Charleston Recipes from Rhett Butler's Real People

I will be completely honest with you: despite my best efforts to the contrary, cooking makes me about as agitated as Aunt Pittypat mid-swoon--easily excitable, hopelessly flustered, prone to fainting at the slightest provocation, and liable to be revived only by a handy swoon bottle (okay, maybe the last two are teeny tiny exaggerations).  

But although cooking isn't a natural talent of mine, I must say I'm very excited to introduce yet another feature here, something that we fondly call Southern Cookin'. From time to time, we'll be posting authentic Southern recipes (or "receipts" as they said in yesteryear) from the era of Gone with the Wind.

Today we're getting things started with a five-course dinner from Charleston, that genteel city and birthplace of Rhett Butler. 

Some quick background info: the recipes, which you'll find after the jump, are excerpted from Charleston Recollections and Receipts: Rose P. Ravenel's Cookbook. Rose P. Ravenel (1850-1943) was the daughter of a Charleston planter, merchant and shipowner, who kept lifelong journals and sketches describing Carolina coastal life, her family's lineage, and her memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

She also collected more than 200 recipes from her Charlestonian friends--and here's my very favorite part--this collection was based on an earlier cookbook developed by her mother, Eliza Butler Ravenel (emphasis mine, of course!). Meaning that these recipes were not only circulating during antebellum Charleston, but were actually known and used by Rhett's own Butler kin (yes, yes, that is only *if* he was a real person, I know).

The author of the cookbook (wisely) updated the instructions for modern times--so you won't see any steps like "boil water in a pan over a wood burning fire" or "cure the meat for five days in the smokehouse on your plantation."  But beyond that, they appear as they did 150 years or so ago.

If you're more clever than me when it comes to culinary matters and try out these recipes (or any others we post in the future), let us know. We'd be curious to find out if they were, in fact, tasty or if they should best be left to the historical dustbin.  Either way, I hope they provide an interesting glimpse into the life of antebellum era.
 
Dinner Menu:

• Deviled Crab
• Grist Cake
• Green Salad with Mayonnaise Sauce
• Pickled Shrimp
• Charlotte Russe

Prepare the Charlotte Russe and green salad the night before. If the grist cake is prepared early, be sure to stir it thoroughly before starting to bake it in a pan of water one and a half hours before dinner.

Deviled crabs are best prepared two hours ahead and popped into a hot oven twenty minutes before serving.

Deviled Crab
1 dozen large crabs-- (1 to 1 and 1/2 pounds meat)
Butter
Salt, pepper, mace
4 boiled eggs chopped fine
Bread crumbs
2 stalks celery chopped fine
2 large tablespoons mayonnaise

Boil the crabs twenty minutes. Remove from heat, cool and pick. Be careful to remove "dead man" meat and fat. Use only the white meat and the claw meat.

Lightly add four boiled chopped eggs, chopped celery, a little salt, pepper and mace (to taste) with mayonnaise. Put mixture lightly in crab shells. Lightly cover with crumbs which have been salted. Put a lump of butter on the top of each shell. Put in a large biscuit pan or shallow baking pan. Bake in 350° oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until hot. Do not burn the tops or let the meat dry out. Put a dab of chutney on top.

Serve immediately. Makes 8 deviled crabs.

Hominy for Grist Cake
1 C. grits
3 C. water
1 tsp. salt

Today Quaker or any good Quick grits should be used. Into 3 cups of boiling salted water, sprinkle 1 cup grits stirring often to avoid lumps. Cook 20-30 minutes until it's done, but not stiff. Add more water if it gets too thick.

Grist Cake (continued)
2 C. cooked grist, hot
2 eggs
2/3 C. milk
Grated sharp cheese
1/3  stick butter
Salt, pepper to taste

Beat butter and hot grist together. Beat eggs and add to milk. Stir mixture into grist. Salt and pepper to taste. Grate sharp cheese into all and bake 1 and 1/2 hours in a baking dish set in a pan of water.

Green Salad
1 envelope gelatin
1 C. cucumbers, diced
1 and 1/2 C. boiling water
1 C. canned pineapple, diced
1 and 1/2 C. pineapple juice
2 Tbs. vinegar
1/2 C. Mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 Tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp. onion juice
juice of 1 lemon

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water, add lemon juice, pineapple juice, vinegar, salt, and onion juice. Chill. When beginning to thicken, fold in cucumbers, pineapple, and mayonnaise.

Put in mold and stand till cold. Serve with mayonnaise sauce on lettuce.

Mayonnaise Sauce
2 egg yolks
1 Tbs. vinegar
1 saltspoon of salt (1/4 tsp.)
1 tsp. mustard
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 pt. olive oil

Beat well together and add, while beating, 1 pt. of olive oil.

Pickled Shrimp
1 qt. peeled small shrimp (3 lb.)
1 dessert spoon salt
1 clove mace
1 Tbs. butter
1 pt. (2 C.) Spice Islands vinegar
1 dessert spoon allspice (1tsp.)
1 pt. (2 C.) water in which shrimp were boiled
1 dessert spoon ground pepper

The shrimp must be washed carefully before boiling. Peel the shrimp and squeeze juice out of the heads over them. Boil vinegar and 2 C. of the water in which the shrimp have been boiled with the allspice and mace added. Pour boiling hot over the shrimp, butter, pepper, and salt.

Drain before using. Place in bowl surrounded by ice and have toothpicks nearby for serving. If to be bottled and kept, put rather more vinegar and less water. Cork or seal tightly.

— receipt from Miss Rebecca Holmes

Charlotte Russe
1 oz. gelatin
8 beaten egg whites
1/2 lb. sugar (1C.)
1 qt. whipping cream
1/2 C. warm milk
1 lb. pound cake

Mix gelatin and sugar together. Dissolve in warm milk (or water). Beat egg whites. Beat cream until quite stiff (Be sure gelatin mixture is completely cool, or cream will curdle.)

Line a dish with thin slices of cake. Add the beaten egg whites gradually to the cream, and the dissolved gelatin and sugar stirring all thoroughly. Pour over the cake. Put in refrigerator until ready for use. (Sherry may be used to flavor the whipped cream.)