students. Her book, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook won the prestigious James Beard Award for 2009, and it belongs on your bookshelf and kitchen counter if you love Southern cooking or just want to know more about it from a brilliant writer-cook. Martha’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie is luxuriously rich, perfectly paired with her cream cheese pastry, which is simply patted into the pie pan with no need to roll it out. You’ll find it in my pie book, and also in the just published treasury, The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, because she is so generous and her pie is so good.

Even those who haven’t taken a liking to sweet iced tea can usually get behind a generous slice of Ms. Foose’s famous Sweet Tea Pie.

Martha Hall Foose’s Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Pie

Adapted from The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Cream Cheese Piecrust

3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup (1/4 pound, 1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

For the piecrust, combine cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer until they are evenly combined. Add the flour and continue beating a low speed just until the dough comes together into a ball. Press and pat the dough into a pie pan, building up a thicker top edge of the crust. Set the piecrust in the freezer while you prepare the filling.

 

Sweet Tea Lemon Chess Filling

3/4 cup warm, freshly brewed strong orange pekoe tea

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cornmeal

Zest of one lemon

1 cup (1/2 pound, 2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 large egg yolks

 

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl or pitcher, combine the tea, vanilla, lemon juice and vinegar and stir well. In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cornmeal, and lemon zest, and stir with a fork to mix them together well.

In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until it is fluffy. Add the sugar-flour mixture gradually, and continue beating to combine well. Add the egg yolks a few at a time, mixing well each time. Add the tea mixture and beat to combine everything evenly and well. The filling will be soft and liquid, not thick, and may seem curdled, but don’t worry about that.

Pour the filling into the piecrust. Bake until the top and crust are handsomely browned, and the pie is fairly firm throughout, with just a little jiggling in the center, about 50 minutes. Place on a cooling rack or a folded kitchen towel and cool to room temperature. Chill two hours or more before serving.

From  The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook, Edited by Sara Roahen and John T. Edge; University of Georgia Press, 2010. All rights reserved.