After last week's panegyric to Northern cooking from a Union soldier, I thought I would take a glance across the Mason and Dixon line for today's inspiration.
I recently came across a rather treaclily (if there is such a word) nostalgic Southern cookbook on archive.org, published in 1922 and full of reminiscences of how wonderful life was when one presumably had cheerfully devoted family servitors doing all one's work. Still, an interesting look at what was considered traditional fare back then and an honest if effulgent homage to the debt it owed black plantation cooks.
I noticed the julep recipe in the index and was wondering how the author was going to deal with the subject of strong drink, almost three years into Prohibition. As it turned out, with a rather typical regional ability to brush past unpleasant realities.
UNCLE REMUS MINT JULEP
3/4 cup sugar
Juice 3 lemons
1 cup of water,
4 sprigs of mints
1 pint ginger ale
or
"Any flavoring desired."
I'm surprised that the less committed to the temperance cause weren't making kitchen hooch like a friend of mine's mother used to do. Like this, but, with her being a Russian immigrant, with potato skins.
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I have no doubt the author and others in her circle knew a reputable moonshiner.
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