Holidays & Events | Gourmandistan

Hoppin’ new year (black-eyed pea soup)

December 31, 2010 by Michelle

In Gourmandistan, we recognize there is a tradition saying eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day will bring good luck in he coming year. We also agree with Edna Lewis that black-eyed peas “are a little dull.” So, in an effort to bring our readers both good luck and good taste in 2011, we present an alternative to the traditional peas and rice. Happy New Year, everybody! BLACK-EYED PEA SOUP (adapted from Elizabeth and Alexis Terry’s Savannah Seasons: Food and […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, Food, New Year, Recipes, Soups & Stews

Struffoli, Steve’s sole holiday food tradition

December 21, 2010 by Michelle

It’s a sign of how denatured Steve’s Neapolitan heritage is that he believed a traditional family holiday dish was spelled “struvela.” It’s actually struffoli—something Steve didn’t figure out until recently. Steve has memories of picking at the honey-covered dough bits as they sat on an increasingly sugar-sticky paper doily for days, a concept Michelle finds bewildering as well as slightly disgusting. Nevertheless, acceding to Steve’s whim, she decided to help bring struffoli to Gourmandistan. Steve’s mother was happy to give […]

Categories: Christmas, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Family, Food, Italy, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Snappier Ginger Snaps

December 12, 2010 by Michelle

Nashville Seasons was one of Michelle’s earliest cookbooks (the very first was Betty Crocker’s New Boys and Girls Cook Book, and the second was the 1979 Marion Cunningham version of Fannie Farmer). Her mother gave Michelle a copy of the classic southern Junior League cookbook for Christmas in 1980, during Michelle’s senior year of college—Jean’s own edition having become worn from much use. The 1964 cookbook was published at the crossroads of culinary skill and convenience. While the authors still […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Family, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Not-so-scary Halloween Winter Squash Panade

October 31, 2010 by Steve

Gourmandistan gets no trick-or-treaters on Halloween, since our land is remote, inaccessible and surrounded by old people. So we have no bowls of candy, and no pumpkin carved into a frightening jack-o’-lantern. What we did have this evening were a number of winter squashes, a good amount of chicken stock, and half a loaf of day-old no-knead bread. And that, plus onions, is pretty much all you need for a squash panade. Panades have an established place in Gourmandistan, usually […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Halloween, Recipes, Winter squash

Eating, eccentricity and ethnocentrism at the “International” Bar-B-Q Fest

May 26, 2010 by Michelle

Earlier this month Steve’s friend and honorary Gourmandistani, Bill, invited him to Owensboro for the International Bar-B-Q Festival, held on the second Saturday in May since 1978 on the (at least for this year, somewhat rain-swollen) banks of the Ohio River. The Festival’s website advises one to “come for the food, stay for the fun,” but Bill insisted the right way to attend the “Fest” was to go early, beg for scraps of cooking ‘Q from the cooking teams and […]

Categories: Bar-B-Q, Festivals, Food, Holidays & Events