It’s probably safe to say that Shrimp and Grits is the signature dish of the Carolina Lowcountry. Originally served for breakfast, it’s now found on lunch, brunch, and dinner menus in working man’s diners and in the very finest of restaurants.

It’s also probably safe to say that there are dozens, if not hundreds of ways to make Shrimp and Grits. Some folks like them spiced up with hot pepper sauce, others add bits of smoked sausage or country ham, some start with a medium roux for the sauce and some folks like no sauce except what the shrimp and the other ingredients provide.

But the one thing that all the myriad variations have in common is that they’re all delicious. This version takes what are considered the classic ingredients and gives them something that Shrimp & Grits don’t usually have: portability!

These little cups are big on flavor and are the perfect appetizer to celebrate almost any occasion, from Christmas and New Years to Valentine’s Day, birthdays, weddings, and more.

Or why not have a ‘What-the-Heck-It’s-Tuesday’ party once in a while? Life’s too short to have to wait for a holiday to enjoy Shrimp and Grits!

Here’s how to make the Carolina Shrimp and Grits Party Appetizer Cups:

Ingredients:

1 lb bacon
3 cups water
1 cup half & half or milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup yellow grits
2 tbsp butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 oz medium or sharp cheddar, grated (plus additional for garnish)
Sesame seeds
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
60 cooked medium shrimp (about 1lb), peeled & deveined
1 tsp lemon pepper
1 small jar chopped pimento for garnish
Finely sliced scallion tops (optional)

PREPARATION:

Cook the bacon until crisp. Drain and crumble into small pieces. Reserve the bacon fat.

Whisk together the water, half & half, salt, and grits in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring regularly. Stir in the butter, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes, stirring regularly.

While the grits are cooking, saute the onions in 1-2 teaspoons of the bacon fat until well softened. When the grits are done, stir in half the cooked onions (reserve the remainder) and the grated cheese.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray five 12-cup mini-muffin pans with cooking spray and sprinkle with seeds. Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full with the grit mixture, then spread the grits up the sides to create an indent in the center. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly crusted on the outside.

While the grit cups are baking, saute the green peppers with the garlic in a little more bacon fat until just softened. Add the shrimp, lemon pepper, bacon, and remaining onions and cook until the shrimp are just heated through. Let sit at least 5 minutes so the bacon can absorb any liquid.

Separate the shrimp from the bacon/green pepper mixture. Divide the bacon/pepper mix among the grit cups and top each with a shrimp. Sprinkle cups with a little grated cheese, add a dab of chopped pimentos, and top with a sprinkling of scallion tops.

Makes 60 appetizers.

Enjoy!

You Can Read More of Doug’s Recipe Corner Here.

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Just before leaving Upstate New York for Charleston, I did a very satisfying thing: I gave away my snow blower — because I knew I’d never need it again. Years later, I still savor that moment.

Growing up in the city, snow was a fact of life. Winter was a messy slog, you dealt with it, and that was that. But moving to Ithaca, NY taught me what snow really is: a lovely, delicate form of precipitation that will, if left unchecked, bury you, your car, and your house under a soft and very quiet mountain of white until spring thaw, when the mailman might look in the window and see you sitting at the kitchen table, still partly frozen in the act of trying to warm your hands over a torn-out magazine photo of a fireplace.

Hence the snow blower. The shovels were already out and in use by mid-November and it became kind of a pre-Thanksgiving Day ritual to tune up the old snow blower and get it ready for the real winter siege soon to come.

But here in South Carolina, Thanksgiving Day is usually sunny and in the low 70’s. People do their last-minute supermarket runs in t-shirts and shorts. And when folks down here ask me what I’m thankful for, I just smile and tell them I’m thankful that I don’t own a snow blower anymore.

Inspired by the warm weather, I decided to do a somewhat non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner with a tropical Cuban accent. The turkey was marinated for 24 hours in a mojo marinade containing lemon, bitter orange, oregano, and other good stuff and was incredibly flavorful and juicy. There was a side dish of fried plantains made ‘tostone’ style and served with a mango-green chile salsa, and dessert was a mango horchata flan that was ethereally delicious.

