Seasonal Florida, A Taste of Life in North Florida, is a
real delight, not only to read, but for the recipes. Having been born and raised in Pensacola,
Florida, it brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. History buffs will enjoy the pages of “back
in the old days!”
The story of how the book came into existence is
remarkable. The author, Jo Manning, a
fifth generation Floridian, and her five sisters bought the S. Knox Gillis
House in DeFuniak Springs. It had been
vacant and in decaying condition for years when they bought it in 1989. Like any other major renovation project,
restoring the house took longer and much more money than originally expected. They wanted to use it for a holiday gathering
place for their large family and possibly later on turn it into a bed and
breakfast.
After they exhausted all their resources, it was suggested
that they publish a cookbook. The rest
is history. The recipes were gathered
from family, going back generations.
The one line in her Forward that I found amusing, “In less
than two years, we had spent almost as much on the outside of the house as we
had initially paid for the house and lots.
Estimates keep coming in. And the
inside – have you ever tried to get six sisters to agree on anything?”
I grew up eating seafood that was so fresh it slept in the
Gulf last night! Some of my fondest
childhood memories are of crabbing along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico or
the inland waters, or gigging flounder at night in shallow water. And there is nothing to compare to Gulf
shrimp. I rarely eat seafood up here in
the North because I was so accustomed to “real” fresh fish, that nothing here,
that has been shipped in and sitting in a store display case can even come close
to the flavor of fish from Florida. When I hear people here say, "I don't like seafood," I tell them to go to Florida and eat the "real thing."
The Shrimp Creole recipe on page 181 of the book is much
like I remember eating decades ago.
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 medium onions, chopped
2 medium bell peppers, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 16 oz cans diced
tomatoes
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 to 3 teaspoons Creole seasoning (recipe to follow)
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons Worcestershire
2 pounds medium shrimp, cleaned and deveined
2 teaspoons parsley, chopped
4 green onions, chopped
Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium
heat. Whisk in the flour, stirring
constantly until mixture is a peanut butter color roux. Stir in the onions, bell pepper and
garlic. Cook, stirring until onions are
transparent, about 8 minutes. Add
tomatoes and their liquid, lemon juice, Creole seasoning and bay leaves. Stir and bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat
to low and cook for 45 minutes. Remove
cover if sauce needs thickening. Stir in
the Worcestershire and shrimp and cook 5 minutes more or until shrimp just
turns pink. Remove bay leaves and stire
in the parsley and green onion. Serve
over rice.
Creole seasoning:
4 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 teaspoons dried basil, crumbled
3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons paprika
3 teaspoons cumin
3 teaspoons onion powder
Place all ingredients in a pint jar with a tight fitting lid
and shake vigorously until evenly distributed.
Note the recipe calls for using a cast iron skillet. Cast iron cookware is found in the kitchen of
every good Southern cook. My own kitchen
is filled with several sizes of cast iron skillets and I use them daily.
I hope you are enjoying touring my cookbook collection as much as I enjoy them myself. A neighbor who reads my posts said once, "I'd love to come go through your collection sometime." Cooking and serving an inviting, healthy meal is one of life's simple pleasures.
