Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Today's Food Porn Friday is dedicated to my brother, Bob. It's his birthday today and I thought I might share what I remember as his favorite dessert when we were growing up. I love you, Big Brother!

"My earliest memories of the Wet Coconut Cake were from strained eye level to the table top at Sunday dinner at Grandmother Laura's house. Its strange, hairy texture made it all the more intriguing to a preschooler still spellbound by the new and different. As I grew, the perspective of the table changed, while its bounty did not. This coconut cake was my grandfather's favorite and so it had a special spot reserved at the head of the buffet, an unassuming showpiece at every special occasion."

~Laura Wallis

My first memory of the cake was at one of the Tootle family get togethers in Beaufort, SC. My brother's first wife's sister-in-law, Brenda Tootle, had brought it. We were all simply bowled over by the cake, the recipe was shared, and it soon became a family favorite.

This cake is my sister, Simone's, signature dessert. She once made it for James Coburn for his birthday while he sat smoking cigars in his kitchen in L.A.

I confess to being a bit of a cake snob. I feel the true artistry of the cake maker can only be revealed in the sweet alchemy that is the scratch cake. It was a science I learned from infancy sitting in my mother's kitchen. She was just such an alchemist. I can still hear her mumbling incantations over her cookbooks like "beat for six minutes" and "sift dry ingredients twice" in my head. She often whispers to me when I cook, though she's been gone over 20 years. But especially, I hear her when I make cake.

My reward, as a child for absorbing all of this was a mixer paddle or a bowl to lick.

Well...this is the cake that breaks the mold. True, it does use layers of "box" cake mix. But it does so with an intentional effect. That is to allow the filling to saturate into the highly porous layers of box cake. The flavor of chilled cream and cake together combined with the texture and mouth feel of this cake is really something special. It's called a "wet" cake because of how the cake and filling and frosting meld together in an almost trifle-like moistness.

As far as I know, this cake began showing up around the early to mid '70's. I'm not exactly sure where it originated, but it soon became a favorite at Baptist "homecomings". The Tootle family, where my family obtained the recipe, were staunch Southern Baptists. It quickly spread throughout the southeast.

Laura has made it in the traditional way of her family and mine. I did play at one time making it with three split layers like a stack cake with good effect. Because of the softness of the box cake, it will always have a slightly soft appearance. Laura mentions that it does freeze well and can withstand short distances of travel if frozen beforehand.

"The inherent richness of the cake lends itself to feed a crowd and it will travel short distances if it is frozen overnight first, and then allowed to come to temperature on the buffet while the gospel singing and church services commence. "

"Wet" Coconut Cake

1 box cake mix, yellow or white
1 16-oz. sour cream
2 cups sugar
2 6-oz packages of frozen coconut
1 large container Cool Whip
1 package angel flake coconut

Bake two layers. Cool then cut crossways to form 4 layers. (tip: monofilament fishing line makes extremely clean cross cuts in layers!) Set aside. Mix sour cream with sugar and frozen coconut. Chill well. When chilled, mix one cup of coconut mixture and one large cool Whip. Put in freezer until firm. To ice cake, spread sour cream mixture between layers. Ice outside with Cool Whip mixture and sprinkle with Angel Flake Coconut. Refrigerate overnight before cutting. Will keep for several days in the refrigerator.

I wanted to express my thanks to Laura Wallis for helping out on today's FPF. I think it's taken us both down memory lane. This is that sort of cake. It invites memories. Laura's grandmother, for whom she was named, used serve the cake with boiled custard in a gravy boat. She was Laura's favorite Grandmother and Laura was, inarguably, her favorite grandchild. Grandmother Laura taught Laura how to sew and cook and read her Bible. And Laura held her fragile hand as her soul returned Home.

So, please, all of you that still has them...enjoy your mothers on Sunday. And maybe make this cake for her. I promise it will be a huge hit. And you'll build some of those all important memories.

It is probably my favorite of the corn based Southern quickbreads. My mother did not make it often enough when I was a child for my taste, but when she did make it, it was a very special treat.

We all eat cornbread down here. Some like it sweet. Some like it crumbly and dry. But spoonbread is in a class all of its own. Basically, it's like a moist cornmeal souffle. Like a souffle, it needs to be served immediately out of the oven before it looses its loft. It's called "spoonbread" because of its soft texture, so different from cornbread.

I like it best drenched in butter with honey or homemade preserves. But it is an outstanding accompaniment to beef or poultry. It's the cornbread to use for a holiday meal or a meal too proud for plain simple cornbread. But it is also excellent if you just want something very comforting on a cold day.


