There were several contributions to the Yarbrough Family Cookbook from some of the more -- eccentric -- cuzzins, of Hogwaller Holler in Stumpjump, GA. Somehow, during the editing and review process, these recipes were mislaid, but surely not on purpose. There were some especially appealing concoctions, being even more traditionally "southern" than the most dedicated gray-coated rebel. Recently, while sorting through some old trash, these recipes were discovered. Although there are no plans to incorporate them into the cookbook, it seemed that it would be a downright shame not to make them available. So, here they are. Read carefully, as there are some particular and -- ummm-- peculiar instructions that are supposed to be followed exactly.
It might be a good idea to have plenty of Pepto Bismol, baking soda and whiskey on hand before trying any of these recipes. Better yet, try them on someone else first.
Alabama Barbequed Armadillo
Another culinary experience
This recipe was contributed by Unkle Highpockits Yarbrough
Yer astin' fer trubble if folks know how yew did this.
Git yerself one large Texas armadillo. Borrow or buy a small chain saw. Also, get a twelve pack of a favorite beer. Open beer,and drink it, start chain saw, and cut armored case of the armadillo along the spine. Open another beer. Drink. Spread armor with a couple of pry bars. Then, using a sharp Arkansas toothpick, remove body of armadillo from the armored casing. Drink another beer. Chop off head and tail with a hachet. Gut, and warsh thoroughly. Soak for 26.583 minutes in a sauce composed of white vinegar, a half can of beer, black pepper, salt, cayenne, a dollop of tabasco sauce, some onion and a tad of sage. Secure armadillo on a spit and place over a charcoal fire, rotating slowly. Drink another beer. Throw in a handful of hickory chips or hickory nuts from time to time. Drink more beer. Baste armadillo with the sauce frequently. Check how much beer is left. If there are only two cans left, then the armadillo is done. Drink the remaining two cans of beer, remove armadillo from spit and taste. If it tastes good, you've had enough to drink and can enjoy the armadillo.
Georgia Jaybird Pie
A culinary adventure
This recipe was contributed by Henery Cussed Yarber
If you aren't a shotgunner, forget this one.
Find a big pecan grove and ast with if'n yew kon take jaybirds with a 16 or
20 gauge shotgun. Number 7 shot is best. Collect 8 to 10 jay birds, skinning and gutting in
the field. Place birds in a plastic bag and ice down. Take home, rinse and cut into halves.
Boil in chicken stock, with a bit of parsley, basil, salt and pepper. Add a tad of marjoram,
if desired. When birds are cooked, pick meat from bones, and chop finely in a small food
processor or mince on a cutting board. Place into a prepared pie dish with pie crust,
adding cottage cheese, chopped onions, grated cheese and a sprinkle of Garrett's snuff.
Place top crust on top of the mess, punch a
couple of holes in the crust and bake in a pre-heated oven at 325.333 degrees until top
crust is a light tan. Remove, let cool. Serves six to eight tom cats, one beagle, or two
drunken uncles.
Kentucky Coyote Curry
A Desert Delight
Used by the Tubelo Tribe to Negotiate Casino Contracts.
Recipe contributed by Chief Ohmygosh Iberry.
For best results, a full growed coyote is reel gud, but two coyote pups will do. Git coyote (roadkill, trap, or
varmint rifle). Gut and skin the carcass, and fillet the meat from the legs and brisket area. Prepare a marinade of turpentine (two tablespoons),
black pepper (one teaspoon), red pepper (two teaspoons), dried onion powder (one tablespoon), one cup of red vinegar,
two cups of stale beer, and a cup of apple cider). Marinade meat for three or four hours, then prepare four cups of rice in a large
casserole dish. When rice is
about half cooked, add the coyote meat and two tablespoons of yellow curry powder, salt and some cumin. Let cook until done,
which is when the neighbors next door start calling 911. Let cool a bit, and garnish the top of the dish with scallions, wild onions,
or dandelion leaves. Serves several, and may be re-heated repeatedly. Said to be good for gout, chillblains, the ague, and when spread over
severe bruises causes immediate results.
Chief Iberry tells us that he has had many successful contract negotiations after serving a meal of Coyote Curry and Cactus Cognac.
Tennessee Goo Goo Pie
A taste of the rural South
Contributor either unknown or still running from the law.
Use no substitutes except as needed.
