Shane Mitchell: A Casual Culinary Chat About Ride-Or-Die Joy Recipes

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Joy of Cooking Podcast

Episode: Shane Mitchell: A Casual Culinary Chat About Ride-Or-Die Joy Recipes
Date: October 1, 2025
Host(s): Shannon Larson, Megan Scott, Jon Becker
Guest: Shane Mitchell (Editor-at-large, SAVEUR; 5× James Beard Award winner)

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Episode Overview

This episode is a warm, freewheeling conversation that celebrates the heritage of American home cooking, family culinary legacies, and the recipes that stand the test of time. Shane Mitchell—a decorated narrative food writer—joins John Becker, Megan Scott, and Shannon Larson to reminisce about kitchen traditions, evolving food cultures, childhood favorites, and those inescapable “ride-or-die” recipes in the Joy of Cooking. From apple dumplings to matzo ball soup, Moravian chicken pie to boiled peanuts, this episode is a heartening love letter to the foods and stories that shape who we are in the kitchen.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Catching Up: What We’re Cooking Right Now

Timestamps: 01:27–06:16

• Shannon shares her summer of picnics, snack dinners, green chicken enchiladas, and a Hetty McKinnon vegan feast.
• Megan talks about foraging elderberries for her tincture and recipe testing Moravian chicken pie—a double-crusted pie with chicken and gravy, no vegetables.
• Jon recounts a tomato sandwich mishap with yellow tomatoes, which felt “uncanny valley territory” because they weren’t red.
• All hosts rave about the French Yogurt Cake (“whipped up in 10 minutes,” p. 734) as an ultra-easy, crowd-pleasing Joy recipe.
  • “Effortless. Easy and effortless.” – Megan Scott (05:49)

2. Welcome, Shane Mitchell

Timestamps: 05:49–13:09

• Shane shares her seasonal rituals: canning San Marzano tomatoes and foraging wild apples from roadside trees in northern NY, some of which become chutney.
• Story about a dog joyously eating a semi-fermented, frozen apple (“probably got a little tanked”, 07:40).
• Discussion of late-season garden crops, the self-seeding powers of shiso, and strategies for making small harvests special.

3. Regional Food Diversity & Immigration’s Flavor Revolution

Timestamps: 10:05–13:09

• Shane describes her region’s transformation from bland, heavy comfort foods (e.g., Chicken Riggies from Utica) to a multicultural food scene thanks to refugee communities from Laos, Vietnam, Sudan, and more:
  • “You can stand in the middle of that little grocery store... and see the world.” – Shane Mitchell (12:38)
• Shared parallels with Megan’s North Carolina upbringing and the infusion of global flavors over recent decades.

4. Culinary Memories: The Foods We Flee and Cherish

Timestamps: 13:09–23:01

• Shane stridently confesses her aversion to grits—“I hate grits”—citing childhood trauma and the rise of instant grits as a bland, postwar “lab” food:
  • “There's always one of those foods from childhood that you're just resistant to...” – Shane Mitchell (13:50)
• Historical deep-dive:
  • The invention of instant grits by Quaker Oats (1967), contrasted with ancient corn traditions.
  • Apocryphal tale of Spanish gold-hiding and how polenta was born in Italy.
  • Comparison of dent corn (Southern, for grits) and flint corn (Northern, for polenta), and the role of small-milling revivalists today.

5. Boiled Peanuts & Southern Identity

Timestamps: 23:01–30:07

• Shane explains “Hot Wet Goobers” (boiled peanuts)—a salty Southern snack with global twists as immigrant communities add their own versions. Tips for buying the best roadside boiled peanuts (Valencia over jumbo) and classic pairing with a glass-bottled Coke.
• Anecdotes about putting peanuts in soda (a North Carolina tradition), and quirky relatives' variations.

6. Defining 'Home'—Many Souths and Many Voices

Timestamps: 30:07–34:41

• Shane’s roots: coastal South Carolina (Edisto), with complex family history. Her connection to Gullah Geechee foodways, okra soup traditions, and a devotion to celebrating not the “old” but the “now” South.
  • “The South I like to celebrate... is the greater South. The South that’s the now South. I do not have any nostalgia about the old South at all.” – Shane Mitchell (28:15)
• The importance of recognizing the South’s multiplicity and amplifying new culinary voices:
  • Shoutouts to emerging and established writers and chefs like Amethyst Gannaway, Eric Kim, Obed Vallejo, Bintu Nadal, and the cross-cultural stories they bring.

7. Food Aversion: A Tale of Cod

Timestamps: 34:41–36:36

• Shane’s severe dislike of cod, following a bout of food poisoning in Portugal. Jokes about eating fermented Icelandic shark over cod.
  • “I’d rather eat shark... than cod.” – Shane Mitchell (33:36)

8. Personal Joy of Cooking Connections

Timestamps: 36:41–39:26

• Shane’s beloved editions: a battered 1943 copy from her husband’s grandmother (pages stuffed with handwritten recipes) and a 1975 edition once gifted to her “baby chef” brother—now reclaimed through their ongoing cookbook exchange.
• The sentimental power of cookbooks as artifacts of family and memory.
  • “It's a handwritten one... called Dressing for Turkey... it says Good Luck Mother on the back.” – Shane Mitchell (35:52)

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[AD BREAK] — Skipped in this summary

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9. Listener Q&A: Ride-Or-Die Joy Recipes

Timestamps: 39:26–53:03
Caller Carly from Kansas asks:
"If you had to pick a recipe from the book to be your ride-or-die, what would it be?"
Carly's go-to: the Banana Bread Cockaigne ("so delicious and easy").

Hosts’ Ride-Or-Die Picks:

• Shannon: Pizza dough and matzo ball soup (“the crinkliest, most disgusting pages in here” – 41:35), reflecting frequency of use and comfort.
• Megan:
  • Pancake recipe (“works every time”),
  • Olive oil cake (“so easy and delicious”),
  • Borscht, Cincinnati chili, Southern cornbread, muffins, mimosa pound cake (inspired by her grandma’s 7-Up pound cake).
  • “If I'm gonna make muffins, I use Joy of Cooking because they always turn out super tall and fluffy.” – Megan Scott (45:38)
• Jon:
  • Asopao de pollo (Puerto Rican chicken & rice stew),
  • Fannkuchen/Dutch baby pancake (childhood taste memory),
  • Country captain chicken (Charleston connection),
  • “Becker burgers” (family hamburger steaks, flavored with Worcestershire, soy, and Tabasco).
  • “They're just like, you know, basically a sauteed hamburger steak that gets lightly steamed...” – Jon Becker (47:54)
• Notable quote on recipe wear and tear:
  • “What are the crinkliest, most disgusting pages in here?” – Shannon Larson (41:35)
  • “That recipe got skewered by the New York Times.” – Megan Scott (48:45)

Guest’s Ride-Or-Die:

• Shane: Creamed chipped beef on toast—her birthday request as a child, representing nostalgia and comfort, even though chipped beef is now hard to find.
  • “There’s something about… that bechamel on top of salty… beef and just shitty white bread… It’s the one recipe I have bookmarked.” – Shane Mitchell (49:59)