My other grandmother credits her recipe to The Boone Tavern also connected with Berea College. My grandfather worked on the Southern Railroad, and it is possible that he actually collected the recipe. You see, Grandmother Rose was a dreadful cook. When they first married, the first bag lunch she sent off with him was a black-eyed pea sandwich. She was from a family of seven sisters from Lakeland, Florida. Judging by the archives of the family photos, these were girls who knew how to have a good time (she is shown in the photo on the left holding the dog). Even the photos of them from the teens in their white dresses ala "A Little Night Music", have the sisters lolling around on picnic blankets with wine and beaux. They eagerly welcomed the roaring 20's and each sneaked off to have their hair bobbed.

The reason always given for her kitchen disability was that each of the sisters was given a particular part of the household to oversee. Rose's was the housekeeping. And she certainly excelled at keeping house. But the kitchen duties were shared by Emmy Jo and , I believe, Pearl(the other two flappers in the photo). So my poor grandfather learned to fend for himself and the best family recipes from those two are actually his.

Berea College or Boone Tavern Spoonbread

1 1/4 cup corn meal (water ground)
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 and 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 well beaten eggs
1 and 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

Stir cornmeal slowly into cold milk in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir constantly. Remove from heat the moment it begins to boil and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well and pour into a buttered casserole dish. Bake for 50 minutes at 400 degrees.* Serve immediately in the same dish.

*note: this does better in a modern oven at 350 for 30 minutes. The later version of this recipe makes this adjustment. Watch carefully and do not overcook.

If this looks like a page from my all-time favorite cookbook, White Trash Cooking, or its companion book, White Trash Cooking II (Sinkin Spells, Hot Flashes, Fits and Cravins), then I have achieved my goal.

We lost one of this country's greatest unintentional sociologists when Ernest Matthew Mickler succumbed to AIDS in 1988. Yet another sad tragic loss we have sustained to this scourge.

If you are able to say the words, "white trash", in public with a sense of pride, then you have Mickler to thank for that. During the 1980's, Mickler traveled around the southeast taking photographs and collecting recipes from the South's working class. His work is both hilariously funny and deeply respectful at the same time.

The first time I saw the book, I was staying at the Hyatt in Savannah, GA while working on TNT's The Rose and the Jackal. We had a tight-knit crew and each night we'd stay up too late drinking in the piano bar and carrying on. I remember sitting in my hotel room sipping Wild Turkey with some actor friends and leafing through the pages of White Trash Cooking. We'd read aloud the recipes and hoot with laughter.

But the truth was, we were all Southerners. We were laughing at ourselves. We all had a recipe stuck in our brains somewhere that had Miracle Whip or katsup as its "secret" ingredient. And I had more than a few recipes like "Squirrels in Gravy over Biscuits" or "Scrambled Squirrel Brains and Eggs" tucked away in the recesses of my childhood. While I was not of the upper crust of the White Trash caste, we all recognized that they were the true masters of Southern comfort food cuisine.

And that's not all that unusual, since many of the world's great cuisines have their roots in poverty and "making do".

Mickler compiled his record just in the nick of time. The people he recorded and spoke to are quickly disappearing from our landscape. Mickler died the day after the second book was published. I can only imagine what wonders he would have recorded had he lived. I would have loved to have seen him do a book on cake.

The Politics of Cornbread

Certain food items seem to require a great deal of debate over how to prepare them "properly". It is completely impossible to change a person's mind about this. We are all ideologues when it comes to the question of barbecue sauce or cornbread.

Here in Tennessee, the only proper way to make cornbread is to use a "pone" recipe. This is an eggless batter made with cornmeal, salt, and water. It isn't sweet at all and is very crumbly.

But I'm not from around here. Lowcountry cuisine is like New Orleans cuisine without the heat. We love sweet things. So my cornbread recipe has stone ground sifted cornmeal, eggs, goat milk, a handful of flour, baking powder and sugar. The pan I made for New Years had jalapeno peppers and corn in it as well. This makes a very satisfying "cracklin" cornbread. Don't ask me for measurements because I just do this by feel. It's sort of hard to mess up...you'll just have to try it. Just make sure you sift out the husks from your cornmeal.

This makes a slightly sweet, slightly chewy and cakey cornbread.

And, of course, all cornbread needs to be made in a cast iron skillet with the batter floating in oil.

Friend Scott is in love with my cornbread. He just won't shut up about it. He has bragged on it to most of the ladies of the mountain and now I am an object of envy.

Or at least I will be until they find out how I make it.

Then it will just be yet another weird, somewhat bent nail in my coffin.