|
Yeast Rolls and Other Epiphanies: Eastern Kentucky’s 'Holy' Kitchen, Hallowed Ham House and Sacred Lick (The lovely Beaumont Inn, above) By
Shirley Fong-Torres
My granddaughters, Maggie and Stella, have rearranged my central nervous system. My senses still respond like those of a chef, but my brain is now all "pau pau," which is Chinese for a maternal grandmother. My doctor says it’s important to keep my brain cooperating with my sensory perceptions, so I travel to places that promise exceptional things to eat as well as good stories for young girls. My first such journey was to Lexington, Kentucky a couple years ago where I pursued the magic of bourbon and of horses, a new interest I picked up from Maggie.
On that trip, I heard about Mary Breckinridge‘s yeast rolls. Now Mary was probably as fine a role model as little girls ever had, and top chefs were talking about her yeast rolls as if they were sacred manna. So, my brain promised my tongue we’d all go back to Kentucky and check out Mary’s kitchen, plus a few other culinary treats special to the Blue Grass State.
Because there are only so many nights in a weekend, traveling companion Wroburlto and I did something that we would never advise others to do. We made a lunch stop at a place where one should burrow in and stay as long as possible. Beaumont Inn
The gravitational forces around the Beaumont Inn are so heavy with history, tradition and good food that it’s nearly impossible to get away without spending a night or two. Built in 1845 as a school for young women, it’s been an inn since 1919. The kitchen was converted from the former chapel. Oh, holy food! Owners Chuck and Helen Dedman are the fourth-generation of their family to host guests in four historic buildings decorated by four generations of obsessive antique hunters. The decorating theme seems to be Chuck’s great-grandfather’s admiration for Robert E. Lee. (Wro asked if there weren’t any paintings of “hotter, younger soldiers.” Sigh.)
(A delicious breakfast of corn meal batter pancakes at the Beaumont Inn...yummy!) Room rates include a free cocktail with turn-down service and a rather famous Southern breakfast in the morning. This is served in the floral-wallpapered main dining room, by apron-wearing women who encourage guests to indulge in eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits, fruit and the piece de resistance - griddle corncakes, with real maple syrup. But that’s another story, you see; breakfast, unlike lunch and dinner, is not open to the public at Beaumont Inn. Visiting the Ham House
We had come for other specialties, the first of which required us to visit a fifth historic building - the ham house.
“For years we bought green hams and salted and cured and smoked them here," Chuck explained. "We did that through the 1940’s, but then the USDA forced us to find pre-cured hams, in Western Kentucky. We get year old cured hams from Rodman Meacham now and then we hang them to age in our ham house.” (Meacham’s hams are legends in their own rite, going back to the 1930’s.) Chuck showed us the ham house, where a bunch of sweet smelling delicacies hang for about 10 months. It used to take an extra year, but hams are averaging about 16 pounds now, instead of 21. So it doesn’t take as long to reach prosciutto-like perfection. This being Kentucky instead of Italy, they aren’t consumed like prosciutto though.
(A Beaumont Inn ham) Chuck said they soak the hams overnight in cold water, then boil them, de-bone them, coat them in a 50-50 mix of corn meal and brown sugar and bake them. Thin sliced for serving, they are the main reason that holiday dinners here sell out months in advance. (Gourmet magazine named this one of the best places in America for Thanksgiving dinner.) Chickens Are Stars, Too, at Beaumont Inn
The hams weren’t the only all star food at Beaumont Inn. Wro asked about the yellow legged and red velvet chickens. Chuck said his grandmother insisted that yellow legged chickens tasted best and that was what she chose to serve in the restaurant. Beaumont Inn can’t vouch for leg color, but serves only fresh local chickens, flour battered and pan-fried in pure lard. Lard was also the secret we learned at Mama Dip‘s in North Carolina after tasting the best fried chicken we ever found.
