Corner of Polk and Moon

 

 

 

 

. . . goes without saying . . . Fourth of July:  I am thinkingabout food, the Founders, and fun with serving and setting.

African-American cook Yorktown Sally who gave us the following recipe deserves her place among the Founders. She and countless anonymous slave cooks founded American cuisine.  “American as Apple Pie” owes its origin to cooks of the 17^th and 18^th centuries who gave us our own national variation on the European tart.  (One Georgia slave cook made her apple pie with a touch of ground black pepper; it explodes the definition of pie just the way the Revolution exploded the definition of freedom.)

Yorktown Sally’s Shrimp

For every pound of fresh, peeled, uncooked shrimp:

Three soft ripe peaches, peeled, cut into slices

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

a touch of coarse-ground salt

Mix the ingredients in a shallow roasting pan and then cook in a very hot oven for 8 to 12 minutes depending on the size of the shrimp.

For this Fourth, my wife took mason jars and arranged the napkins with our 18^th-century flat silver.  She used our Vermont wooden trencher for the bread and placed Yorktown Sally’s Shrimp in our coin silver entrée dishes. She served this with couscous and ratatouille.

Full disclosure:  while the dining room was a triumph, the kitchen took a beating: