I have it on good authority that there’s a moment in some of the government’s surveillance tapes where a voice (I gather it’s Tim Balducci) says: “He needs another basket of sweet potatoes.”
I gather this is a reference to that last $10,000 Balducci got on November 1st to pay Judge Lackey.
For those not in the area, Judge Lackey’s office is about 8 miles from Vardaman, Mississippi, which proudly declares itself the Sweet Potato Capital Of the World.
I have known Judge Lackey since he was an attorney practicing in Calhoun City. He is as honest as the day is long and was deeply troubled that someone would think that he could be bribed.
Well, Balducci yam what he yam.
(and I’m runnin’ an’ hidin’)
(Oh, and) Cool Post, NMC!
Dang, NMC, when you once described Calhoun City as “particularly out-of-the-way for Balducci,” you weren’t just kidding, were ya?
Ooohoohoo, I see Sweet Potato Sweets offers that most Mississippi of all possible dishes, Congealed Salad.
Which makes me remember a guy I hadn’t thought of in years — an old high school boyfriend who utterly cracked up every time my mom offered him some or even mentioned it. (He being a heathen from Illinois, as I recall.)
I am going to dissent in a very, very serious way from the notion that congealed salad is “the most Mississippi of all possible dishes…”
If that’s the best we have to offer, it’s pathetic. Instead, I’d rather argue for comeback sauce and its variation (with a bit of curry powder in it), the salad dressing at the Mayflower Cafe.
Or there’s fried catfish. Or tamales, as found in Natchez, Vicksburg, and the entire Mississippi Delta and immortalized in song.
And there are even regional specialities like slug burgers or novelties like kool aid dill pickles that I’d prefer.
But congealed salad? Yuck.
Hey man, did you once hear me say I approve of that horror? Or ever took my own dear mammy up on the offer of it?
I haven’t suffered the stuff since I was old enough to feed myself!
(But thanks for the other goodies — hey, it wuz worth mentioning to get these outta you.)
So, you gonna send me some cottonseed oil, NMC? Or just tease me with this comeback sauce recipe, like you do with the City Grocery bar?
They make a good version in Yazoo City too. But NMC you ought to do a side dish on Hoover sauce a duck breast. Damn………
use canola oil, and reduce the catsup called for in that recipe. it looks like too much.
Hey, NMC, that comeback dressing at the Mayflower good enough to get you down from Oxpatch, huh? We waited an hour for a table Friday night before last. That’s okay, though, since the whole scene is like an Ole Miss reunion, and they put tables out on the sidewalk so folks can drink they wine while they wait. Can’t beat it.
I have the original recipe for comeback sauce from The Rotisserie, which used to be located at Five Points in Jackson. I’m happy to share if anyone wants it.
Whaddya MEAN “if,” MSlawyer?!
We’ll enshrine it on Flowahy Cookin’ with your handle on it!
My daddy got this recipe from them right before they shut down the place. It is in his cookbook that he printed before he died in 1987. Here goes.
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Heinz chili sauce
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
dash of Tabasco sauce (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup salad oil (I use canola)
Put all ingredients except salad oil into blender-container. Blend. With blender running, add oil in a steady stream. Keep leftovers refrigerated.
Um . . . uh . . . I’m not just rill sure about the slug burgers. As for the Kool-Aid dill pickles . . . "I like it the same as dipping hot Cheetos in ice cream " suggests to me that prolly I’d like it just about that much too (which is to say: I speck one requires a 10-year-old’s palate to really get into the spirit).
NMC 6:29 swap canola for cottonseed oil, blasphemy!
On the best authority I have been able to find, The Rotisserie was the originator of comeback dressing as we know it. I believe it is unique to Mississippi. Could be wrong. I’d also put in a vote for tamales. I’m having some made with deer meat.
(That’s what I think too, Delta Boy — I know what cottonseed oil is, and I just don’t think canola’s all that.)
Awrighty, MSlawyer, run along over to Flowahy Cookin’ and admire your foloesque immortality, along with the perpetual gratitude of alla us.
the Rotisserie!! There’s a truly great blast from the past. Thanks.
Delta, I can second that kudo for the Hoover Sauce –the best cooking sauce out there, bar none, for cooking pork and duck and deer tenderloins and backstraps. Very, very good.
And the little place in Vardaman mentioned —Sweet Potato Sweets — puts out some really ass kicking sweet potato dishes that will knock your socks off. Its on my way to my Delta hunting camp, and we eat sweets from there often.
Now, I’m hungry after reading this thread.
So okay, chappies, who’s gonna step forward with the Hoover Sauce, hey?
I can send you the telephone number to order it by mail. Its about $20 per gallon, plus shipping. And before anyone asks, I am in no way connected to the makers of this sauce. Just a former Deltan and MS Hill Country lawyer who loves fine food and drink.
Does it keep good in the fridge, afotl? Is a gallon their smallest size?