(The tasty Beaumont Inn chicken) Red velvet chickens are stuffed with goat cheese and spinach, then baked and served in red cherry reduction. In another touch of Kentucky hospitality, there are free seconds of chicken at Beaumont Inn. Corn pudding and cornmeal cakes are wonderful accompaniments. Old Owl Tavern Celebrates
Stuck in a dry county for 71 years after Prohibition ended, the inn’s Old Owl Tavern is still celebrating the 2003 voter referendum that allowed alcohol consumption. With a porch in warm weather and a fireplace in cold, the tavern offers a less formal atmosphere to enjoy the sacred works of the holy kitchen. On its brick walls, we noticed old photos of historic bourbon distilleries, including one once owned by a Dedman forebear where Kentucky Owl Sour Mash was made. Besides ham and chicken, the tavern offered other regional specialties, including: their own variation on the Hot Brown made with roast pork loin; Maker’s Mark pecan cake; and Robert E. Lee cake, which, like many of dishes here, is made exactly like it was when the inn’s founder, Annie Bell Goddard, ran the kitchen three generations ago. You don’t mess around in a place of worship. Nursing a Healthy Appetite
A three hour drive (four hours with a bi-polar bear) through the Renfro Valley and the Daniel Boone National Forest took us to a small town of gigantic legends. Hyden lists a population of 204, yet it is home to the Osborne Brothers of bluegrass fame, number one pro football draft choice Tim Couch, and “Thunder Road,” the infamous moonshine route that ran from Harlan to Hazard.
(A swift creek in the Daniel Boone National Forest) Amazingly, none of those distinctions measure up to the reason for our visit. Mary Breckinridge dwarfs them like she does most all women in American history. Mary was the daughter of the man who lost the US Presidential election of 1864 to Abe Lincoln. While nursing in France during World War I, she discovered that some European nurses were also trained midwifes and realized that was what the underserved parts of rural America needed. After studying models in the Scottish Highlands, Mary came to this part of Appalachia in 1923.
She rode horseback for two years over a four county area of 10,000 people who had no doctors, hardly any roads and the nation’s worst incidences of maternal death in childbirth. In 1925, she began Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which later became the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS). Nurse-Midwives Expert Horseback Riders She built a “Big House” in Wendover, outside Hyden, which has been the administrative center of the service for over 80 years. She built a hospital-nursing center in Hyden in 1925, then nine nursing outposts. She staffed them with nurse-midwifes who were expert horseback riders. She did this all with her own money, until she exhausted her personal fortune. Then she began recruiting backers in big cities.
By 1952, FNS nurses had attended 10,000 births and the area’s maternal outcome statistics were better than those of the rest of the nation. Mary’s teaching clinic has graduated over 1700 nurse-midwifes who serve all over the world. When Mary opened the Big House, she determined to involve the community in her project. So she extended an open invitation to her housewarming. Over 500 people showed up on horseback, on foot and by river raft. At that time, the Big House had two of the five bathtubs in the entire area FNS served. So people came to use them. The place has been known for its gracious hospitality and good food ever since.
(The Big House Bed and Breakfast Inn, where you can actually sleep in Mary's room) Big House is now a Bed & Breakfast inn. You can actually sleep in Mary’s room, or seven others, for less than $90 a night. Wro and I splurged by reserving dinner too, at a surcharge. For that meal, our chefs Carolyn Wells and Linda Sawyers prepared a little snack of chicken & dumplings, potato salad, fried green tomatoes, three corn casserole, meat loaf, corn bread, spaghetti, potato cakes, chicken salad, soup beans, “coal miner cake,” blackberry cobbler, peanut butter fudge squares. ice cream, sweet tea, lemonade and yeast rolls. That cost us an extra $8. That’s not a misprint. A Double Chocolate Coal Miner Cake
Sometimes it’s hard to remember what all we eat. I recall that the coal miner cake was double chocolate stuffed with cherries and that the potato salad was that Southern version that looks like mashed potatoes. I remember that the chicken salad was quite good and the chicken and dumplings was even better. Linda and Carolyn told us that they make their chicken stock with whole chickens and that their dumplings were just flour and eggs, rolled and dropped in the stew. Mostly though, I remember the yeast rolls. I rarely eat bread, yet I could have been happy that night eating nothing else, except for the fruit preserves that were served with them. They were light as mountain air and full of flavors that I normally associate with flours from heavier grains.
Of course, I got the recipe, and I’ll pass it on at the end of this story, but you might not know what I am talking about unless you go to Wendover to eat them. Seriously, I tried this at home, even after acquiring their special flour on the internet, but it wasn’t the same without the mountain altitude and the grace of Mary Breckinridge’s spirit.
After dinner we watched an old silent era movie documentary about the FNS. Early the next morning Linda and Carolyn were back in their kitchen, cheerfully making enough breakfast to feed a cavalry of nurse-midwifes, and their horses. There were half a dozen main dishes, but no yeast rolls. I began to suspect that the Big House was a medium for obsessions. Mary Breckinridge continued her mission here till 1965, riding horseback through the treacherous mountains even after breaking her back. I felt a similar compulsion taking over my body. Except all it wanted was more yeast rolls. It was time to go.
