The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie (Knopf Cooks American) - Hardcover

Voltz, Jeanne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394589939 ISBN 13: 9780394589930

Publisher: Knopf, 1993

Synopsis

Here is a delicious and generous sampling (more than 200 recipes) of the cooking of Florida, along with an entertaining excursion into the land where the story of American food began and where today one can find the most interesting culinary diversity in the U.S.A.

Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart take us through all six areas of Florida as they explore:
The Northeast in search of An Oyster Roast, Florida Smoked Beans, and Peanut Butter Pie
The Panhandle for Shrimp Stuffed Eggplant, Baked Cheese Grits, and Blackberry Dumplings
The Space Coast, Gold Coast, and the Keys for Florida Conch Salad, Broiled Yellowtail with Orange Butter, and Mango Tarte Tatin with Lime Custard Sauce
The Big Bend and the Sun Coast for Coastal Crab Boil, Ybor City Calabaza Salad, and Rum Spanish Flan with Caramelized Oranges
Central Florida for Smothered Rabbit, Greens with Corn Meal Dumplings, and Strawberry Cobbler
Florida's Great Lake for South Florida Frog's Legs, Hoppin' John with Trimmings, and Fresh Banana Layer Cake
and many, many other delectable recipes.

The authors tell tales of bygone times -- from the early homesteads to the opulent hotels of the Gold Coast -- and about ethnic food festivals that take place the year round. They note the changes in cooking styles as different waves of immigrants -- Minorcans, Jews, Greeks, Cubans -- all left their mark; and they relish the winds of change as home cooks and young chefs today are assimilating new Caribbean and Far Eastern tastes that make the most of fresh tropical ingredients, the good local seafood, and the abundance of citrus and peppers.

Anyone who loves good food will welcome the delights to be found in these enticing pages. And Floridians -- newcomers, old-timers, and those just passing through -- will discover a wealth of information about where and how to enjoy the riches of land and sea.

About this title

About the Author

Jeanne Voltz was born in Collinsville, Alabama. She was for many years the food editor at Woman's Day magazine, and she edited the food pages at the Los Angeles Times and the anti Herald. She is the author of several cookbooks, including The Flavor of the South and Barbecued Ribs, Smoked Butts, and Other Great Feeds, which is also part of the Knopf Cooks American series. She is a six-time winner of the Vesta Award for newspaper food editing and writing and has also won numerous other feature and food writing awards. Mrs. Voltz lives with her husband in Pittsboro, North Carolina, where she is a food consultant, writer, and free-lance editor.

Caroline Stuart is a third-generation Floridian whose family settled in the central part of the state in the 1870s. She spent her childhood on a ranch where her father grew citrus and raised cattle. She graduated from the University of Alabama and began her career as a caterer. She then worked for several years with James Beard as his assistant and is now a member of the executive board of the James Beard Foundation. Mrs. Stuart is a contributing editor and restaurant critic for Hudson Valley magazine, as well as a freelance writer and cooking teacher. She lives with her husband, John Brainard, in Greenwich, Connecticut, and has two sons.

From the Back Cover

More than 450 years ago, Florida became the cradle of American cooking as we know it now, the place where European foods were first blended with the foodways of Native Americans. The great mix was set in motion in 1513, when Ponce de Leon staked a claim for Spain near Ponte Vedra. The exchange of multicultural food customs has never ceased, creating a cuisine of more ethnic diversity than any in America, and possibly in the world....

It was the founding of St. Augustine in 1565 and, two years later, the Nombre de Dios mission that introduced European cooking to the new continent. Franciscans traveling the mission trail to Pensacola were making egg custards in the Spanish manner and using rice and spices unknown then in the Western world, and settlers in Florida were eating in the Spanish style long before Father Junipero Serra, the culinary trailblazer in the West, founded the first mission in California.

However, two powerful influences moderated the Spanish flavor of Florida. First, there were the people of African heritage. A small number of Moors and Africans came as free persons with the Conquistadors, then thousands were brought here as slaves, starting in the middle of the sixteenth century. The blacks carried with them sesame seeds, yams, eggplants, and okra, for their own use. The second influential non-Spanish group was the Anglo-Americans descendants of settlers in New England, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who began to trickle into Florida before the American Revolution. They brought sweets, a taste for rice cooked differently from the Spanish, and quick hot breads. Not until the Spanish migrations to Key West and Tampa after the Civil War did European-type wheat breads come into general use, except in Pensacola, where a unique hardtack was made for the salad called gaspachee.

