by Rick Bragg
It was not a victory, for either of them, not yet even a peace.
But it was a truce.
For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good….Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
MARK 9:48–50
• • •
Pinto Beans and Ham Bone
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
1 pound dried pinto beans
1 ham bone, with about 1 pound or so of meat still on it
1 pound or so trimmings of fat, skin, and lean, from the outside of the ham
1 small clove garlic, whole
1 small onion, whole
1 tablespoon salt (cut by half, or exclude completely, if the ham is salty)
½ tablespoon sugar
HOW TO COOK IT
First understand that this pot of ham and beans is not intended as a side, but as a rich, decadent main course. If you are preparing pinto beans as a side, you will use a scant fraction of the pork suggested here.
To get started: In a quiet, well-lit place, devoid of children and cell phones and worrisome or trifling spouses, place the beans in a large, glazed ceramic bowl and, with the bowl on your lap, carefully pick through the beans to remove any discolored or shriveled ones, or grit, or trash, just as Jimmy Jim showed my grandmother. Swirl them round and round, with your fingertips on the bottom of the bowl. You will feel the bad ones, and feel the grit and trash, before you see them. “It’s something you can’t do distracted,” my mother says. It may be that it is more tradition now than anything else, more ritual, since the milling process has changed over the years, and the beans seem cleaner now. But is there any true harm in sitting quietly for a minute or two and just thinking about your food, or just thinking?
The truth is, as her vision has declined, this is the only way she can be sure she catches all the impurities in milled beans.
Cover the beans with water by about two inches, and let them soak for at least 2 hours. Some people still insist on letting them soak overnight, but my mother thinks that may break down the beans too much and leave them a little mushy in cooking.
As they soak, prepare the ham. The ham can be fresh or smoked—the smoked ham will add a nice flavor—but never use sugar-cured ham, not only because of the sugary taste but because of the thoroughly unnatural chemicals in the modern-day curing process. The ham should not be presliced; the thin slices will not provide the ragged texture you want for the ham in this dish; it just won’t look right presliced. The ham needs to come apart in cooking, not begin that way. When I asked my mother what difference it makes, she told me, “ ’Cause it just does.”
With a sharp knife, trim away the fat and skin from the outside of the ham, and do not worry if some lean comes off in the process; you are not taking this off to discard, but to eat, to have it slowly, slowly melt into the dish, bolstering the flavors of the ham bone. The trimmings of fat probably will not have to be cut up any more, because they will render a good bit, but the skin may have to be cut into smaller pieces so as not to frighten more delicate people; some good country cooks dice it before adding it to the pot. Even a small ham will render about a pound or so of fat and skin. Set these pieces aside. You should now have a perfectly lean, whole ham, and it is time to trim it down to the ham bone. (If you go to the market searching for a lean ham to start with, you probably need to close this book right now.)
Do not try to be a master butcher as you whittle; just cut frying slices from it, as Jimmy Jim did, to cook for breakfast, for ham and eggs, ham and biscuits, or sandwiches. Bigger pieces can be set aside to bake for another supper, or to be diced for an excellent navy-bean soup. Leave about a pound or so of meat on the bone. It may be a cliché, but the meat closest to the bone, even if a little fatty or held together with chewy gristle, is incredibly flavorful, “the most flavor there is on the whole pig, except maybe in the feet, or in a cracklin’.”
If you truly do have grave concerns about using both the ham bone and the trimmings from the ham to season a single pot of beans, you can use just the ham bone, or just the outer trimmings. Such sensible, reasonable thinking is not recommended here, but reducing the concentration of fat in the beans will make the dish less rich, and of course more healthy; you can adjust the combinations over time, to get just the right concentrations of flavor to suit. Some people like a less savory pot of beans.
“Who?” my mother asked.
“People not like us,” I said.
Once you have prepared the ham, and the beans have soaked, you are ready to cook. In a large pot, combine the beans, the ham bone, and the trimmed fat. Cover with about 2 inches of water, though it is fine if parts of the ham bone are not covered completely. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium, or medium-low. All stoves vary. What you want, at first, is a slow boil.
Peel the small garlic clove and the small onion, but leave them whole; add them to the pot with the salt and sugar. Cover with a lid, but check it every 15 minutes or so, to stir gently and turn the ham bone in the pot. This is not a dish where you want the beans to disintegrate, or cream, like some recipes for white beans or even butter beans.
After about 1 hour, reduce the heat to low, to simmer another hour or so, but stir two or three times, for luck.
“You’ll likely have to add water, just a little at a time, as it cooks out, just to keep the beans from stickin’, but you don’t want to drown it in water to start with and just walk away from it,” my mother said. “You’ll have mush. You want about an inch or two of soup, of that liquid, on top of the beans as it simmers, but not more than that.”
Cook until the beans are tender and the meat begins to fall off the bone, about 2 hours, depending on the stove. Her stove takes about 2½ hours. If you have done it right, a translucent nectar from the beans and fat will have formed on the surface of the beans, not quite murky, not quite clear, but a kind of golden broth.