Joy Recipe Shoutout:

• Apple Dumplings (p. 688) – Homey, classic, syrupy, and irresistible.
  • “They are fantastic. It feels very old fashioned in the best possible way.” – Megan Scott (52:44)
  • Serving tip: Try with vanilla ice cream for peak comfort.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On food aversions: “No matter what any chef does to it … there’s just such a huge wall of resistance.” – Shane Mitchell on grits (13:50)
• On the South: “There are many Souths, many little micro-cultures within the larger South.” – Megan Scott (27:52)
• On cookbooks as heirlooms: “This ‘43 treasure has a lot of favorite recipes tucked inside… this is ephemera.” – Shane Mitchell (35:50)
• On immigrant food impact: “You can stand in the middle of [Windfat market]… and see the world.” – Shane Mitchell (12:38)

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Other Fun Segments

• Hot Wet Goobers (Boiled Peanuts):
  • How to choose good peanuts, pairing with Coke, interstate rivalry, and quirky soda traditions.
• Cod, Shark, and Food Trauma:
  • Why a bad meal in Portugal can change a life (and a palate).
• Emerging Southern Voices:
  • Recommendations for food writers and chefs to follow (Amethyst Gannaway, Eric Kim, Bintu Nadal, Obed Vallejo, etc.).

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Intro & what we’re cooking | 00:38–06:16 | | Shane’s seasonal cooking & local apples | 06:16–10:05 | | Local food history/multicultural influx | 10:05–13:09 | | Food aversions, grits history/instant grits | 13:09–23:01 | | Boiled peanuts/“hot wet goobers” | 23:01–30:07 | | Defining “the South”; new culinary voices | 30:07–34:41 | | Cod aversion story | 34:41–36:36 | | Shane’s Joy of Cooking memories | 36:41–39:26 | | Listener call: Ride-Or-Die recipes | 39:26–53:03 | | Hosts’ Ride-Or-Die recipe picks | 41:35–53:03 | | Shane’s Ride-Or-Die: Creamed chipped beef | 49:04–50:18 | | Apple dumplings recipe highlight | 51:37–53:03 | | What we’re making next | 53:39–55:00 | | Where to follow Shane | 55:01–55:53 |

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Where to Find Shane Mitchell

• Instagram: @shanefarfield — not a frequent poster, not strictly food photos
• Writing: In the pages of SAVEUR magazine (now relaunched and thriving)
• Book: Crop Cycle (Essay Collection)

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Episode Takeaways

• Food memory—positive or negative—often sticks with us for a lifetime and shapes our comfort foods.
• The “Joy of Cooking” is a living document with personal meaning—its pages are a map of family traditions, easily splattered and lovingly dog-eared.
• American foodways are in constant evolution, driven by immigration, historical shifts, and local experimentation.
• Ride-or-die recipes—the ones we return to, share with friends, or make on tough days—tell our stories as much as any memoir.
• Community is built not just through sharing recipes, but by uplifting new voices and honoring the diversity within regions.

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Next Week

Topic: The best snack foods you can eat frozen (besides fruit).
To participate, call or text: 503-395-8858

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Recipe of the Week

Apple Dumplings
Joy of Cooking, page 688

• Whole apples, cored and filled with spiced butter-sugar, wrapped in pastry, baked in a silky syrup.
• Highly recommended with vanilla ice cream.

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For recipes, stories, and future episodes, follow at:

• joyofcooking.substack.com
• Instagram: @thejoyofcooking

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Support the show: Visit Patreon for bonus content and to help amplify independent food storytelling.

Transcript

[Shane Mitchell]

Sam.

[Shannon Larson]

Welcome to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Each week we set the table for a discussion about recipes and stories from the authors of the Joy of Cooking, kitchen victories and misadventures, and what we're cooking and eating right now. We're glad you've joined us at the table today. I'm Shannon Larson, home cook, Joy of Cooking user and fan and summer picnic enthusiast.

[Megan Scott]

I'm Megan Scott, co Author of the 2019 edition of the Joy of Cooking. The I'm a food editor by day and avoider of dish duty by night. And garlic cloves need to be larger, so if someone could get on that, I'd be much obliged.

[Jon Becker]

I'm Jon Becker, 4th Generation Co author and steward of the Joy of Cooking, America's oldest family run cookbook. And when left to my own devices and, you know, relative privacy, I will slather my morning toast with fried chili paste instead of jam.

[Shannon Larson]

I like it.

[Megan Scott]

What have you been up to this week, Shannon? I saw that you did go on a picnic.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah. And I haven't been on as many picnics as I normally go on every summer, and I'm going to change that for the rest of September. That's what I've decided. So I've already got a plan in place to have like, a different one at the bluffs and all of these things. It's also a chance to eat my favorite kind of dinner, which is just snack dinner.

[Megan Scott]

Yes.

[Shannon Larson]

You know, all of the little yummy things. We also had a ton of tomatillos in the garden, so we made green chicken enchiladas for dinner and had enough to freeze. So I'll be looking forward to that in the winter. And then last night we had some friends over for a vegan feast, and I did all Hetty McKinnon recipes and just, I mean, they're mostly vegetarian anyway, so it's easy to veganize them.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah.

[Shannon Larson]

And that was just fun to pick one recipe writer and just go with, like, all of that person's dishes. I kind of want to do that more often. I thought it was just like a fun thing to, I don't know, put together.

[Jon Becker]

It's funny you mentioned that we went to, like, a Hetty McKinnon festival.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, really?

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, it was at our friend Celeste's backyard. Everybody brought Hetty McKinnon recipes.

[Shane Mitchell]

They're so good.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, they're really good. I feel like they're also, I mean, I know they're not necessarily, but they feel summery. It's like the food I want to Eat in the summer.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah. A lot of tomatoes, a lot of, like, fresh herbs.

[Megan Scott]

Mm.

[Shannon Larson]

And I find her recipes easy to follow and fun to follow. I don't know.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, I like her style. Hetty McKinnon Fan Club.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah, seriously. We'll make buttons.

[Megan Scott]

Let's see. This week has been kind of an off week for me, cooking wise. Just not a ton going on. But I did make my annual elderberry tincture this week, which was really fun. I love doing that. And I. I love this year. We were on the way back from the coast, and our friend was driving, and I was like, if you see an elderberry, this. That still has the berries. Cause it's a little late for them now. But I was like, if you see one on the side of the road and it's safe to pull over, please stop the car.

[Shannon Larson]

John is shaking his head right now.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, the narrator voice. It was not safe.

[Megan Scott]

It was perfectly safe. It was fine. She did stop on the side of the road, and we got plenty of elderberries, so that worked out really well. And now I have that for the winter. And I've also been developing a Moravian chicken pie recipe.

[Shannon Larson]

Is that the one without gravy or something?

[Megan Scott]

It's the one without vegetables. That's right. No vegetables. So just a crust, double crust, and a chicken in a chicken gravy. The only seasoning is salt and pepper. Very simple, very homey.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah. No, gravy would be too spartan, even. Even for a. Gotta have gravy Now.