But the surprise of the day was this very easy yam dish that breaks away from the traditional sugar-and-spice treatment that yams and sweet potatoes receive during the holidays. This recipe treats them like real vegetables, not like a pre-dessert. It was a big hit and I plan to make it often while yams are available.

I used country ham in this dish, but you can use any dry ham like prosciutto or Serrano, or even unsmoked bacon or ‘streak o’ lean’ style salt pork. You want something with a good salty pork flavor to stand up to the lime and garlic. You can peel the yams if you want to, but the skin adds additional flavor and texture to the dish.

Here’s how to make the Cuban Style Yams With Garlic and Lime:

Ingredients:

3 pounds yams (or sweet potatoes), washed or peeled
1 tsp salt
1/4 lb country ham (or other dry, unsmoked pork) cut into small pieces
2-4 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 Tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 Tbsp lime juice (or more to taste)
1/4 tsp salt (or more to taste)
Fresh black pepper

PREPARATION:

Cut the yams in quarters lengthwise, then slice into 1/2 inch pieces. Cover with water in a large saucepan, add the salt, and bring to a boil. Simmer until yams are just cooked through but still hold together.

While the yams are simmering, cook the ham chunks in a skillet over medium heat until lightly colored and crisp on the outside, adding a little olive oil if necessary.

Drain the yams and return them to the pot. Add the ham pieces, garlic, butter, lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir gently to incorporate. If you prefer a “smashed potatoes” texture, you can stir more aggressively with a wooden spoon. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serves 4-6.

Variation: you can make this a bit spicier by adding a big pinch of cumin and a small pinch of cayenne.

Enjoy!

You Can Read More of Doug’s Recipe Corner Here.

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Before there were cooking shows on The Food Network, public television was one of the best places to go to find inspiration and instruction, and like many, I found myself watching such culinary greats as Julia Child, Jeff Smith (The Frugal Gourmet), and Nathalie Dupree on PBS.

If you love good Southern cooking, you’ll definitely want to get acquainted (or reacquainted) with Nathalie Dupree, the driving force behind the New Southern Cooking movement.

Though classically trained at Le Cordon Bleu (like her PBS predecessor, Julia Child), Dupree prides herself on being the anti Martha Stewart. Refreshingly unfussy, Dupree employs a graciously laid back, yet pragmatic approach to home entertaining; all excellent qualities that can serve one well with holiday season fast approaching.

If you’ve never read any of her 10 cookbooks you can find them all on Amazon here.

Two of them, Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Memories and Comfortable Entertaining are James Beard Award winning cookbooks.

For those who already own her cookbooks, Nathalie Dupree’s own website offers a master index to all of Nathalie’s published recipes to make it easier to find the ones you need for all your parties and gatherings.

Enjoy!

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(Photo Credit: Biscuits by smohundro.)

My neighbor Jimbo wanted to give me a taste of his home and of his granny’s good cooking. “Y’ever hear of creazes?”

Creases? Croesus? As is often the case with southern idiom, I was lost. “Uh. . .what?”

“Creazes. Creasy greens? Some folks call ‘em creazes. My granny in Tennessee puts ‘em up every year. They’re greens. You cook ‘em up with vinegar and black pepper.”

“Like collards. . . or more like spinach?” I hazarded.

“Well, no. . .not really,” He thought for a moment. “Can’t really say what they’re like. They’re different.”

It was late afternoon and still hot; we were engaged in that particularly rural pastime of drinking beer while leaning into a pickup truck bed, which always gives the appearance of a hastily-called but important meeting among farmers or civil engineers or hunters or other rugged outdoor types. But it never is. It’s just that the rail of a pickup truck bed is a naturally good place for your elbows, and the inside of the bed gives you stuff to look at. Guys are more comfortable looking at stuff while they’re talking than looking at each other.

