Eula Mae’s cooking comforts, Cajun style

loading...

EULA MAE’S CAJUN KITCHEN: COOKING THROUGH THE SEASONS ON AVERY ISLAND, Eula Mae Dore with Marcelle R. Bienvenu, 2002, 254 pages, The Harvard Common Press, Boston, $22.95.

Those of you who recently made rash promises to shed a few pounds and get in shape can stop reading right now. However, if this is the year you’re going to simply indulge yourself in comfort foods, then welcome inside.

Eula Mae’s kitchen probably is a lot like your grandmother’s kitchen. It is not a place where you will find 1 percent milk or low-fat spreads. It is filled with the aroma of steaming pots and the promise of a future spent groaning with satisfaction. It also is a Cajun kitchen in a more conventional sense than, say, Paul Prudhomme’s. Devoid of fussiness and complex spice mixtures, Eula Mae’s kitchen relies on the most traditional of dishes, large helpings and Tabasco sauce. Lots of Tabasco sauce.

Although the influence of the McIlhenny family – makers of Tabasco-brand sauce – is low-key in the design of this volume, make no mistake, “Eula Mae’s Cajun Kitchen” still is a showcase for many of the company’s products. Still, there is no reason to doubt that Dore’s zestful use of hot sauce is unrelated to her employer, and I suspect your own favorite brand will work just as well as the recommended Tabasco.

Dore’s entire life has been devoted to the McIlhenny clan. She has spent most of her years leading a semifeudal life on Avery Island, where the McIlhennys have been producing their sauce since 1868. From the early 1950s, she worked in the company’s commissary, supplying groceries to the McIlhennys and their workers on the island. She soon came up with the idea of selling sandwiches and po’ boys at lunchtime to the island’s workers. Before long, her lunchtime sandwiches became so famous that businessmen for miles around were heading to the commissary for lunch. This popularity enabled Dore’s husband – Walter “MoNeg” Dore – to persuade Walter “Mr. Walter” McIlhenny to expand the commissary kitchen. Eula Mae’s expanded menu was far from the gray offerings of many workplace canteens. This being Cajun country, it was gumbo and jambalaya rather than mystery meat and mac ‘n’ cheese that was on the menu.

Like most traditional cuisines, much Cajun cookery has been passed on in the kitchen itself. Daughters watch and help their mothers, absorbing techniques, rough measurements and flavors.

Dore, however, was forced to create her own methodology. When Eula Mae was 10 years old, she had to quit school in order to care for her siblings after her mother died. With no mother to learn the family recipes from, Dore picked up a trick or two from her grandmother. The rest she reinvented for herself.

“I knew what dishes tasted like, and I had to learn to duplicate that,” she says.

These recipes never had been written down until Dore, at the behest of Paul “Mr. Paul” McIlhenny, current McIlhenny CEO and president, reluctantly allowed columnist and Emeril Lagasse collaborator Marcelle Bienvenu into the commissary kitchen to co-author this book. So now we can duplicate them.

Well, mostly.

Dore always has cooked by feel. A pinch of this, a scant handful of that.

Bienvenu has quantified Dore’s tactile measurements into cups and tablespoons. The true feel for the recipes will, I’m sure, only come after you spend about 30 years refining them.

Dore herself has more years than that behind her; years spent watching the lazy Louisiana seasons roll around on Avery Island, punctuated by Fais Do-Dos, the McIlhenny dinner parties for which she would cook, Halloweens, Christmases and, of course, Mardi Gras. Each seasonal chapter sets a scene with Dore’s reminiscences and sepia-tinged tales of life gone by on the island. Then there are her recipes – arranged by occasion, designed to ensure any event is celebrated properly with a mountain of food.

There are – especially for Yankees – some surprises among Dore’s menus. Few would imagine celebrating Easter with Hot Tamales and Crawfish Bisque. However, Bloody Marys on New Year’s Day sound almost essential even though we are told disappointingly just to buy the Tabasco-brand mix that is on the market. I’m not convinced by using them to wash down Smothered Cabbage anyway.

And, as a Cajun cookbook, “Eula Mae’s Cajun Kitchen” generally is a fairly conservative place. There are plenty of recipes for gumbos, etouffees and jambalayas. There also are a good half-dozen belt-busting pies and desserts such as her Sweet Potato Pie or Blackberry Dumplings. Finally, there are recipes so unashamedly decadent that it’s hard to look at others while eating them, such as the Avery Island Crabmeat Casserole, which simply throws all the best things in the world together – crab, cream, wine, cheese – and serves them on toast.

Eula Mae cooks just like your grandmother used to. Or at least how your grandmother would have if she’d been Cajun. And possibly was trying to kill you with food. Still, there are many similarities between Dore’s cooking and the home food you may remember contentedly. Her recipes frequently are simple. There are few that require arcane ingredients beyond some of the game called for, and she is not above using the odd can of condensed soup, a dash of Accent or butter-flavored Crisco vegetable shortening. Purists can cover their eyes now. And then, of course, there’s the ubiquitous Tabasco brand pepper sauce that finds its way into nearly every recipe in the book. Still, who’s going to complain?

Actually, after eating many of the dishes in this book, you’ll be far too full to move, never mind complain.

Avery Island Crabmeat Casserole

Serves 6-8

1/2 cup butter

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 pound white button mushrooms, wiped clean and thinly sliced

3 cups half-and-half

1/2 cup Sauterne wine

2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

salt, cayenne and white pepper to taste

2 pounds lump crabmeat

1/2 cup grated baby Swiss cheese

1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika

toast points, crackers or toasted croutons

Preheat the oven to 300?F.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and cook, stirring, until light blond, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and coat well with the butter mixture. Add the half-and-half, wine, and garlic and season with salt, cayenne and white pepper. Stir until smooth and thick. Gently fold in the crabmeat.

Pour the mixture into a buttered 9-by-13-inch dish and sprinkle evenly with the cheese and paprika. Bake until heated through and bubbly, about 25 minutes.

Serve hot with toast points or croutons for dipping.

Blackberry Dumplings

Makes about 35 dumplings or 8 servings

1 pound fresh blackberries, rinsed and picked over, or 1 pound frozen blackberries thawed

1 cup sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup yellow butter cake mix

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 large egg beaten with 1/2 cup water

vanilla ice cream

Combine the berries and the sugar in a heavy medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium-low.

Meanwhile, combine the flour, cake mix and baking powder in a medium-sized mixing bowl and mix well. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the egg-water mixture. With a wooden spoon, stir in one direction to make a smooth dough.

Drop the batter randomly by heaping teaspoonfuls into the hot blackberries, 6 to 7 teaspoonfuls at a time. Poach for about 2 minutes, then carefully and gently flip over the batter with the tines of a fork. Cook until the dumplings are fluffy and spongy, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Gently transfer them to a shallow bowl. Repeat with the remaining batter.

To serve, spoon an equal amount of the remaining blackberry mixture from the pot into the bottom of each small dessert bowl. Put four dumplings in the bowl on top of the blackberry sauce, then top with a scoop of ice cream and garnish with the fresh berries or some of the cooked blackberry mixture.