The question I am asked most frequently is “Which culinary school did you attend?” I went to the old-fashioned school of watching two fabulous cooks, asking questions, tasting and talking and talking and talking about what we were eating. My maternal grandparents were each gifted natural cooks. My grandmother did the Southern classics – fried chicken, rice and gravy, peas, corn, coconut pie, gumbo – better than anyone.
My Papaw was the adventurous eater. My great-grandmother had a fruit and vegetable store downtown. His job was to go to New Orleans to the French Market to buy fruits and vegetables for the store. He began driving to New Orleans and back when he was 16. In those days it was a 24-hour round trip. Talking to the vendors in the market and trying the food at the little cafes that surrounded the Market gave him a taste for the special flavors of the greatest food city in the country.
As an adult, Papaw had a location of his business in New Orleans. Going to New Orleans a day a week - now a four-hour round trip - gave him an opportunity to explore the city. He was an enthusiastic grocery store shopper and knew both the mom-and-pop stores as well as the first “supermarket” in New Orleans, Schwegmann’s. He passed this love on to me and I passed it to my son.
John Schwegmann took over Schwegmann’s Grocery and Bar, begun by his grandfather in 1869 in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. In 1946 John and his brothers Anthony and Paul opened the first Schwegmann Brothers Giant Super Market on St. Claude Avenue. These three brothers revolutionized grocery shopping. They introduced self-service to customers who were accustomed to having a clerk gather their grocery items. Shoppers were reluctant at first to push a cart around the store, but quickly adapted to the idea when offered a 10 percent discount for self-service shopping. In 11 years the Schwegmann stores were all over the city: a total of 18 stores and 5,000 employees. Their largest supermarket was on Old Gentilly Road. At the time of its opening it was the largest supermarket in the world - 300,000 square feet. It was such a sight that tour buses regularly drove past it.
When I was 5 years old Papaw took me to Schwegmann’s. These very many years later I can still smell it and see the enormous piles of artichokes, red onions and garlic. I heard foreign languages for the first time in my life: German, French, Spanish and the patois of the 9th Ward. The sight of all those fruits and vegetables is still with me - bright shiny purple eggplant, bright colors of bell peppers (Columbia only had green, fresh mushrooms of different kinds (Columbia only had canned at that time). It was a world away from Church Street Grocery.
My first cooking memory is making biscuits for my Papaw’s breakfast. My grandma tied one of her aprons up under my arms. She turned a chair around so that I could reach the counter. At that time I didn’t know that the most tender and flaky biscuits come from a dough that is barely handled. I kneaded and loved that biscuit dough until it was stiff and gray. What a brave man he was – eating, or pretending to eat – those little hard knobs that I had patted and loved into concrete.
When I was 13 Papaw brought me a “Gourmet” magazine from New Orleans. The subsequent subscription to that magazine changed my life. Through those pages I learned of a greater culinary world. I didn’t realize at the time that the writers of that day – James Beard, Chef Louis Szathmary, Leon Leonidies and so many others -- would become legends in my life time. I just knew they wrote of foods and places never heard of in Columbia. The magazine took me to the kind of restaurants I never knew existed. It took me to countries all over the world and taught me classic food preparation. It showed every month a table set with foods prepared for that photo shoot. There were articles written about a wide variety of subjects - living on an island in Maine, making couscous in Morocco, traveling through Norway to find special mushrooms. What a magic carpet “Gourmet” became for me. The magazine was closed by Conde Nast, the publisher, in 2009. My initial subscription was purchased in 1965. By 2009 I had been a happy recipient of “Gourmet” for 44 years. At 12 copies a year, this totals 528 magazines. I still have every one of them.
Grandma and Papaw were among the first in Columbia to have ETV in their home, and I watched every episode of Julia Child’s “The French Chef” with them. We took in each word, with Papaw saying that woman “surely did talk funny.” While we were watching Julia’s unusual cooking style, I was learning classic French cuisine. She taught me things I still use every day.
What a legacy. I think of them every time I taste something new, every time I try a new recipe, every time I eat something and attempt to replicate it. If my Papaw were alive, he’d be 112 this week. I so wish I could cook a meal for him, based on the things I learned from him. Believe me, it’s a long way from concrete biscuits. Happy 112th, Papaw – and thank you.
Rather than a recipe this week, I am going to pass along some of the things he taught me.
- The thinner onions are, the sweeter they are. Rather than buy a baseball-sized round onion, search out the flatter ones.
- The best avocados are not the big, shiny ones from Florida. The “alligator pear” or avocado is superior. Alligator pear refers to the dark green, bumpy skin.
- The best lemons are the ones with thin skins and tiny pores in the skin. They should feel heavy in your hand.
- Choose watermelons which “thunk” when tapped. Thunk is a distinctly hollow sound.
Fran Ginn is former chef/owner of The Back Door Café, who retired after 31 years in the food industry to be a grandmother. She can be contacted at fran@franginn.com.