Jimbo took a long pull off his beer and regarded his spare tire. “You’ll like ‘em. Next time I go home I’ll bring you some back. And pinto beans. Y’ever tasted homemade pinto beans? Like from a garden?”

I couldn’t say that I had.

“Well, bubba,” he said, looking up from under the scuffed brim of his ball cap, grinning “then you never have tasted beans.”

By the time Jimbo made his trip back to see his family in the mountains of western Tennessee, I’d essentially forgotten about the mysterious creasy greens and supposedly incomparable beans. But Jimbo, taking pity on me because I was raised in cities without ‘real’ food, had made it his mission to introduce me to proper country cooking. He’d brought me some fine things from his own kitchen, including a dish of stewed chicken and biscuits that was ‘slap your mama good’, so I trusted him. When he returned from his trip, I got a knock on my door before he’d even unlocked his own.

“Here.” He handed me two mason jars, looking deeply road-worn. “Heat up them greens with just some salt and pepper an’ put in a spoon of cider vinegar. Them beans, first you gotta cook up some green onions with some bacon grease before you put the beans in. I got more if you like ‘em. I’d cook ‘em up for you but I’m goin’ to bed.”

I called out a thank you as he plodded wearily across the yard to his back door. He waved without turning around.

“Y’see?” he said, “I didn’t forget you.”

Creasy greens (Barbarea verna), also known as Upland Cress and Early Winter Cress, are a rare treat. Don’t expect to find them at your supermarket anytime soon, but they are beginning to show up in farmers’ markets here and there and can be purchased as heirloom seeds. Like many of the mountain folk who eat them, Creasy greens are legendarily hardy and manage to thrive just about anywhere they put down roots. If you’re lucky enough to live where they grow wild, you could go out and gather these prolific and highly nutritious greens (three times the vitamin C of orange juice!) – but you might have to find a local guide first who can help you locate them.

They are certainly worth the effort. Creasy greens have long stems with a large rounded leaf at the top and up to ten pairs of smaller leaves below it, but they’re not at all stringy; they cook up tender but still a bit textured, with a unique flavor that’s a cross between watercress and mint, without the sharpness of the first or the over-assertiveness of the second. With just some coarse salt, a few turns of the peppermill, and a splash of apple cider vinegar, they were as delicious as promised.

The beans were indeed a revelation. I hate to admit to being a ‘dump-and-stir’ cook when it comes to beans, but it’s sadly true for the most part. I’d really only ever had canned pinto beans – and these were a different animal altogether. To begin with, they weren’t the uniform dull color that canned beans are. These were richly colored, in shades like Ashes of Roses and Desert Camouflage, and were almost sweet, with a warm creamy texture that lacked even the hint of starchy graininess. They tasted like some purely comforting form of nourishment that I’d been denied my whole life – which, in a way, was true.

Not to say that I didn’t eat well growing up, but there is something undeniably different about food that has never seen a machine or the inside of a factory. These greens had been hand chosen from the banks of a remote stream; the pinto beans carefully and lovingly tended in a garden. Both were prepared simply, in a way that brought out their best qualities, and then they were preserved – not by some gargantuan industrial packing device, but by a family, using recipes and methods passed on through generations.

This was the generous and sustaining alchemy of soil, sun, and rain captured – ‘put by’ – as a literal fortification against winter’s paucity and spring’s caprices, against floods and droughts and tempests. But these foodways, these recipes, these methods, I realized, were not only preserving food and life.

They were preserving memory.

My neighbor Jimbo wanted to give me a taste of his home, and he did. But it was more than that.

It was a taste of the past, of long hard winters ending in first warm days. Of nourishing greens gathered near the banks of mountain streams, the late spring runoff still icy cold and sweet. Of kitchen gardens, beanstalks new from the ground and warm from the sun.

Of history, traditions rarely written, passed from proficient older hands to younger, less certain ones – hands that would, with time, become practiced and sure. A long line of hands, stretching back, weaving threads of remembrance into these textures and flavors.