[Megan Scott]

Don't be silly. But, yeah, that's kind of what we've been up to. Did you have anything to add, John?

[Jon Becker]

I made a tomato sandwich, but a classic tomato sandwich the other day. Like, a whole tomato on the sandwich. But for some reason, it was uncanny valley territory because it was a yellow tomato. I don't understand, like, why it didn't work.

[Shane Mitchell]

I mean.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah.

[Shannon Larson]

Wait, it didn't work.

[Shane Mitchell]

It.

[Jon Becker]

It did. Okay, fine.

[Megan Scott]

I think it's just a mental thing. Those tomatoes taste really good. We got some yellow. They're very pale yellow. Flying coyote. Yeah, they're from our csa. They're really good. The flavor is great.

[Shannon Larson]

They're so good. That's what I used in our tomato dumpling salad last night.

[Megan Scott]

Awesome. Yeah. I mean, we still have a couple that we need to use, so probably do that. But I think it's just a brain thing. Like, my brain wants a red tomato on the tomato sandwich. It feels wrong somehow.

[Shannon Larson]

It had a little bit of, like, pink in the middle, though. I think that counts.

[Jon Becker]

Oh, well, I mean, mine did not, but.

[Megan Scott]

And then we also made our Joy Scouts recipe of the week, which is the French yogurt cake on page 734. It's such a good and easy recipe. I probably whipped it up in maybe, I want to say, 10 minutes. It's super fast and it's really. It's kind of like a French pound cake. It's not quite as dense as pound cake. It doesn't have that same sort of like velvety texture, but it's close. And it's got this crunchy sugar topping on it that's really delicious. So I highly recommend everyone make that. It's a very solid, very solid Joy recipe.

[Shannon Larson]

I will add, I am not a baker. Not a baker. I made this and I took it into work for a client breakfast. We had clients actually come in for meeting, which is rare right now because everybody has meetings on like teams or zoom. It was a hit. I paired it with some quince jam that I had in my pantry and everyone was like, what is this cake? And it took me almost no time the night before. So add that to your. Like you want to impress people. Yeah, exactly.

[Megan Scott]

Effortless. Easy and effortless. We would like to welcome our guest, Shane Mitchell to the table. Shane Mitchell writes narrative nonfiction and cultural criticism. She is the editor at large for Saveur, which publishes equal portions her column on food activism and mutual aid. She has received five James Beard Awards. Earlier this year, her essay collection, the Crop Cycle was long listed for the Pen America Art of the essay prize. Shane, welcome to the podcast.

[Shane Mitchell]

Hi. Thank you so much.

[Megan Scott]

What have you been cooking this week that you're excited about?

[Shane Mitchell]

Well, speaking of tomatoes, it's end of tomato season here in northern New York and I have two bushels of San Marsanos on order from a farmer neighbor that I'm gonna can for winter. I can tomatoes every winter to make pizza and spaghetti sauce and add to stocks and stews. And it's also apples are about to hit the stands here, but we have a lot of half wild trees along the road pretty much anywhere someone threw an apple one hundred or fifty years ago. And a lot of the time I like to gather them up to make chutney. There's some very old, very weird varieties. So that's kind of what we're about to eat. There's just something about this time of year. There's a sort of transition going on. The nights are cold, but I'm starting still can hear crickets outside my kitchen window where I'm sitting right now. And so that's kind of what we're eating at the moment.

[Megan Scott]

Do you ever use those funky old apples to make cider?

[Shane Mitchell]

Oh, no. But every now and then, it starts to snow early here. We often have trick or treaters show up in snowsuits. So, you know, after one of those freaky snowstorms, there's still apples on the ground. And one of my puppies once dug a frozen one out of the snow, and I remember the ecstasy on her face as the frozen juice gushed from her jaws. It was just. Was probably fermented, so she probably got a little tanked.

[Jon Becker]

I'm sure that was extra adorable.

[Shane Mitchell]

Oh, yeah, it was. It was.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. I was curious what's growing this time of year in northern New York. I've honestly never been there, so I don't really have a frame of reference.

[Shane Mitchell]

Our zone is three and a half, and you never plant anything before June. And you better pull everything in by mid September because frost starts. So it's the tail end of things right now. There's, you know, outside right now. The last of my herbs are still edible. I have one shishito one, and I also have one rogue shiso that my sister gave me, and she said, don't let the seeds get anywhere. And of course, the seeds got everywhere, so I'm just holding off to harvest that because I need some shiso ideas, and so that's kind of what's left.

[Jon Becker]

Love shiso. I'm not exactly sure how many ideas to offer except for, like, I like to use it in place of basil in a few select things, but, yeah, love it. But, yeah, it does. It does self seed quite effectively, and at least it has for us.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, our plants are just now starting to look really nice. So I think we still have about a month, though, before they'll go away. Your shiso plants?

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, I've had them tempura battered and fried in Japan, but just, you know, there's just one plant right now, and so that's about 10 leaves. There's not much to it, unfortunately.

[Shannon Larson]

You have to make sure whatever you make with it is, like, super special.

[Megan Scott]

Are there any foods or any dishes that are particular to your part of the country that you think don't get enough recognition?

[Shane Mitchell]

Oh, wow. Okay. So the interesting thing about this area is that it's a very old area as far as trade is concerned. So I live on a feeder canal for the Erie Canal, which obviously was used to transport goods, you know, back and forth from, like, New York City all the way to the Great Lakes. The earlier populations who settled here after the revolution were Palatine Germans. There were a lot of Irish laborers. There were a lot of Italian laborers who came. The population also had a lot of Polish workers. So there was a lot of heavy, meaty pasta foods to begin. One of the famous ones from Utica, which is the nearest city to me, is something called chicken riggies, which is essentially rigatoni with chicken in it. And when I first moved up here about 30 plus years ago from New York City, you couldn't get cilantro. There was no sushi. There's still no sushi. But. But I had to bring things up, like I had to actually carry cilantro up or I would have to grow it. There was no decent bread unless it was squishy and white. So what was interesting to me was observing a transition of the food in this area from pretty bland, pretty comforting, no spice, no heat, to all of a sudden, this diaspora that opened up because Utica became essentially a sanctuary city and became a refugee center. So we had waves of new residents arrive, including populations from Laos, Vietnam, Bhutan, Sudan, Somalia, Bosnia, the Dominican Republic, and it goes on. There's about 40 languages spoken in the local schools system now. And you can get all these diverse foods now. And there's tiny little grocery stores that specialize. There's one called Windfat where everybody goes on Wednesdays because they go down to Hunts Point Market once a week to get fresh fish. And you can stand in the middle of that little grocery store on Bleecker street in Utica and see the world. So for me, that's kind of an exciting change to have the world come here. It's very, very cool.

[Shannon Larson]

I love that so much.

