Cookbookaholic

Big Bad Breakfast

A while back I posted about one of my last trips down to The Book Lady in Savannah, GA. One of the cookbooks I was able to snag was Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey by John Currence.

I picked it up because it had a Foreward from John T. Edge, who runs the Southern Foodways Alliance out of Oxford, Mississippi. Until recently, I was a member. I wish I could foot the yearly membership fee, but times are tight and I had to let that go. But anyways, Currence started and still runs City Grocery in Oxford and John T. is very complimentary of the food there.

And then, I was watching an episode of the Virginia Howard show, A Chef’s Life, on the local PBS station. She was one of the chefs featuring a meal for a Southern Foodways Alliance meeting. And as she was contemplating how to finish her chicken bog, John Currence stepped in with a great solution.

As soon as she mentioned his name, it sort of sealed the deal on what a big deal he actually is!

I immediately opened up my laptop and searched for his cookbooks. The PPW cookbook was listed as well as this one: Big Bad Breakfast. I love breakfast! I even eat if for dinner! I wish I could eat a fabulous breakfast or brunch every day. Would definitely go a long way to help me live my best life….LOL

Of course, I click on over to eBay and do a quick search. There’s one listed as a First Edition/First Printing …and…it’s autographed!

Buy It Now option? Why, yes, I will thank you very much!

"The Most Important Book of the Day" LOL I love that!

And boy howdy, what an autograph this is….

And looky here, who wouldn’t want to wake up to cinnamon rolls like these….

Of course, I’d have to be the one to wake up and make them…but still, nice reward for the work.

When I was looking up John Currence’s body of cookbooks online, I noticed there was a Tailgating cookbook as well, Tailgreat. Thinking that I might need to go ahead and get that one, too?

Maybe I should have a complete John Currence collection?

How Cute Is This?!!

Oh my…how cute is the cover of this cookbook?

As you know, I collect all types of cookbooks…but I especially collect Moravian church cookbooks. I married into a family that is Moravian, we’ve attended two local churches, raised our children in the church and head up to Winston-Salem almost every Easter weekend.

At one time, I was collecting cookbooks from Moravian churches all over the country. After I figured out how expensive that was going to be, I curtailed my collection to just cookbooks from Moravian churches in North Carolina.

I’ve got a Saved Search on eBay for them and I recently saw this cutie and picked it up. Who knows…I may already have another in my collection already? Don’t care…it’s going in the pie safe with the rest of the Moravian cookbooks!

Recipes from the East...Is This Racist?

So, this one has been on my radar for a while. I saw it first on Esty but I hesitated and waited too long. Someone else snagged it and I’ve always had a regret in the back of my mind for not buying it when I first saw it.

I was able to get a copy of Irma Walker Ross’ Recipes from the East on eBay from a seller up in the Portland, Washington area. The listing didn’t show the copyright page, so I was hoping it was an early or first printing.

Sadly, it was not.

When the copy arrived, my local post office had done its usual and a few pieces of the small, black spiral spine had been crushed. But, the original listing had an image of a cracked spiral spine…so it’s not like it was perfect before it arrived.

Anyways, the copyright page has this one from the eleventh printing in 1963. I’m few years out from the original 1955 printing. But I have seen copies that were twenty-fourth printing for more money than this copy. So I’m okay.

But now that I’m looking at it….is this cover racist?

Very cartoonish and I don’t think if it were published in today’s climate that people would look at it with forgiving eyes.

When you dig into the history of how this cookbook came together, I see it all started as recipe-collecting through travels and being sent recipes from China, Japan, Hawaii, the Philippines, India and Russia. She would have friends translate the recipes into English and then evolve the recipe to Western tastes. Then, she made recipe cards and sent them out as Christmas cards. The cards and recipes were a hit and then made into this cookbook.

If you look at the timeframe, this cookbook was a great way to bring Asian flavors to a wider audience, especially in a post-World War II era and a newly-ended Korean War era.

But I’m curious about how authentic these recipes could be. There’s a line on the back cover and a passage from the Author’s Foreward that is all sorts of disconnected.

These culinary masterpieces of the East, though authentic versions of age-old and beloved delicacies, can all be prepared from materials readily available to the American housewife.

Changing an Oriental recipe so that a Westerner will enjoy it isn’t as easy as it sounds. We experimented and tested the recipes in my home…

I’m not sure how authentic a recipe can be if you’ve spent time switching out ingredients so that it is more appealing to a Western palate?

Big Pig in a Blanket: The Recipe

The other day I had an idea about a spicy, bacon-y snack for Labor Day. It has super simple ingredients—but would it taste any good? I decided to give it a try and we loved, loved, loved the end result.

It’s a super-sized take on Pigs in a Blanket…but making the pig a whole lot spicier, then wrapped in bacon and then robed in a luxurious crescent roll.

Let’s get to it! You only need to buy three items: Johnsonville Jalapeno Cheddar Smoked Sausages, Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon and Pillsbury Crescents. That’s it!

First up, you need to cook the jalapeno cheddar smoked sausages. You can grill them or cook them in skillet—your preference! Just be sure to have them cooked and slightly cooled first so that you’re not wrapping hot bacon around a hot sausage. Personally, I love the sausages to have some char on them!

Then, get the bacon going. Now, I prefer to cook bacon in the oven. The pieces tend to retain their length while cooking and you don’t get bacon grease spatter all over the place. I cook the bacon for twelve minutes on one side, flip them over and then keep a careful eye on them for the next three to five minutes. Remove them from the oven just as the second side begins to deepen in color/doneness. I like crunchy bacon, but for this, you need the bacon pliable enough to be able to wrap around the sausage.  

So, while the bacon is finishing up after they’ve been flipped…open up your can of crescent rolls and separate the dough triangles.

Take a strip of bacon and twirl/wrap it around a sausage and then place it on the bottom of the triangle. Then, carefully wrap the dough around the sausage to help secure the bacon in place. And just like you would normally do a crescent roll…roll the sausage and bacon towards the tip of the triangle.

Place all six on a baking sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 9 to 13 minutes. The key is to keep your eye on it so that the crescent roll bakes and browns, but you don’t overbake it that the bacon burns and crumbles.

The result is very flavorful: spicy and smokey from the sausage with the saltiness of the bacon and the slightly sweet and flakey bread. The cheddar adds a smoothness and, overall, this is a really great “handy” meal. If you’re making items for tailgating or for a gathering, this will be a hit. Definitely more filling that a tiny little pig in a blanket…this is more like Spicy Smoked Swine in Silk! LOL

By the way, I dipped these in the Food Lion brand Bold Horseradish Mustard and loved how it complimented the spicy and smokey flavor.

Like I said, only three items and the combination is amazing. Football season is here…and these will be the hit of your snack spread!

 

Ingredients

1 package of Johnsonville Jalapeno Cheddar Smoked Sausages

1 package of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon

1 package of Pillsbury Crescents

 

1. Cook the smoked sausages and let cool slightly.
2. Bake bacon in 400 degree oven for 12 minutes. Flip strips and return to the oven for another 3 to 5 minutes. They should begin to brown, but still be pliable.
3. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
4. Remove the crescent dough from the canister and separate the dough triangles.
5. Remove bacon from oven and quickly wrap each cooked sausage in a strip of bacon.
6. Take the bacon-wrapped sausage and place on the bottom/long part of the dough triangle. Roll dough and sausage toward the tip of the triangle.
7. Place all six on a baking sheet and bake in 350 degree oven for 9 to 13 minutes.