We headed toward Hazard, but Wro was disappointed. “Thunder Road” is now a divided four lane highway, not the twisted treacherous road he expected. We drove through “Tim Couch Pass,” which might be the world’s first topographical football pun, to Hazard.
(Passing through the Red River Gorge) I was happy the highways were stress-free. We made it by the Natural Bridge, the Red River Gorge and the Koomer Ridge without any white knuckles. So we arrived at Kathy’s Country Kitchen in Clay City ahead of schedule. Kathy’s Country Kitchen
Kathy Reed’s café draws people from several counties for her fried green tomatoes, pan fried chicken (Sunday’s only), catfish, home made potato chips and scratch made pies. Actually, they come for all kinds of country food, but those are the dishes I can remember. The catfish and the green tomatoes were as good as any I’ve had. Kathy told me that it’s a simple preparation - she whitewashes them in egg and milk, rolls them in seasoned Weisenberger’s flour and fries them in a tub of canola oil. When the kitchen is busy, they don’t even bother with a basket. We finished our fried food orgy, which also included onion rings, zucchini, pork tenderloin and mushrooms (plus some mustard greens and corn bread for a balanced diet) with chocolate pie. The Mistress of Red Lick Valley
Fortunately, the last part of our weekend was the easiest, just a short drive from Clay City in miles, but several times zones away in attitude. Snug Hollow sits in Red Lick Valley, just 20 miles east of Berea and an hour south of Lexington. It’s a country inn with a fat resume of accolades from bird watchers, star gazers and spiritualists on retreat. Best-selling author Gwen Rubio comes here to write. After she told Oprah’s TV audience about it, lots of others do too. Wro and I aren’t exactly into the stars, the birds or the calm, but even we responded to the good vibes that protect this special place.
(Friendly innkeeper Barbara Napier of Snug Hollow greets visitors) Innkeeper Barbara Napier is the mistress of Red Lick serenity. Even her Jack Russell terrier Hillary is mellow and Jack Russells usually just disembowel words or thoughts like mellow. Barbara has no cell phone service, no television and no air conditioning. We visited during a nasty heat wave, but we were never uncomfortable. The mountain air cooled the house quickly in the evening. We were forced to get outside and notice things that we normally would block out - horses running in the pastures, owls stalking smaller birds ominously, wildflowers peaking over garden crops, as if they could scare crows or deer away.
Barbara tries to keep a working organic farm, but that’s pretty nearly impossible in the mountains.
“Deer like to eat just about everything that I like. And they are hungrier than I am, so I just buy foods I would prefer to grow myself,” she admits. Organic, Sustainable Farms
Fortunately, the Berea area is filled with organic, sustainable farms and alternative lifestyles, so it’s no problem to supply her pantry with fresh and local foods raised by natural methods. She also keeps a lot of art around, mostly works of friends and neighbors. She’ll even sell most of those to her guests.
(Shirley's delicious Snug Hollow breakfast) It’s hard for manic city folk like us to grasp, but Snug Hollow is a destination inn. The idea, I was told, is to get in touch with your inner pioneer child. Barbara is better at that than I am. When I warned her about a herd of horses charging our golf cart, she just laughed and rolled her eyes. She takes such terrors of the hollow in stride, having overcome worse things, like bad husbands. One of those just disappeared one night and dumped over a million dollars of debt and law suits all over her serenity. She was forced to sell her business and her beloved property here. Then her banker said he didn’t want it, that she should just buy it back, however, whenever. Bankers aren’t like that in San Francisco.
She did and then she decided to build what is now the main cabin, for the purpose of opening an inn.
“I didn’t know anything about running an inn, but I knew how to cook and I raised children here, so I figured I could do it. I didn’t figure I’d get so much blessed help,” she said.
(And here is Wro himself, enjoying a Snug Hollow breakfast!) Barbara had stored so much good will operating her farm supply store in Berea that people wanted to help her, without being asked. They just showed and brought friends with them. One complete stranger, a master plumber, came down from Louisville and did all the plumbing for free. A friend built the kitchen the same way. The whole house was completed in less than six months. The Rhythms of the Lick and Hollow
There’s an aura here that allows even frantic folk to relax and notice the rhythms of the lick and hollow. So it was no trick at all for Barbara to keep our appetites content with a vegetarian menu, something that normally causes me to flee immediately. I think I already told you she could cook. We enjoyed a dinner of braided rosemary bread, heirloom tomatoes, fried okra and beans with greens, then cooked black berries with short crust and ice cream.