Taste a little of the liquid as you cook. If the beans need salt, add a little, taste, and keep on till it satisfies. The greatest mistake people make with beans is salt—usually too little, but too much and they are inedible.
To be sure they are done, and to look like a real chef, take a few beans from the pot and press gently with a fork. If the bean is slightly firm but mashes easily, they are good and done. If the bean splits into two pieces, lengthwise, and remains more or less intact, they are not done. This is not a tragedy. Just cook them some more, to be sure. If you are still not sure, eat a few. No one will know.
Before serving, remove the onion and the garlic clove. I like to eat them both; you decide.
You can use tongs or a fork to tear some of the meat from the ham bone if needed, though much of the fat will have melted into the elixir of the beans, and even the lean should be coming apart. The skin is an acquired taste; even some country people do not eat it, but they still believe it adds that little something extra in flavor to the dish. My mother loves to eat it, and I do, too.
Some important things to know, about the nature of beans
1. Do not be surprised if the beans cook differently from pot to pot. Bean producers have a greedy nature, my mother says, and will ship old beans from time to time, especially in summer or early fall. “You’ll get beans shipped not from this season, but held over from the last year’s beans, from the summer before, so they can be more than a year old. And they do get old. They’re harder to cook when they’re old, and don’t make a good soup, and you can taste the difference in it.” Spring is the worst season for old beans, she believes: producers clear out their warehouses to make room for the new crop. I had no idea that beans were such a cutthroat commodity, but if she says there is a difference, there is a difference.
2. Pinto beans are not supposed to be spicy, but savory. Hot sauces, or pepper sauces with a vinegary base, will stand out sharply in the flavor and ruin it. Many outsiders believe the first thing you do with a Southern meal is to douse it with pepper sauce. That said, a
side of hot pepper, or of chowchow, hot raw onion, green onion, and the like, is a fine garnish, but only on the side. Some people, like Texans, like to add about a quart of chili powder to pinto beans. Bad beans and big hats is how you know they are Texans.
3. Some older people, like my big brother, crumble their cornbread and cover it with beans; it is tradition. To me, this ruins the consistency of the dish, and you don’t really get to savor either the taste of the crunchy cornbread or the texture of the beans. It makes the beans taste mealy. Still, a lot of ancients swear by it; it made a pot of beans go further in hard times.
4. Do not cook more than you will need for one meal and perhaps one more serving of leftovers. Unlike gumbo, or some soups, stews, and chili, they are not better the second day, and the soup will grow murkier, thicker, the more they are reheated. They will still be pretty good that next day or next meal, but never so good as that first day, that first supper. Many Southern agrarian families cooked them as a noon meal, left them on the stove, covered, and reheated them for supper. But the mill culture, the industrial South, changed this, and made supper the big meal of the day, often prepared by the older children or grandparents while the mother and father worked.
5. Some people like to mix pinto beans and white beans, or other beans, in all sorts of unnatural alliances. Even my mother does this when she has about ½ pound of each left over. She is trying to be frugal, and I have to remind her that the Great Depression has eased and Herbert Hoover walks the earth no more. And since pinto beans still cost only a dollar a pound or so in 2017, we can afford some new ones. Do not mix your beans. This is not succotash, another conglomerate. It is not that they taste bad; they just don’t taste like anything.
6. You will be tempted to add heavy doses of black pepper to the cooking beans, to enhance the flavor, but don’t. Black pepper can be added on the plate. The beans should have a rich, nutty flavor, and will, of course, absorb the flavor of the pork and salt; black pepper can leave the beans with a slight whang amid the other, more delicate flavors. You can sneer at this. We do not care.
7. It is considered ill-mannered, even after everyone has been served and most of the lean meat has been pulled from the bone, to plunk the whole ham bone down on your plate. So do it only when no one is looking, or if you are among family or good friends. If I tried to do it as a child, I’d have had to fistfight my brothers for it. But a busted lip was a small price to pay for such a delicacy as this. The thing is, my mother believes, someone has to do it, sooner or later. “It’s just too good a thing,” she said, “to throw to the dogs.”
8. Beans and cornbread are almost one word down here, so pair them, unless you are a Philistine. Instead of plain cornbread, for a change serve the beans and ham with cornbread muffins, which have more crunch. Mexican cornbread, augmented with sharp cheddar cheese, white onion, green onion, and sweet corn kernels, is especially good with beans and ham. Sweet cornbread, though my mother rejects it as not being “real” cornbread, is also a good complement to pinto beans. But you will need cornbread of some kind; when I asked my mother if hot rolls or the like would do, she looked at me, again, as if I had been abandoned on her doorstep. Some of my kinfolks, hungover, would sometimes eat their pintos with biscuits, or even sliced bread. She regards this as unholy.