This reely gud stuf needs a dozen Goo Goo clusters, five moon pies, a half pint parched peanuts, three peaches and a rutabaga (any size). Let the Goo Goo clusters and Moon pies git to room temperature, and squish them into a uniform paste. Put in sum peanuts. Grate the rutabaga and add to the mess, hand mixing until everything is uniformly distributed. Pour or dip into a prepared pie crust/dish, and add sliced peaches on top. Place in a medium hot oven (435.27 degrees) for several minutes or until peaches turn crusty. Remove, let cool and add cool whip on top. Scatter some sliced pickled beets or cracklin's on the cool whip. Slice and serve to anyone foolish enough to try it.
In a pinch, a sweet potato can be substituted for the rutabaga, and instead of peaches, try over ripe persimmons or (in season) fresh pawpaws.
Louisiana Licorish Inside Out Cake
A remarkable concoction
Recipe contributed by Cuzzin Ribbin Yerby.
Closely held family secret for generations.
Ya gotta hev three pounds of licorish (either black or red), six boxes of Martha White Deluxe Supreme
Cake mix with self rising flour and extra stuff added (the yaller and white box, not the red and white one,
as it don't work nearly as good),
a dozen white leghorn hen eggs eight white duck eggs (the ducks are white, the duck eggs are whatever
color they come in), some little bitty marshmellers, a bag of cracked pecans, and some of them lifesaver
candies. Foller them directions on the Martha White cake mix box and add about half of the chopped up
licorish, eggs, but none of the egg shells (they gits in yer teeth) and cracked pecans. When the cake
parts are done, mix up the rest of the licorish in some chocolate icing and smear all over the cake.
Put them lifesaver candies on the top of the icing. Garnish with poke salat leaves and whatever flowers be bloomin'.
This recipe served my entire Nashjnal Guard company onct, and we had seven pounds of cake left over.
Mississippi Baked Possum
A culinary experience
This recipe was contributed by Anone Imoose Yarbrough
Git a growed up possum (don't use road kill, but hit'll do in a pinch).
Skin and gut, removing head and tail. Warsh thoroughly and then smear a lot of butter (no oleo but krisco’ll do in a pinch). Do the same with four good sized "yaller" sweet taters. Heat oven to 378.375 degrees F. Put possum on a rack above the sweet taters, in a baking pan (yew kin bbq hit on a trash can lid outdoors). Let the drippings from possum to splatter on the sweet potatoes. Bake until meat pulls away from the bone. Try the taters -- they should be soft. Remove sweet taters and possum and let cool a bit.
Throw away the possum, and enjoy the taters.
Arkansas Rattlesnake au Gratin
A taste of the exotic
This recipe was contributed by a former special forces major, Henry "Stinky" Yarberry.
Follow the first three steps carefully.
Yew gotta find a gud place fer really big rattlers -- diamondbacks is the best. Take a 12 guage shotgun, loaded with number 4 shot. When you find a gud rattler, carefully aim and blow its head off. Unload shotgun, place it bak in yer pickup, and then chop off the rattles -- you can dry them later and hang them from a string around your neck or attach then to the band of a hat (you can also give them to your girl friend/wife/sister, but they generally don't lik'um). Ice down snake and take home. Skin snake and gut. Rub with a mixture of butter, sage, a dollop of tabasco sauce, salt, red cayenne pepper, and lemon juice. Coil snake on hot barbeque grill and cook until done. Remove, let cool a few minutes, and remove meat from the snake's skeleton. Chop meat, and layer onto pre-cooked sliced potatoes and cottage cheese, on top of which some sharp cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese is added. Baked until cheeses melt into a soggy mess. Remove, let set until firm. Get shotgun, load with number 2 or larger shotshells, and hold on guests until they eat all but one portion. Give shotgun to nearest male adult, who will hold it on you until you eat the remaining portion. Drinks are on you.
Maryland Terrapin Stew
C'est magnifique!
Recipe provided by Jacques LeBlanc Yarbois
For this culinary thang, ya gotta hev five or six average sized terrapins. They are easily found -- drive along the back roads during the hot summer months and easily a half dozen will be found in the middle of the road. Exercise caution in collecting the slow moving critturs -- there are always some good ole boys trying out a new stump jumping four by four, and it is no fun dodging one.