[Megan Scott]

That kind of sounds like where I grew up, really. As you know, I was describing the Moravian chicken pie earlier. A lot of the foods of that particular area, not super. I mean, I grew up with them, so I love them, but not the most flavorful foods. But in the intervening years now, you know, you can easily find, like in Greensboro, a Vietnamese market and a Chinese market and a lot of Mexican grocery stores. And that's been a really interesting transformation to watch. So in preparation for this episode, we read several essays in your book, Crop Cycle. And I gotta ask you, you. You say that you hate grits. Let's talk. Let's talk about that.

[Shane Mitchell]

Oh, man, I hate grits. You know, there's always one of those foods from childhood that you're just resistant to. And no matter what any chef does to it or what Eddie Miller creates from or you know, some heirloom grain, it's just. It's just never going to get on the plate. There's just such a huge wall of resistance. Part of it is texture, part of just memory of my mom making me sit at the table until I ate it. And I just would refuse. I'd sit there until noon.

[Megan Scott]

They don't improve on the plate over time.

[Shane Mitchell]

They did not improve on the plate. So, yeah, it's sort of a metaphor for certain. Certain things that I find objectionable in the food space. So I wear that flag.

[Megan Scott]

Like those.

[Shannon Larson]

Are fighting words around. Megan. It feels like I actually grew up.

[Megan Scott]

Pretty much only eating instant grits, which is something you write about. That instant grits are so ubiquitous because they do take. I mean, they take a long time to cook. I mean, I didn't hate them, but I really, really didn't care for them at all. It was just something I would not normally choose to eat until as an adult. I had grits that were made from, you know, actually good cornmeal and. Or good corn and flavorful varieties of corn and cooked really long and slow. Those are delicious, but you almost never get to have those.

[Shane Mitchell]

Right.

[Megan Scott]

Could you tell us a little bit about. You write in your book about how like instant grits were created.

[Shane Mitchell]

Essentially it was one of those post war convenience foods that showed up and it was created basically in a lab. This is not. This had nothing to do with an actual food product. Okay. Yeah, so 1967, and it was produced for the Quaker Oats Company. I guess the point is that there is such a long journey from the history of actual corn product being cooked. When corn was first milled in Central America around about 8 to 9,000 years ago. So you have this long history of, of people eating delicious corn and corn meal product up to 1967, when you get this instant stuff and it has no bearing whatsoever, has none of the flavor, none of the character, as you say. Megan, to cook proper grits, you have to cook it a really long time. Instant grits was a convenience food. It was made and designed to be ripped open, dumped in a pot, stirred three times and then stuck on a plate, preferably with something on top like some gravy or some kind of fried meat or some kind of scrambled eggs or whatever person who was preparing breakfast for people who were running out the door to whip into their mouths and go. So you get a real sort of cultural break and dissonance from that time period to now when there's been a renaissance of small batch milling and heirloom corns. So we're getting back to that sort of original idea of a corn meal product that you would actually want to stick in your mouth.

[Jon Becker]

Did. Has polenta, like, avoided, you know, that kind of. That childhood association with instant grits. Or do you kind of lump. No pun intended. Lump it together with the grids?

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, I love. There's an apocryphal story about polenta that has no documentation whatsoever, but it is one of my favorite stories, which has to do with the transatlantic Colombian exchange. When you look at what the Spanish were doing in Central and South America at the time that their gold ships, what they were doing was they were traversing the continent, snatching up all the gold that they could sticking in in these ships and transporting them to Venice, which was at the time the banking capital of the old world. However, every now and then, the Spanish galleons would be raided by mostly British buccaneers and privateers who wanted the gold. And again, this is all apocryphal. It's just kind of a folktale. So what the Spanish would do is hide the gold in the bulk carrier part of the ships, you know, what they call the hold. And they'd cover it with corn cobs. They'd cover it with corn cobs. And whenever a pirate would stop them on the high seas, the pirates would board, and the Spanish would let them look in the hold and they'd say, oh, we've just got a load of corn we're taking to Europe. And the privateers supposedly would go, oh, well, we don't want that stuff, and leave. And the Spanish would continue on draft their gold in Venice. And the Italians, being frugal, people said, well, what's this other stuff? What's the stuff covering the gold? And the Spanish said, well, we don't care about that. You can have it. And the Italians, eventually the Italians, the Venetians. That's how corn got to the old world, and that's how polenta came into being.

[Jon Becker]

Well, as apocryphal food stories go, it sounds just as plausible as the other ones. I mean, origin stories tend to be, like, kind of tall.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, Origin stories with a lot of food are. Are difficult because we just don't have the records. And it's something that a lot of people didn't think was important enough to write down, I guess.

[Shannon Larson]

And yet I love listening to these stories.

[Megan Scott]

I know. And, you know, we kind of went down the rabbit hole with different varieties or different types of corn when we were working on the 2019 Joy of Cooking because it gets a little hairy because you're talking about, you know, flint corn versus dent corn. And what does that mean? What kinds of things are. How are they different? What are they used for?

[Shannon Larson]

What are, what does that mean?

[Megan Scott]

Well, so dent corn is most commonly used for, like, cornmeal for grits. And then flint corn is more commonly used for polenta. However, I think in our research, we found that wasn't always necessarily consistent.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, it was a little messier than that.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, it's. It's messier. I mean, that's a nice way to think about it. But flint corn is really, really hard. It's much harder than dent corn. I think you actually had a. Did you write down the quote from the essay about that, John?

[Jon Becker]

Well, yeah, I kind of had an aha moment because it just reminded me of the conversations or researching we did with grits versus polenta. But you talked to Greg Johnsman at Marsh Hill Mills. Is that Marsh Hill?

[Shane Mitchell]

Marsh Hen. Marsh hen.

[Jon Becker]

Marsh Hen Mills. Sorry.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah.

[Jon Becker]

But yeah, you know, he was just talking about, like, the practicality of milling, like in the south, what he said this is the worst place in the world to mill with the humidity and everything. And I had heard in the past that in our researching, one of the big differences between grits and polenta is that, you know, polenta is milled multiple times and that so you get kind of a more consistent particle size.

[Shane Mitchell]

And.

[Jon Becker]

And so then it kind of just clicked, was like, oh, yeah. Well, that's why that's probably the big cause of the difference between polenta and grits and that. And of course, the flint versus dent corn.

[Shane Mitchell]

Well, there's also, I mean, flint corn is. Has a harder shell, so it takes more milling. But it's also that flint corn varieties typically were grown more in the northern climates. The dent corns were grown down South. And so that's why you see a difference in milling techniques from, you know, southern mills versus northern mills, but also just what you would use them for.

[Megan Scott]

And I have to put in a little plug for my favorite source of cornmeal, which is farm and sparrow. And they're located in Mars Hill, North Carolina, and they sell a couple of really, really awesome varieties of. You can get it ground as cornmeal, as grits, or as polenta. So they're. They're actually claiming that they grind. They will grind it to order, and it is very fresh and delicious and it makes great cornbread. But I also wanted to bring up, there's an essay in crop cycle called Wet Hot Goobers. And I love that title so much. Can you talk a little bit about what a goober is?

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, actually it's hot wet goobers.