(Barbara Napier in her quaint dining room at Snug Hollow) The next morning, Barbara made oatmeal pancakes with gingered bananas and real maple syrup. Wro lounged around in his bathrobe until I began to suspect the entire Red Lick water supply had been polluted with antidepressant medications. Even after we left, it took a full day before either of us were able to get our blood pressure back to our usual levels.
Recipes
Big House Yeast Rolls
Half cup warm water 5 packages yeast, mix well
Add 4 cups warm water. Add one cup (Wesson canola) oil, then one cup sugar and 5 teaspoons salt.
Let set 15 minutes.
Add three fourths of a 5 pound bag of (Hudson Cream) Flour, a little bit at a time. Pour a fourth cup of oil over the dough and let sit 15 - 20 minutes. Punch the rolls to make them better. Melt half a stick of butter and half a cup of oil in a bowl. Wet your hands with butter and oil. Pinch off dough, flatten in palm of hand, then roll on your finger.
Bake at 325 F for 20 minutes or till golden.
Barbara Napier’s Rosemary Braided Bread
One and a half cups warm water 3 tbsp dry-active yeast 1 tsp honey Half tsp lemon juice 1 and a quarter cups olive oil 4 tsp salt 1 cup whole wheat flour Three and half cups all purpose flour 1 egg beaten Quarter cup chopped rosemary 3 tbsp chopped sage
In large bowl combine warm water, yeast, honey, lemon juice, one fourth cup olive oil, and salt. Add whole wheat flour and one cup all purpose flour. Stir and let stand 5 minutes. Add remaining flour until you can turn out dough onto floured board for kneading. Add small amounts of flour to the dough and knewd until dough is soft. Put a little olive oil on hands and knead until the dough pops up when punched. Leave the dough on the board, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 15 minutes. Divide dough into three sections. Roll each section into a long rope and braid the ropes into a loaf. Pinch ends and tuck under. Transfer to baking sheet and brush with beaten egg. Cover losely with plastic wrap and leave for 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 400F. Bake about 15 minutes, until golden. Mix together remaining one cup of olive oil, rosemary and sage. Pour over hot bread and serve warm.
Barbara Napier’s Cooked Blackberries & Short Crust
Crust Ingredients: 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour ¼ cup powdered sugar Pinch of salt 7 tablespoons cut pieces of butter, chilled 1 tablespoon cold water
Using a food processor, blend 1 ¼ c. flour, ¼ c. powdered sugar, and a big pinch of salt.
Add 7 T. of chopped butter and cut in using on/off course selection.
Add 1 T. of cold water and blend to make dough, be patient!. Using floured hands, press dough across bottom of a cake pan or cookie sheet. I score it so it breaks apart easily.
Bake shortcrust in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until lightly browned
Snug Hollow Oatmeal Pancakes (Yields 10 large pancakes)
Ingredients: 1 cup thick, rolled oats 1 cup all-purpose flour ½ cup whole wheat flour 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder Pinch salt 2 large eggs 2 cups milk (buttermilk) 2 tablespoons brown sugar 5 tablespoons butter, melted
In a large mixing bowl, add all dry ingredients: 1 c. rolled oats, 1 c. all-purpose flour, ½ c. whole wheat flour, 2 ½ tsp. baking powder, and salt. Mix well
In another bowl, beat the 2 eggs and stir in 2 c. of milk, melted butter and 2 T. brown sugar
Pour in the wet ingredients and stir well
Let mixture sit for 5 minutes and heat the griddle. (May add a little more milk if too dry)
Use cooking spray to resist sticking, and pour batter by the ½ c.
Pancakes are generally ready to flip when they first begin to bubble and stiffen on top (Heat pure maple syrup and garnish with gingered bananas)
Snug Hollow Gingered Bananas
Peel and slice a banana 1Tablespoon freshly grated ginger 2 Tablespoons butter Handful of brown sugar (3 T’s)
Melt butter in a medium sized skillet. Sprinkle in 1 T. of freshly grated ginger Add bananas and brown sugar. Stir and let simmer just a minute
If You Go… Southern & Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association Center for Rural Development 2292 South Highway 27 Somerset, KY 42501 877-TOURSEKY Beaumont Inn 638
Beaumont Inn Drive / PO Box 158
Meacham Country
Hams Frontier
Nursing Service Kathy’s Country Kitchen 20 Black Creek Rd Clay City, KY (606) 663-4179 Snug
Hollow Farm Bed & Breakfast 606-723-4786
| ||
 |