Creamed Onions
There is no actual cream or milk in this dish, as in the creamed Bermuda onions of old. The sugars in the onions will create a lovely creaminess if the onions are cooked right. Young, sweet onions are best, but this does not require Vidalia onions in particular; the dish can be prepared with Texas sweets, and even white and yellow onions. “Just try to get new onions, not ones held over for several months,” she said.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
4 large sweet onions, such as Vidalia
2 green onions, blades and all
1 teaspoon bacon grease
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup water
¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
HOW TO COOK IT
Slice the sweet onions into wheels about ¼ inch thick, then cut across the wheel so you will have not circles but crescents. Cut the green onions into slivers. Any green onions, or even fat leeks, will do fine in this dish. Leeks have a sweet, mild flavor and are a nice substitute for green onions, but the smaller, more pungent green onions add a more distinctive flavor.
In a cast-iron skillet, melt the bacon grease, and add the onions and salt. Cook over medium heat only until the white onions begin to go slightly, slightly clear and the green onion blades begin to wilt “and get to smelling good,” she says. Slowly add about ¼ cup of the water, being careful of the steam, then cover, and cook over low heat, gradually adding water as needed. The idea is to let the onions steam in the fat and water, not fry to crispiness. Add the black pepper as the onions begin to go soft, and continue to cook slowly until they begin to go creamy. If you use coarsely ground black pepper—rich folks cannot resist using this, because they consider boxed pepper to be pedestrian—you may find it a little gritty in such a delicate dish. Plain ol’ boxed black pepper works better with this. No one will know.
Following Jimmy Jim, try not to break them up as you stir, so stir gently once the onions begin to soften. Do not be dismayed if the onions seem to cook down to almost nothing. They are so rich, a spoonful or two is usually enough per serving. If you really like this, “next time use more onions,” my mother said.
The cooking time will vary, too, but the onions should be done in about 20 minutes.
This dish will appear a little oily, but in that oil, as in good garlic oil, is a wonderful flavor. It would probably complement a sheet of drywall. My people will not discard the leftover oil in the skillet. Old women in the family used to save the onion-infused oil to season everything from fresh garden vegetables to beans and greens, or to add its essence to cornmeal porridge.
This dish is harder than it seems; do not be disappointed if it takes a time or two to get right. Even if it is wrong, it will still be very good. I have been trying it for only forty-seven years, but with clean living I may have time to get it just right before my people sing me into the sky.
Buttered Boiled Potatoes
Even I can boil potatoes, but there is a trick or two. For this, red potatoes are best. They are the only kind of potatoes my mother will even consider leaving the peel on. Do what makes you happy.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
6 to 8 red potatoes, depending on size
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon garlic powder or dried garlic
1 stick butter
HOW TO COOK IT
If you are using large potatoes, quarter them, but smaller ones can just be halved. If you have small new potatoes, cut them in half anyway, so they can better absorb the seasonings.
Cover the potatoes in cold water and bring to a boil until they break easily with a fork.
Drain the water, and to the still-hot pot add the salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and stick of butter, cut into sections so it will melt easier. Stir the potatoes, butter, and seasonings so that the potatoes are coated.
Serve immediately.
“There’s a line in a song that says, ‘Take a old, cold tater an’ wait,’ ” my mother said. “There ain’t nothin’ worse than a cold tater.”
Carrot and Red Cabbage Slaw
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
½ head red cabbage
1 large carrot
½ cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon garlic salt
HOW TO PREPARE IT
Coarse-chop the cabbage and carrot. You want crunch in every bite. Use a knife, not a peeler, on the carrot.
Here’s how: Just hold the carrot near the top and whittle it down with the knife, as if it were a piece of wood. If you use the peeler, you will have long, limp, flat strings of carrot in the crunchy cabbage.
This is bad.
Mi
x the mayonnaise, black pepper, and garlic salt for the dressing; then, in a large bowl, work the dressing into the carrot and cabbage.
Do not salt.
“If you ain’t got slaw, well, it ain’t Christmas,” she said, which would make more sense if she did not also say it in April, and July.
Cornbread
You will notice the title is just “Cornbread.” “Gettin’ fancy with cornbread will mess it up, usually.” This is a Depression-era cornbread recipe that some find a little crumbly, even dry, if they are accustomed to box recipes. Some people insist on adding sugar to the recipe, to make a sweeter cornbread, or milk and eggs, for a more cakelike cornbread. “Don’t never, ever put sugar in cornbread. It will ruin it, and you will have to throw it out.”
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
1½ cups self-rising yellow cornmeal
1½ cups self-rising white cornmeal
1½ to 2 cups cold water
¼ stick butter, softened, or lard, bacon grease, or shortening
(No salt. It’s already in the self-rising meal)
1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
HOW TO COOK IT
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Mix the cornmeals in a dry bowl. Slowly add the cold water until the meal has a nice, smooth consistency, like pudding. Different meals will take more or less water, at different times of the year. Take a spoonful and tilt it. If the mixture drips, it is too watery and the cornbread will be an abomination. Some people like to add bacon grease or lard to the mixture of plain cornbread, but it is not necessary. There is already enough fat, and flavor, in the dish.