[Megan Scott]

Hot wet goobers. Sorry.

[Shane Mitchell]

That's okay. Hot wet goobers. So hot whipped goobers are essentially boiled peanuts. And boiled peanuts are something I grew up eating because it's kind of like the South's potato chip. You see them at baseball games, you see them at church suppers. You find them on boilers on the roadside. There's favorite grocery stores that have them. And then it's also, again, this sort of fascinating cross cultural thing because so many diverse populations in the south now have brought their version of boiled peanuts to the South. I think specifically of like the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans. But I mean, everybody has their version of boiled peanuts. If the only way you've ever had peanuts is in butter, you're not going to really understand that. Peanuts are a legume. And they lend themselves to being boiled, to being cooked, not just roasted and ground. So there's a joy in having driven on a long journey between, like. Often I drive between Charleston and Savannah, and I know the boiled peanut stands all the way down Highway 17. So I will pull over, buy hot boiled peanuts. Hot wet peanuts. And they're really salty, they're really intense. You have to use your one hand while you're driving and use your other hand to pop the actual peanut out of the shell. Some people will just use their teeth and pull from the shell. But the best way to eat Hubble peanuts is to stick. Stick them in a bottle of cold, fizzy Coke.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, really?

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah. So you get both the salty, chewy and the sweet and fizzy together. The only problem is, is it can go up your nose. So you're gonna do too much.

[Shannon Larson]

I'm going to Savannah for the first time this year, and so I'm taking notes on keep an eye out tips and tricks.

[Megan Scott]

Look at convenience stores.

[Shannon Larson]

Okay.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, gas stations. A lot of the time, at least in my experience, gas stations will have like a crock pot. A crock pot of hot wet goobers.

[Shannon Larson]

And get a Coke.

[Megan Scott]

My mom talks about she did the, when she was little, she would do the peanuts and Coke thing. But I don't know if they just didn't have the boiled peanuts as readily available, but she would get like a little packet of just salted roasted peanuts and then dump them all. Like you take a swig out of the Coke bottle, you dump them all in and kind of let them get, you know, mixed around in there. And then you have the Salty, sweet Coke. And then at the bottom of the bottle, you've got these nice, softened, softened peanuts.

[Shannon Larson]

I have never heard of this before, and I am so fascinated.

[Shane Mitchell]

Where. Where was your mom from, though?

[Megan Scott]

Just outside of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

[Shane Mitchell]

Okay. It's a North Carolina thing. I've heard this before, but yeah. The other thing you want to be careful about is don't buy a Ziploc bag of peanuts that are sitting in the refrigerator case. Make sure they're hot, which some grocery stores and some gas stations do have them in a crock pot. But your best bet is just to, like, start asking people along the way who makes the best boiled peanuts. And, you know, the real aficionados look for the small Valencias rather than the jumbos, because the jumbos can be kind of flowery, too chewy. The Valencias tend to salt clings to them better. So that's what I'd recommend as far as boiled peanuts. But. But I will say the Coke has to be in a bottle, and it has to be, you know, the real deal, rocket fuel. No messing about with diet or cherry or anything like that. Or Coke zero bl. So. But also I will say that older generations used to do this with other sodas besides Coke. I mean, my dad loved Grape Knee High, so that was his favorite combinations, Boiled peanuts and Grape Knee High, which is hard to get these days, I think.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah. Maybe you should experiment.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah. Maybe get some Cheer Wine.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, Cheer Wine.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah. Cheer Wine's real good. Absolutely.

[Shannon Larson]

I'm going to Savannah with my mom, who does not eat peanuts or drink soda. So she's going to be like, what are we doing here? I'm excited.

[Shane Mitchell]

More for you.

[Megan Scott]

Exactly. So one of the things I kept thinking about as I was reading your book is that, you know, people think about the south as this monolithic place, but really there are many Souths, many little micro cultures within the larger South. What characterizes your South? What is the South? I know you didn't grow up in the south, but your family is from the South.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, my family's deeply from the South. It's a very complicated history. My family's history, and I address that in the crop cycle. But my family is coastal South Carolina for the most part, although my mom's family is Tennessee as well as South Carolina. So both mom and dad have roots in South Carolina. And the part of that that I gravitate most to and appreciate the most is the Sea Islands. My family was centered on an island called Edisto, which is about an hour south of Charleston. So there's a lot of intersection with the foods that I grew up eating that relate to a lot of my colleagues now who are from the Gullah Geechee culture. And we all have this interesting dialogue about those foods. Recently, Laverne and Marvette Megat were up here at my house because they were going to the National Women's Museum for an event which is over in Seneca Falls. So they hauled up, I'd say, about five pounds of okra from one of the farms on Edisto to make okra soup here in my kitchen. So for me, that's the south that I'm from, but the south that I like to celebrate when I write about it, whether it's for the better Southerner or for savor or speak about it in events, has to do with the greater South. The South. That's the now South. I do not have any nostalgia about the old south at all.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, I feel like that is something that comes through really, really beautifully in your writing. You don't shy away from that complexity. And there's not a lot of. I feel like there are a lot of really kind of saccharine stereotypes about the. The south. And it is a very special place, and it's dear to me because I grew up there. But it does feel like whitewashing. But I'm really glad that more and more writers are tackling the history and also the legacy of the history that still is with us.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, it's really important. I'm very lucky to say that one of my roles is being able to help certain new voices get attention without being a gatekeeper of any kind. I just am looking to expand that dialogue in important ways. So it's been a great joy to be able to say that I've had a chance to do that.

[Megan Scott]

What new writers and new voices. Can you share any of those with our listeners in case folks want to learn more?

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, sure. Well, for instance, there's a young gal in Charleston. She's from North Charleston. Her name's Amethyst Gannaway. She's just gotten her first book deal.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, nice.

[Jon Becker]

That's great news.

[Shane Mitchell]

Really, really fantastic that she's come and is working really hard to do an incredibly interesting book that's essentially looking at nose to tail eating in the South. There's. Oh, my gosh, there's so many. Eric Kim is a great friend who's at the New York Times. I think what he writes about his roots in Atlanta is extraordinary and compelling and delicious. I mean, it's so exciting. There are so many chefs who have Hispanic influence. And there's a couple of chefs. There's Obed Vallejo, who is at Maest de la Vida in Nashville. And I worked with him on a project last year that was encompassing different interpretations of fish on Friday in different cultures and in different religions. I was very excited to hear what he was telling me about growing up in Florida in cattle country. I was like, oh, wow. I didn't realize that Florida was a cattle town, cattle ranching area. Turns out it is. There's so much exciting, you know, stories to be able to tell. I was just on the phone the other day with Bintu Nadal of Atelier Bintou. And Bintou is originally from Senegal, but she, in a convoluted way, wound up in Charleston. And we were talking about the connectivity of the foodways in Senegal and in the low country of South Carolina. So that kind of gives you an idea of some of the voices that you should be listening to right now.

[Megan Scott]

I love that. Thank you. I love a bibliography.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah. Speaking of fish on Fridays, one thing that you put in our questionnaire that I just have to ask you about is you said that you have an aversion to cod and. I don't know, as long as there's no parasite talk.

