An Excerpt From the New York Times - 1996 - Or My Aunt's Cathead Biscuits
As you know, my Uncle died a few months ago. A man's man, war hero, served our nation by making top secret aircraft for Lockheed, was in movies, just a full life of the American dream.
Well, his wife, my Aunt, Mrs. Ruby died last Sunday. A true saint of a woman. She was a WAC in WWII, flew fighter aircraft for delivery, and the best person anyone could ever meet.
Today we discovered she had been interviewed by the New York Times back in 1996 when the Olympics were here in Atlanta. She has always been known for her amazing Southern cuisine.
What an honor for her. Her daughter was the editor for National Geographic for a spell and they had contacted her for some leads on an Atlanta story.
Here's the excerpt from the article:
quote:
CHOICE TABLES;Fried Chicken + Cracklin's + Biscuits = Atlanta By Rick Bragg
THE biscuits, Lord, the biscuits. Down here they call them cathead biscuits, because they are about the size of a kitten's head, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, slathered with muscadine jelly and white butter, or opened up and smothered in white milk gravy.
Then there is the chicken, expertly patted with white flour, dusted with salt, then fried in an honest iron skillet that has been blackened and seasoned over a generation. It is served with pole beans -- green beans, for the ignorant -- that have been slow-cooked with a drop or two of bacon grease, and mashed potatoes rich with milk and butter, and fried okra, and scraped corn. Ruby Pearl Barber scrapes it off the cob herself. The only way to get it any fresher is to go out in the field and gnaw it off the stalk.
For dessert there is cobbler made from blackberries or tiny wild strawberries, or her famous carrot cake, rich and moist and studded with pecans, coated with a cream cheese icing that is more smooth than sweet.
"Most recipes call for putting vanilla in the icing, but I think that makes it too sweet," said the 75-year-old Mrs. Barber, who is originally from Randolph County, Ala., but now lives in Atlanta. Hers is the kind of genuine, traditional Southern food that visitors to the Summer Olympics may be expecting. There is only one problem.
It is not for sale.
Mrs. Ruby Pearl, as she is also known here, cooks only for her family or friends, in her kitchen. Once, years ago, there were several sit-down homestyle cafes and barbecue restaurants in Atlanta that served traditional Southern food of this style and quality. But in Atlanta's headlong rush to bulldoze its past and become an international city, they have mostly disappeared. There remain six or seven places -- no more -- that serve genuine, traditional Southern barbecue and homestyle meals. You can cruise the endless suburbs looking for others, but, considering the expected impossible gridlock of Olympic traffic, you may never be seen or heard from again.
Eeewwww, don't touch it! Here, poke at it with this stick.
September 12, 2019, 05:55 PM
ffips
Impressive, thank you for sharing.
September 13, 2019, 12:02 AM
Rey HRH
1996. It’s not that long ago.
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
September 13, 2019, 01:04 AM
mbinky
That is awesome. As a southern transplant (from Boston) I love this. It is history.
September 13, 2019, 04:31 AM
r0gue
Exceptional couple. Very very cool. Has anyone in your family carried on the tradition of that biscuit?
September 13, 2019, 04:36 AM
Mars_Attacks
Oh yeah. Her daughter in law and grand daughter.
SC can make the corn bread dressing and fried chicken.
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Eeewwww, don't touch it! Here, poke at it with this stick.