Stories of mothers and grandmothers long passed – their strength honed on the callused earth of dry seasons – living on in the words, in the knowledge they tilled and tended into wisdom; their hopes rediscovered in every furrow of newly-turned earth, their faith replenished with the soft benediction of rain on dusty green shoots.

And their love – like their recipes, like these jars – enduring, preserved.

(This piece by Doug DuCap previously appeared in Wandering Educators.)

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(Photo Credits: Canning Season by Chiots Run and Old Wooden Chair by Free Range Stock)

Are you in the mood for a culinary roadtrip? Do you enjoy eating delicious regional food served by award winning chefs, visiting palm tree lined beaches, enjoying local history, going boating and fishing, as well as viewing majestic live oaks draped with Spanish moss?

If so, then a relaxing foodie vacation in Charleston, South Carolina may be just what the doctor ordered.

The cuisine of Charleston, SC is an addictive combination of such classic Southern and Lowcountry foods as pulled pork barbecue, shrimp and grits, red rice, she-crab soup, roasted oysters, fried fish, cornbread, biscuits, hoppin’ John, boiled peanuts, and red velvet cake.

In 2008, Travelocity named Charleston one of the world’s 10 Best Delicious Destinations for Foodies. Top Chef Judge and cookbook author Tom Colicchio lists Charleston as one of his favorite eating destinations, praising the flavor of its fish as well as the rough sensual delights of its local oyster roasts.

With such Charleston area James Beard Award winning chefs as Mike Lata of Fig and Robert Stehling of Hominy Grill, as well as James Beard winning cookbook authors Nathalie Dupree and Matt and Ted Lee (The Lee Bros.), Charleston is also home to a wide variety of locally based gourmet stores and specialty food shops which help provide inspiration for chefs of every stripe.

Whether you’re planning to visit Charleston (or are lucky enough to live here), below are the addresses for 13 interesting local gourmet shops, markets, specialty delis, bakeries, and more you might want to visit.

Enjoy!

• Caviar & Bananas Gourmet Market and Cafe
  51 George St.
  Charleston, SC
  A gourmet specialty store and deli.

• Charleston Coffee Exchange
  2875 Ashley River Road
  Charleston, SC
  Locally owned. Sells a good variety of coffees and teas.

• Charleston Cooks
  194 East Bay St.
  Charleston, SC
  Cooking classes from world class visiting and regional chefs. Also has a kitchen store.

• Charleston Farmer’s Market
  Marion Square
  Charleston, SC
  Named the 5th Best Farmers Market in the US by Travel and Leisure Magazine.

• Cupcake
  433 King St.
  Charleston, SC
  A cupcake-riffic bakery, with everything made from scratch.

• Doscher’s Supermarket
  1133 Savannah Highway
  Charleston, SC
  An old fashioned Southern style supermarket featuring regional cuts of meat.

• Earth Fare
  74 Folly Rd.
  Charleston, SC
  A large Southern based supermarket featuring such health foods as organic produce, bulk grains and spices, and more.

• Euro Food
  1727 Ashley River Road
  Charleston, SC
  Sells Eastern European and Russian food.

• H and L Asian Supermarket
  5300 Rivers Ave.
  Charleston, SC
  A giant Asian supermarket with a large variety of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian foods and spices.

• The Moon Pie General Store
  48 North Market St.
  Charleston, SC
  Sells a variety of Southern goodies (and yes) moon pies.

• Nelli Indian Grocery
  1901 Ashley River Road (Highway 61)
  (West Ashley) Charleston, SC
  Sells Indian and Pakistani foods and spices.

• The Olive Oil Shop
  316 King St.
  Charleston, SC
  Sells specialty olive oils pressed from all over the world, balsamic vinegar, rubs, spreads, and condiments.

• Ted’s Butcher Block
  334 E Bay St.
  Charleston, SC
  Specialty butcher shop and gourmet market.

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