[Shane Mitchell]

No, it was really bad cod in Portugal. Let's just say it came out every day. Hole in my body.

[Jon Becker]

No.

[Shane Mitchell]

You know, four days on the floor, I've never. I can't even, like, see it on somebody else's plate. And, you know, there's so much great stuff. You know, you can't have really good fish and chips without cod. I go to Iceland a lot because I have a lot of friends there, and they joke with me about it. I'm just like, no, I'd rather eat shark. You know, it's just, you know, the Harl Carl, which is the fermented shark up there. Then getting your cod.

[Megan Scott]

Strong words.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, those are. Those are very strong words. I had the privilege of trying. Trying some of that once, and, yeah, that's very, very strong.

[Shane Mitchell]

It's intense, but that's the Icelandic for you. They like intense things. But, yeah, no, unfortunately, cod will never be on the menu in my house ever again.

[Megan Scott]

I mean, food poisoning will change a person.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah, it does. It does indeed.

[Megan Scott]

One thing we ask all of our guests, Shane, is what is your relationship with the joy of cooking?

[Shane Mitchell]

Ah, okay. So my relationship with the joy of cooking is. I have two copies. The first is the 1943 edition, which belonged to my husband's grandmother. Her name was Margaret Quackenbush, but they called her Mimi. And the backboard has separated. I guess the glue is gone. So I hold the covers together, usually with a rubber band. And this 43 treasure has a lot of favorite recipes tucked inside for things like curried eggs and ham loaf and lime cheese ring and something called Golden Buckle, which was scribbled on the back of a canasta score sheet. And one of the favorite ones that I love is. I mean, this is ephemera. It's not actual recipes. Although you apparently have several different ham loaf recipes in the 43.

[Jon Becker]

That sounds right.

[Shane Mitchell]

It's a handwritten one that I found called Dressing for Turkey. And it must be from her Mimi's mother, because it says Good luck, Mother on the back. That's the one. And the Second is the 1975 edition which I inscribed to my baby chef brother Jamie in 1975. And I think I gave it to him for Christmas. This is before he became a chef. He was starting to think about what he wanted to do with his career. He would still have been in high school then, but I guess I stole it back from him because I have it now.

[Jon Becker]

He became a chef, you know, I guess he didn't need it anymore.

[Shane Mitchell]

Well, we have this crazy sort of cookbook exchange between the two of us, because I get stacks and stacks and stacks of cookbooks, and we can sort of. See that's just what's in the kitchen. I mean, there's two other rooms dedicated to books. You know, whether it's my research books or the Southern books or just the stack of current books. Like I'm about to start reading Ruby Tando's All Consuming.

[Megan Scott]

I'm very excited to read that.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah. Yeah, me too. Especially the US Edition bubble tea cover. So we. We trade cookbooks back and forth. Mostly I'm just giving them to him, but whenever I'm at his house in Newport, I scan them and go, wait a minute. The Ben Shuri Attica book is now $300 at Kitchen Arts and Lever. I'm stealing that one.

[Shannon Larson]

Smart.

[Shane Mitchell]

So Those are my two Joy of Cookings.

[Megan Scott]

Did we not send you a 2019?

[Shane Mitchell]

No, I don't have a copy.

[Jon Becker]

Well, have to. Rexplay.

[Shannon Larson]

I'll stick it on your list.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, I feel like we sent one to your nephew. I think that was.

[Shane Mitchell]

You did. Thank you so much. Yeah, he still gets a bulk of those cookbooks that I stack up. He's 17 and he's quite a cook now.

[Jon Becker]

Awesome.

[Megan Scott]

Tell him we said hello.

[Shane Mitchell]

I Will. I will. He's also named Shane.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, nice.

[Sarah Marshall]

Oh, hello. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about an easy way to enhance your meals, whether they are a healthy vegan grain bowl or that late night snack we'll pretend didn't happen the next day. And that easy way is Marshall's haute sauce. For 15 years, chef and cookbook author Sarah Marshall has been hand making and bottling these delicious sauces. She works directly with local farmers and highlights the lovely flavors of fresh seasonal produce. They're gluten free. There are no additives, dyes, waxes or binders. And they have mouth watering combinations like serrano ginger, lemongrass or habanero carrot curry or even whiskey smoked ghost, which was featured on Hot Ones. So head on over to marshallshotsauce.com that's marshallsh a u t e s a u c e dot com and see all the available sauces and spice blends. Oh, that's right. Sarah's created spice packets by dehydrating and freeze drying actual produce so you can impart flavor to your food with more vegetables. But that's a story for another day. Find all of these delicious creations@marshallshot sauce.com and enter Haute Joy. That's one word, capital H A U T E capital J.J. o Y one word at checkout for 20% off. That's haute joy at checkout for 20% off. And now back to the show.

[Megan Scott]

So each week we answer a caller question and this week we are going to talk about Ride or die Joy recipes. Sarah, can you play the question please?

[Carly]

Hi, my name is Carly, I am from Kansas and I'm leaving a comment for the Joy of Cooking. I just wanted to say thank you for this podcast. It's brought a lot of reinvigoration to my love for cooking as I've become a mom in the past four years. I've had three kids in the past four years, so cooking has been good but hard in lots of different ways. But my question is, if you had to pick a recipe from the book to be your ride or die, what would it be? So, like, this is the recipe you're definitely making to take to the potluck, or this is the recipe you want to share, I don't know, with your mom or your friends or your other foodie lovers, or this is the, this is the thing you're definitely making for the family next door that just had a baby and you want to bring them a meal or just something from the book. I think for me, currently my Ride or Die recipe out of the book is the banana bread cockney. I hope I'm saying that right. I love the banana bread recipe. It is so good. And I've shared it with probably about 10 people because I'm like, you gotta make this banana bread. It is so delicious and easy and simple. And my kids love it and my husband loves it and I love it. So I was wondering if there are other recipes that you guys would recommend to be a Ride or Die or, you know, just something different. But I just wanted to thank you and that I really enjoyed the podcast.

[Megan Scott]

All right. Our Ride or Die Joy recipes. Shannon, I kind of want to hear what you have to say first.

[Shannon Larson]

It was kind of fun to like, I just pulled. Well, the Joy is like the number one cookbook on our shelf. It's just like in, you know, arm's reach all the time because we use it all the time. But I just, out of, like, curiosity, went to the grossest pages in the book. I was like, what are the crinkliest, most disgusting pages in here? And there were two that specifically stood out, which are not going to be surprising to either of you. It's the pizza dough recipe, because we always use the pizza dough recipe. We like to make pizzas at home because we use pizza as, like, a way to clear out our crisper drawer. And then the matzo ball soup recipe, which matzo ball soup is like one of my all time favorite foods. And whenever I'm feeling a little sick or most of the time if I'm feeling a little sad or depressed, John, my husband, will just look at me and he's like, it's matzo ball soup night. And we just go to your book and it is absolutely disgusting. It'll fall out at some point because I don't think. I mean, he's not the cleanest cook in the kitchen. So there's just like, you know, chicken stock covering that page. But the matzo ball soup recipe be so perfect. It's just very basic. And if anybody is like, I want to try it. I don't know how to make matzo balls. That's like the best. I love it.