Anyway, the easiest way to prepare the terrapins is to throw them in a kettle of boiling water. When the cartilige around the shell is loosened, remove the body from the shell, clean and rinse. A sharp knife is essential for this -- an arkansas toothpick is ideal, but a small filleting knife will work just as well. De-bone the meat, and prepare as one would lamb stew, except in this case, terrapin meat is substituted. It is well to add a small amount of basil or terragon, but avoid the bay leaf and fennel. A bit of mace helps, according to some devotees, but it is unclear whether it is the spice or the anti-personnel weapon that is meant. Either should work well.
Serve the stew with a side dish of stewed dandelion greens, pickled persimmons, and boiled cattail roots. Serves four to six, depending on how squeamish they are. For accompaniment, a dry elderberry wine is recommended, followed by some hundred proof white lightning.
Carolina Persimmom Pudding
From Aunt Dippy Yerborrow
A truly unique - ahh - arrangement
Right after the first frost of the year, git about a peck of ripe persimmons. Rinse in hot water, then mash them all up in a big bowl. The skins and seeds can be easily picked out and thrown away. Add just a dab of cider vinegar, enough sugar to satisfy, and a cup or two of buttermilk. A bit of butter will holp, too, or maybe sum lard. Sum people lak to add a bit of penner butter, too. My daddy liked to have about a cup or two of hard fried hog jowl all crumbled up in his pudding, too. Personally, I laks sum Brewton's snuff sprinkled all over the top. Spinkle in a tad of salt, some cinnamon and place in a pie pan that already has some crust in it. Ground up graham crackers can be used in a pinch in place of the pie crust.
Cover the mess with another piecrust or graham cracker crumbs, and bake at 380 degrees, more er less, until the top is brown and the insides are all bubbly. Set on a winder sill for a couple of hours, and then serve with apple cider, peach wine or some homemade whiskey. The pudding is very good for indigestion.
West Virginia Bat Wing Fritters
Contributed by Junior Luke Yerber
Tasty "Go-With" Snack
Find an old abandoned mine or a cave. Watch in the evenings at sundown to find out if bats lie in the cave; if they do, they will fly out to catch skeeters and other bugs. One evening git thar before the bats start coming out and lay a roll of netting on the ground at the opening of the cave (or mine). Make sure the netting is wider than the opening. Attach cords at the end on the netting, then drive in a couple of staubs at the top of the entrance (one on either side). Run a cord over each staub. When the bats start flying out, yank the cords so as to cover the opening. This way, there ought to be a dozen or so bats caught in the netting. Whck the li'l suckers over the head and remove the wings. It moight be necessary to catch bats two or three days in order to git enough bat wings to make a mess of bat wing fritters.
Take the wings home, wash and rinse real good. When you got enough to make a big mess of fritters, git a big iron pot full of hog lard going over an outdoor fire (or on the wood stove, ef you got one). Coat the wings in the smae kinda batter as chicked is fried in, and drop into the hot lard. Cook until crisp -- it won't take too long. Dip out, lay on paper towels to soak up the grease, and let cool. They go real well with a cold beer, either Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweiser.
Remember, yer Yankee kinfolk may not like them.
South Alabama Poke Salat
From Granma Yarboro's Cookbook
Wholesome natural greenery
Thar are meeny kinds of natcheral greens growing wild around most places. Dandylions, poke salat, and kudzu being the most common. Pick any of these while the shoot are still young and tender. A mixture of these three is especially good. Shred or chop more or less coarsely, mix up good, and make a salad dressing or just use mayonnaise woth some salt and pepper. Add some blackberries, chopped apples and some hickory nuts, and old man Waldorf hisself couldn't do better. If a real fancy presentation is needed, wilt the greens with hot lard first, then add the mayonnaise. An oil and vinegar dressing is good, but not with used motor oil -- it's too thick, smells bad and tastes porely.
Frikaseed Froglegs
Made up by Cuzin Jumpin' Jack Yerby
Finger Lick'n Gud!
Be shore 'n git yerself the regular big ole bull frogs from a goodly sized pond, p'haps a dozen ur so. Chop thar legses off right neer the body, and warsh real gud. Lay out sum cornmeal with sum salt and black pepper mixed in, along with a bit of buttermilk to hold things together. Roll the legs in the cornmeal. Heat up a batch of lard in a pot and drop the legs in. Let'm stay until done - yew kin tell if'ns the meat starts to come off'n the bones. Serve with biskits, either fresh made or cold -- hit don't matter -- and sum good cold beer. Ef'ns yew don't got beer, then cold buttermilk will do.
© Yarbrough National Genealogical & Historical Association, Inc. 2018
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