From the Inside Flap

licious and generous sampling (more than 200 recipes) of the cooking of Florida, along with an entertaining excursion into the land where the story of American food began and where today one can find the most interesting culinary diversity in the U.S.A.

Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart take us through all six areas of Florida as they explore:
The Northeast in search of An Oyster Roast, Florida Smoked Beans, and Peanut Butter Pie
The Panhandle for Shrimp Stuffed Eggplant, Baked Cheese Grits, and Blackberry Dumplings
The Space Coast, Gold Coast, and the Keys for Florida Conch Salad, Broiled Yellowtail with Orange Butter, and Mango Tarte Tatin with Lime Custard Sauce
The Big Bend and the Sun Coast for Coastal Crab Boil, Ybor City Calabaza Salad, and Rum Spanish Flan with Caramelized Oranges
Central Florida for Smothered Rabbit, Greens with Corn Meal Dumplings, and Strawberry Cobbler
Florida's Great Lake for South Florida Frog's Legs, Hoppin' John with Trim

Reviews

Dispelling the stereotype of Florida as a Disney void or geriatric Levittown, Voltz ( Barbecued Ribs and Other Great Feeds ) and Stuart, southerners both, offer an entertaining overview of a cuisine that has "more ethnic diversity than any in America, and possibly the world." Dividing Florida into six regions, they illustrate the character of each through recipes and vignettes. Interspersed between instructions for the Spanish-, French- and African American-influenced foods of the Panhandle, like boiled peanuts and smothered quail, are tales of Gulf Coast oysters and cockfighting in Pensacola. Like all cookbooks consorting with native kitchens and restaurants, this book is a voyeur's delight. Its recipes tickle readers with imaginary viewings of local legendary feats--building the titanic Greek salad at the Louis Pappas Restaurant in Tarpon Springs--and also treat us to the more homespun: throwing together a mess of pineapple coleslaw at barbecues for Florida rodeo riders. Although the book lacks the singular voice that could imbue this kind of collection with emotional meaning, its precision and comprehensiveness make it a valuable historical document, reminiscent of the WPA guides of the 1930s. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Rum Spanish Flan with Caramelized Oranges
Makes 8 to 10 servings

There's no contest for the top dessert of Spanish Florida: baked caramel custard unmolded to show its golden crown. The rule in a Spanish kitchen that you can't use too many eggs makes a flan that stands up handsomely, and is easier to work with than a crème caramel, which may be so creamy that it relaxes on the plate. Nuns in the first mission in St. Augustine probably brought this style of dessert to Florida almost 450 years ago. Latter-day Hispanics brough their versions from the Caribbean and Europe. A Florida flan has a velvety texture and can be cut in pretty slices. The caramelized oranges with it are a new wrinkle, and a good one. Flan usually is served as is with a bit of the caramel spooned over it.

Custard
1 2/3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons water
8 large eggs
Pinch salt
2 12-ounce cans evaporated milk
2 tablespoons dark rum

Caramelized Oranges
1 large orange, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon dark rum

Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Place the 2/3 cup sugar in a large heavy skillet and stir over moderate heat until it turns golden. Work out any lumps, taking care not to let the sugar burn. Stir in the water with a long-handled spoon (the hot syrup will splatter). Cook, stirring, a minute or two, until blended. Pour into the prepared loaf pan, tilt the pan to coat the sides and bottom, and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place a baking dish large enough to hold the loaf pan in the oven. Pour hot water to a depth of 1/2 inch into the baking dish. In a medium-size bowl, beat the eggs with the remaining 1 cup sugar until blended. Add the salt and stir in the undiluted evaporated milk and the rum. Mix will and pour over the caramel in the loaf pan. Place the loaf pan in the baking dish with the water in the oven. Bake 1 1/2 hours, or until a table knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the water bath and cool the custard, then chill it overnight or for at least 8 hours.

Meanwhile, prepare the oranges. Cut the orange slices crosswise into half circles. Place the sugar and water in a large heavy skillet. Cook and stir over moderate heat until golden brown. Add the oranges to the hot caramel. Using tongs or a spatula, turn to coat them with the caramel. If the caramel sticks, stir in a bit more water. Sprinkle with the rum and cool the mixture.

To turn out the flan, loosen it around the edges with a thin-bladed knife, invert a platter over the pan, and invert it quickly, so as not to lose any of the caramel; lift off the loaf pan. Garnish the platter with the caramelized oranges or pass them seperately. Slice the flan to serve. Refrigerate any leftovers and serve within a day or two.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394589939
• ISBN 13: 9780394589930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 393