Great memories you’ve shared. I agree about corn meal mush. Don’t know if you’ve tried it, but left over mush fried in a pan with bacon grease is another great country breakfast.
Fried fish breaded with corn meal is how we always had it when I was a kid. Flavor and texture are a great reward. Battered fish is good. Sure. But older ways are a treasure too. Those folks liked flavor just as much as we do.
Belgian endive is a quirky looking salad green.
Eaten raw it's a bit sweet and has a nice crunch for lo-carbers missing the cheese/cracker routine.
Just cut off the root end and remove the leaves singly.
Suggested serving. Accommodates an assortment of flavors.
It had to be fried with syrup on it. And I needed a whole panful just for me ;-) Maybe not quite a whole pan but it was molded in a loaf pan and sliced about 3/8" thick.
I did learn to dredge it in flour so it wouldn't stick to the pan (used my big alum skillet) but cast iron and today's non-stick ones would be ok. The flour made it brown and crisp up faster. I don't think my mom or my grandma did it though.
I settled for a mixture of butter and margarine, but bacon grease was THE best!
My ex came from a German background, and one of the few things I ever did that pleased him was cook him fried "grits". That's what they called it. I guessed from what he described what to do. Cook up some steel-cut oats with raisins in it. Then chill and just plop in a heated pan with hot grease and spread it out, didn't have to be even or fancy. Just get some of it browned. Then he ate it with syrup on it.
I got so I liked a bowl of the oats as a change from oatmeal, also mixed with corn meal, with milk and sugar, but I never did care for the "grits" with syrup although it was pleasant tasting enough.
Yes, memories. That old coffee mill or one like it ended up in the haymow of one of the farms. My granddaughter took a nice photo of it in 2005 but I don't think it's on this computer. OMG, I found it.
My sister ended up with that farm, so I don't know what became of the mill. I would have liked it but no good way to display/keep/store it and I never would have wanted to sell it.