It’s made in Louise, I ain’t good enough with Google to post a map. The guy that makes it mails it all over. I think the Clarion Ledger had a article about it not to long ago, and it was fairly accurate for a change.
thanks for the comeback dressing recipe! what is hoover sauce?
Here’s the scoop on Hoover sauce
IT keeps very good in the fridge. And I think you can order less than one gallon. But, I don’t think its as economical as ordering the gallon. Trust me, if you like ribs, pork loin, deer tenderloin, grilled duck, etc, you will want more than a gallon of this stuff. I will be stocking up on it soon for this spring and a lot of outdoor cooking.
Homer Lee sells the Hoover sauce by the quart or the gallon. I pretty near always have a gallon in the fridge. It keeps very well.
Dang NMC your good, although this article is not very positive toward MS. But I think the article I saw was in the Delta magazine now that I think about it.
Nope, I don’t think a gallon sounds like too much anymore.
That’s a great story on the “Hoover Sauce” and the man that created it. Now I have to find out how to get down to Louise for a visit and a purchase. See ya there.
BTW, NMC, your characterization of these folks as the “Redneck Sopranos” is hysterical.
Long before any of this criminal mess came to light, I used to refer to this same bunch of folks –the ones connected to my alma mater Ole Miss at least — as the “Redneck Mafia”. Seems I was right on target, and so are you. Great minds think alike, I suppose. LOL.
A gallon of Hoover sauce lasts me about 3 months. I cook with it—great marinade for steaks! Check this out: a Supreme Court Justice is speaking about the Scruggs case. Very unusual, as judges aren’t supposed to comment on cases that might come before them. And the Attorney General and/or District Attorney could still bring charges in state court.
http://www.wapt.com/news/15146248/detail.html?rss=jac&psp=news
lotus, your comment at 4:56 was all I needed – and I just sat my plate of sweet potato casserole aside long enough to type this greeting.
sorry all I can send is a cyber serving.
i’m going to order some hoover sauce. i just started cooking duck recently – LOVE it – and am going to try this with it. if you got any good duck recipes please share.
Hey, Janey-gal, your epizoodic better, I hope?
All the best parties end up in the kitchen, don’t they? Okay, hostess is pooped and fixin’ to crash, but y’all carry on . . .
ducky, I’ll share mine – just let me know if you want me to find it after you read this.
A friend and I decided we’d make Peking Duck. It’s a two-day deal. The trick to the crispy skin is drying the ducks overnight after – and only after – you slit the skin under the wings and separate the skin from the meat. According to the recipe, this is accomplished by inserting a straw in the slit and blowing in air until the deed is done.
It took a couple of glasses of wine to get comfortable being that intimate with the ducks- and several bottles before 2 cooks were done with 6 ducks. What the recipe neglected to mention is that every time you blow, the duck flaps it’s wing like it’s about to fly away – first time scares the living hell out of you (or did the two of us). Thereafter, it’s a sip-blow-sip-blow process.
When you’re done, you hang them to dry overnight before cooking the next day. That’s where the second problem comes in – although I suppose the extent of the problem is related to the amount of wine consumed the night before which in this case was a lot. Therefore, two slow moving cooks had a pretty big problem – but we were able to put out the fire in the oven without calling the fire department.
You just can’t imagine how fast fat can pour out a little bitty slit under a duck’s wing.
Think you’d like to try my recipe?
let duck breast soak in hoover sauce awhile put on hot grill for a lot less time and serve blood red rare. you’ll slap yo momma
we got a duck press right here for ya.
The Cherokee has a great comeback too.
WHAT WE’RE READING
http://www.sunherald.com/160/story/326959.html
Here’s a look at what folks in the Sun Herald newsroom are reading:
Anita Lee, staff writer
Michael Orey’s “Assuming The Risk: The Mavericks, the Lawyers, and the Whistle-Blowers Who Beat Big Tobacco”
CHEROKEE GOOD!
Nowdoucit, I think I’ll pass on the re-animation recipe. I cook with my kids and don’ think getting them drunk would do anything for the trauma of watching them duck wings flap. Thanks for the fun story though
I actually studied on a recipe for Peking Duck that called for a Black & Decker “air station” for creating the air pocket under the skin. Where and How did y’all hang the ducks out to dry?
My favorite foodnetwork guy, Alton Brown, demonstrated a recipe some time back where he first steamed the fat out then put the duck pieces in a red hot cast iron skillet, placing the pan in the oven for a while. I think the Hoover sauce might find its way into that recipe.
Actually, ducky, your kids would probably think it was the coolest thing going – and you could drink all the wine and watch the fun.
Where we hung them never struck me as funny until now – it was cool enough to hang them from the ceiling on the screened porch (best I recall, coat hanger impaled ducks replaced ferns).
FNW method + Hoover sauce sounds promising but needless to say I hung up my “duck” apron and order duck from a menu now.
*smiles* Thanks for the 2 am chuckle. Can’t contribute much being a Yankee and all. But I am rather fond of chicken on a stick. But I’m still getting used to eating chicken on a biscuit for breakfast.