[Megan Scott]

I like that as a metric. What is the grossest page?

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah, that was. I was excited about this question because I was like, oh, I get to flip through the nastiest pages.

[Jon Becker]

That's probably the approach we should have taken.

[Megan Scott]

Well, we, we traded. We had a kitchen copy for a long time.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, yeah, you had to get rid of it, right?

[Megan Scott]

Well, we still have it, but we recently traded it out for a new one because it was. It. It got to be, like, almost twice the size because it was so crinkled.

[Shannon Larson]

And I saw it and I was like, that is splatter.

[Jon Becker]

But we were also just like, we had it on its spine all the time. And so it was kind of slouchy. It was, like, kind of slouching to the right, I guess.

[Shannon Larson]

It makes me love books even more when they're all, like, used like that.

[Megan Scott]

I love it.

[Shannon Larson]

What are yours?

[Jon Becker]

I feel like this is related to the question that we would get a lot on book tour, which was like, what's your favorite recipe? And that was always very exasperating for us to answer. And we usually just, like, kind of defaulted to whichever recipe we had cooked last. But this is a little different. I feel like ride or die.

[Megan Scott]

I interpreted that in two ways. So I thought about the recipes we hear about the most. Which one of which is the banana bread? And it's cockayne, and it is so good. It's a really, really solid banana bread recipe. I default to that one. If I'm going to make banana bread.

[Jon Becker]

With the dried apricots, I do add.

[Megan Scott]

The optional dried apricots, which is such a sleeper ingredient.

[Shannon Larson]

Highlight that, like, always add the dried apricots if you can.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, we should take. We should make it not optional.

[Shane Mitchell]

Not optional.

[Megan Scott]

But we also hear a lot about the pancake recipe, and it's. It's a pretty. I mean, it's basic pancake recipe, but it works every time, and it turns out really beautiful, fluffy pancakes. So I think that is just a winner. But the recipes I use the most, that's how I was kind of thinking about this question was like the ones that I'm. If I'm gonna make something, make this dish, I'm gonna use Joy of cooking. The olive oil cake recipe I make. Oh, it's so good all the time. It's so easy and so delicious, and it goes with every fruit. So I make it all year long. The borscht recipe, it's like a borscht that has meat in it, so it has beef. That is a solid recipe that we make throughout the winter, every year. The Cincinnati Chili Cockayne. If you're a Cincinnati chili fan, that recipe is great.

[Jon Becker]

Please do not leave bad comments on this episode or on our podcast. There are so many Cincinnati chili haters out there, it's ridiculous.

[Megan Scott]

It's just meat sauce. It's just spiced meat sauce.

[Jon Becker]

Well, yeah. Macedonian Bolognese. Yeah, that's How I try to. That's how I try to sell it.

[Megan Scott]

That's what it is. You know, you can put it on spaghetti, or you put it on a hot dog. What's not to like?

[Shannon Larson]

Or Fritos.

[Megan Scott]

That just feels very American to me, like putting a meat sauce on some plain spaghetti and putting cheese on top. And then my Southern cornbread recipe is one that I have. I tinkered with a bunch. I really, really love it. It turns out it's made to use a coarser. Well, like, part fine and part coarser. Cor. Cornmeal. And it has a hot water soak, and it makes this real crusty on the outside, but almost like a custardy inside cornbread. That is very good. The muffin recipe is surprisingly good. I'm not a huge muffin person, but if I'm gonna make muffins, I use Joy of Cooking because they always turn out super tall and fluffy. And it's just a great base recipe. So you can do, like, a blueberry muffin, or you can do raspberry, or you can do, like, chocolate and orange zest. It's really easy to tweak and just do whatever flavor you want. And then I have a lot of baking stuff in my list because I'm a baker. But the mimosa pound cake is another really good one. It's got a little bit of champagne or sparkling wine in it and orange juice and zest and an orange glaze. It's a very good pound cake, and it's based on my grandma's 7 up pound cake recipe. John, what did you put in your list?

[Jon Becker]

Well, a little bit more on the savory side, but the asapao de Pollock, really good, solid Puerto Rican chicken rice. I guess you could soup. It's kind of bordering between soup and stew, you know, just depending on.

[Megan Scott]

It's thicker.

[Jon Becker]

Yeah, it's on the thicker side.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah.

[Jon Becker]

I kind of started interpreting this in terms of, like, childhood favorites. And, you know, my mom would always make the Fann Kuchen, the German pancake, out of the book. And so that's, like, just kind of a taste memory for me. Dutch baby, for those of you who know it by that name, country captain. Something that does have, like, kind of some Charleston connections, I think. Or that recipe was added, was actually contributed by. I think that she was writing for the AP at the time, but Cecily Brownstone. But, yeah, fantastic recipe. Highly recommend that. There are some that are just my, you know, recipes that my dad would make for me. I would only spend the summers with him. You know, my. My parents got divorced when I was really young, and so during the summer, he would always be making. It's called. They're called Becker burgers. I know that they're not gonna, like, please, like, the Smash burger set. They're not gonna please, like, a lot of hamburger eaters, but they're just like, you know, basically a sauteed hamburger steak that is. Gets lightly steamed with Worcestershire and soy and Tabasco at the end. And for some reason, it's like your.

[Megan Scott]

Dad'S trifecta of seasoning.

[Jon Becker]

No, seriously, I feel like there was even a. What did he call it? There's a recipe that was, like, basically trying to be kind of like a Greek meatball, and that's all that there was in there. It's like that trifecta of flavors.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, those burgers are good. You can't go into it expecting, like, a normal hamburger, though. Like, just treat it. It's its own thing. It's cooked in a skillet, steamed a little bit, so they're juicy and tender. You don't eat it on a bun or, you know, just eat it plain.

[Jon Becker]

The way I would eat it now is probably like, you know, you'd maybe like a fried crouton, like, put. And then put it on top with the pan juices, you know, drizzled over that so that the bread soaks it up. I think that's what. That's probably how it. Eat it nowadays.

[Megan Scott]

That recipe got skewered by the New York Times.

[Shane Mitchell]

They didn't put.

[Megan Scott]

They didn't cook it. It works well. But Kim Severson at the New York Times didn't like it.

[Jon Becker]

So you're wrong, Kim.

[Megan Scott]

She whispered.

[Shane Mitchell]

Do you want to know my ride or dog?

[Megan Scott]

Oh, my gosh. Yes, please.

[Shane Mitchell]

Okay. It's very odd and very obscure, but it's what my mom would make me for my birthday every year. We. We could ask her to make anything. And mine is, I kid you not, cream chip beef.

[Megan Scott]

You are kidding.

