The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover’s Tour of the New American South

290 Pages·2012·8.68 MB·English

by  Paul Knipple

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World
e
h
T
in a
Skillet
A Food Lover’s Tour of the New American South
Paul & Angela Knipple
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS(cid:12)CHAPEL HILL
Text and photographs © 2012 Paul and Angela Knipple
Foreword © 2012 John T. Edge
All rights reserved. Designed by Kimberly Bryant and set in Odile and Avenir types
by Rebecca Evans. Manufactured in the United States of America. Manufactured in
the United States of America.
Textured background, © iStockphoto.com/Bill Noll; skillet, © iStockphoto.com/
Soubrette
Photographs by Paul and Angela Knipple
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green
Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Knipple, Paul.
The world in a skillet : a food lover’s tour of the new American South /
Paul and Angela Knipple.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8078-3517-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Cooking, American—Southern style. 2. Cooking, International. 3. Southern
States—Emigration and immigration. 4. Cookbooks. I. Knipple, Angela. II. Title.
TX715.2.S68K64 2012(cid:12)641.5975—dc23(cid:12)2011020425
16 15 14 13 12(cid:12)5 4 3 2 1
To my daddy for being willing to sample anything once and
to my mom for teaching me that just because something doesn’t
turn out the way you thought it would doesn’t mean it won’t
still be good.—(cid:2)Angela
å
To my father, with whom I never shared enough meals, and to
my mother, who makes every meal an adventure.—(cid:2)Paul
å
To Patric for being open- minded enough to go along for the ride
and openhearted enough to enjoy the journey.—(cid:2)Mom and Dude
I’m Chinese by birth, but I’m southern just by growing up here.
—(cid:2)Wally Joe, Chinese restaurateur, Memphis, Tennessee
å
I think one of the beauties of all this is that I’m an Israeli
person cooking regional Italian food in the south of America.
I would say that America is such a wonderful place because it
allows this type of stuff to happen.
—(cid:2)Alon Shaya, Israeli restaurateur, New Orleans, Louisiana
CONTENTS
Foreword by John T. Edge ix
Preface: We Are All from Somewhere Else xi
Introduction: Keepers of the Flame 1
PART I. SEEKING THE AMERICAN DREAM
1 Mexico: Up by the Bootstraps 17
2 Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic: Refugees, Politics, and the Plate 35
3 Kurds: A People without a Country 59
PART II. LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM
4 Central and South America: Family 75
5 Vietnam: Community 102
6 Bosnia: Extended Community 118
7 The Indian Subcontinent: Feeding the Technology Boom 133
8 Japan and South Korea: Blue Collars and Bluefin 153
PART III. BRINGING TRADITION TO THE TABLE
9 China: The Secret Menu 173
10 Kosher and Halal: Keeping the Faith in the Land of Pork 192
11 Europe: Haute Cuisine and Double Standards?  213
12 Africa: Returning from Gumbo to N’gombo 236
Afterword 253
Suggested Reading 255
Acknowledgments 257
Index of Recipes 259
General Index 261
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FOREWORD
In Praise of Korean Barbecue and Indian Fried Okra
A while back, the Southern Foodways Alliance, the organization at
the University of Mississippi that I direct, organized a field trip for
grown- ups on Buford Highway, a deliriously multicultural corridor
that stretches north, beyond Atlanta’s interstate beltway. Our tack was
to showcase the future of southern food by taking a close look at its
ongoing evolution.
What ensued was a two- day bacchanal of Cajun crawfish, boiled in
lemongrass broth by Vietnamese cooks. And barbecue chicken, smoked
on charcoal- fueled pits by Mexican pitmen. And garlic chicken, hacked
into shards of flesh and bone by Cantonese fry masters.
The message in that programming was straightforward: The South
can no longer be defined by the tensions and complements of people
with roots in western Africa and western Europe. Like the rest of our
nation, the South is shaped by global exchanges, among a myriad of
people from places both far flung and nearby.
Despite what the moonlight- and- magnolia fabulists would have
you believe, the region is not static. Southern culture is not a concept
to fix in some time past and preserve in amber. Instead, southern cul-
ture(cid:31)—(cid:31) especially culinary culture(cid:31)—(cid:31) is dynamic.
Today, after a long interregnum when the South was deemed inhos-
pitable to immigrants, the region teems with a diversity of new arrivals
from new places. The region is richer for it. And so are the foodways of
the region.
In The World in a Skillet, Paul and Angela Knipple employ reportage
and recipes to showcase that dynamism and diversity. Their work is
not an exercise in exotica. It’s an honest portrait of a modern South,
where horchata-fl avored popsicles are everyday convenience store
fare, and old guard snack manufacturers market their pork rinds as
chicharones.
The Knipples live in Memphis, Tennessee. They speak fluent bar-
becue. They know their way around a kitchen stocked with cast-i ron
skillets and mason jars of bacon grease.
ix