[Shane Mitchell]

No, no. I noticed that you have it in both editions of the cookbook that I have. But, you know, there's a. There's a real big jump from finding chipped beef from the Pennsylvania Dutch down in, like, dense Delaware, and the Hormel chip beef that my mom used to use. But there's something about it. It's, you know, that bechamel on top of salty salt. I guess salty is my thing. Salty. Salty beef and just shitty white bread. Oops, sorry.

[Megan Scott]

No, I mean, that's just squishy white.

[Shane Mitchell]

Bread, Squishy white bread toast. It's just one of those, I guess, nursery school dishes. But I am so glad it's here because it's the one recipe I have bookmarked. I live literally. There it is.

[Jon Becker]

Well, you're going to find out when we ship you the 2019, but I have some slightly sad news. Yeah, you know, I feel like we went to test that recipe and I remember we were still living it's what, an hour outside of Knoxville basically. And, you know, we were, we were at Kroger and I was looking for chipped beef and I found the Hormel product and it was ridiculously expensive. It was really hard to find. And I was like, you know, this is supposed to be a fairly accessible convenience food. And, you know, you just don't see chip beef very much anymore. I mean, that was the only time I think that I've actually gone looking for it.

[Megan Scott]

I ate it growing up and they made it at school. I went to a. I don't think they were doing that at public school, but I went to a private school for a while and they occasionally would do chip beef. And I just, I didn't have. I mean, they. It wasn't a good version that I had. Putting it mildly. Thank you for that question. That was a really fun question. And thank you so much for listening. That was a lovely message to get. It can be hard to know. I know people are listening to the podcast, but it can be hard to like get the feedback that people like it. So thank you for that. And this week's Joy Scouts recipe is one that also made my list of ride or die Joy recipes. And it's been in the book since 1931.

[Jon Becker]

1936. 36.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah.

[Shane Mitchell]

No.

[Jon Becker]

Irma's first, like, big expansion of the recipe selection in the book. She added this one.

[Megan Scott]

It's apple dumplings, and that's on page 688. It's pretty classic. You. The recipe calls for, I believe it's like four small apples or, you know, you can use larger ones, but you cut them in half and you core the apples and stuff them with a, like a brown sugar and cinnamon and butter mixture and then you wrap them in pastry dough. So, you know, you could make your own or you could just use store bought pie dough. And then you put them in a baking dish and you make this syrup that's like brown sugar, cinnamon. And you take a lemon and you cut it into slices, very thin sizes, very thin. And then you bring that to a boil, pour it over the dumplings and then put them in the oven, and they kind of bake in that syrup, and the syrup gets reduced and it gets really sticky. And when you take them out, it's just is. I mean, I'm not even a big apple person, but they are fantastic.

[Shane Mitchell]

Yeah.

[Jon Becker]

When we first tested it, we were like, oh, well, this is. This is something we have to test. And then we ended up, like, you know, polishing our plates.

[Megan Scott]

Yeah, I fell in love with that recipe. It's really homey and it feels very old fashioned, but in, like, the best possible way. Again, that's on page 688. Definitely getting into apple season. So feel free to let us know if you make that recipe. Please tag us hejoyofcooking on Instagram. We would love to see what you make.

[Jon Becker]

The drizzle cream is good. Vanilla ice cream might be better. I'll let you decide if you have.

[Megan Scott]

A topic, ingredient, or joy story to share. Call our hotline at 503-395-8858. Leave us a message or send us a text. We'd love to hear from you. Next week's topic comes from our caller.

[Haley]

This one actually comes from our audio engineer, Haley. She says, are there any snack foods you can eat frozen besides snack things like grapes or fruit?

[Megan Scott]

Thanks for that question, Haley. It's really nice to hear from you.

[Shane Mitchell]

Hi, Haley.

[Megan Scott]

Hi. All right, what's everyone cooking this week?

[Jon Becker]

Chipped beef. I'm gonna go find it.

[Shannon Larson]

I want this, like, Becker burger situation now. I'm just interested.

[Megan Scott]

You should try it.

[Jon Becker]

They're good. They're good.

[Shane Mitchell]

Apple dumplings.

[Shannon Larson]

Yeah, I guess we're all cooking apple dumplings now.

[Shane Mitchell]

We've got apples, so yum. I'm gonna do that.

[Megan Scott]

I don't have any cooking plans, but we are going for dim sum on Sunday, and I'm very excited.

[Shane Mitchell]

Fun.

[Megan Scott]

Wait to get my favorites. I really, I cannot get enough of the little shrimp, the har gow, the kind of translucent shrimp dumplings. Those are just so good and they're so pretty. Yes. So nice to look at. So I'm looking forward to that.

[Jon Becker]

I'm still focused on green chilies. For those of you who didn't hear me lament. Well, this is like the small violent. Yeah, no, it's like the smallest violin in the world or whatever. But we overbought a bunch of roasted green chilies last season, and so I need to use them before I am allowed to buy more. So, yeah, a green chili sauce. Probably like the New Mexico style. Stacked enchiladas. I was thinking, oh, nice, because those are really, you know, easy on the prep and delicious and kind of good for like. Like one stack is a good serving. You know, it's kind of nice and neat.

[Megan Scott]

I can't wait for you to make that for me. All right, Shane, before we wrap, where can listeners follow you?

[Shane Mitchell]

The best place probably is Instagram. I'm an intermittent poster. Don't expect to see food pictures, but it's Shane Farfield, which references my book that was published by Ten Speed. But I'm still pretty far afield given that I'm up here in the north country and also in the pages of Savor, which I'm thrilled to say is still rocking and rolling. Thanks to Kat Craddock, the new editor in chief and CEO. And it's glossier than ever. Here's the I don't know if you've seen it, but here's the latest cover. It's really beautiful.

[Megan Scott]

Oh, nice.

[Shannon Larson]

Oh, it's so beautiful.

[Jon Becker]

So glad it's. I'm so glad it's being printed again too.

[Shannon Larson]

It's so pretty.

[Shane Mitchell]

Prince Print is not dead and we'll.

[Megan Scott]

Put links to all of those things in our show notes. Thanks for listening to the Joy of Cooking podcast. Before we go, show some love for your favorite podcast by subscribing to the show and leaving us a review. Follow us at joyofcooking.substack.com and on Instagram @the joyofcooking. Stay tuned for next week where we will talk about frozen snacks. And don't forget to make this week's recipe apple dumplings on page 688. Call in with questions, hopes, history, or where you find joy in the kitchen. Our number is 503-395-8858. That's 503-395-8858.

[Shannon Larson]

And we could not do this without our fantastic team at the Joy of Creation production house. Thank you to Dave Drusky, our production coordinator, Hayley Bowers, our audio engineer, and Sarah Marshall, our producer.

[Haley]

If you love the stories we bring you each week, please consider supporting us on Patreon. As an independent media company. Your support is absolutely essential. It allows us to continue creating high quality professional episodes that amplify the voices of women, small business owners, writers, artists and creatives and keep their stories free from commercial pressure. By becoming a Patreon member, you're not just supporting us, you're investing in in the future of independent Media. Please visit patreon.com thejoyofcreationproductionhouse to join our community today. Thank you for listening and supporting our podcast Dreams.