Katie Green with turban on at my post wedding picnic in Alexandria, Virginia, 2000
I will never forget the time our family had thanksgiving dinner at my Cousin Katie’s house up in Syracuse. I must have been around twelve at the time. I would later live with her during my last two years of a doctoral program in history at Syracuse University. I recall driving down Borden Avenue where she lived passed a home with what looked like a freshly shot and gutted buck with four points hanging from the second floor of a neighbor’s house. Evidently the family planned on fresh venison on the thanksgiving table. I mention this because I learned of the years that folks in Central New York loved to eat wild game. For example, in addition to turkey, glazed ham, creamed pearl onions, candied yams, collards, biscuits, cornbread, Mac and cheese, peas, and cranberry sauce, Cousin Katie served fried rabbit for thanksgiving that year. Until that time, I as a Westchester boy never heard of folks eating rabbit. Chitins’ was strange enough for me and her house did have that distinctive vinegary chitins’ smell that thanksgiving too. But I remember that large platter of fried rabbit sitting on her stove looked like large chunks of fried chicken. The older relatives who grew up eating it from time to time stood around it delighted and eager to it. They told us kids that tasted like chicken; I don’t think any of us kids ate it. Most members of my mom’s side of the family—no matter their age would agree that hands down Cousin Katie was the best cook in the family. But she also had a reputation for cooking road kill like raccoons and rabbits she get killed during her fifty minute commute back and forth from the typewriter factory she worked at in Cortland, New York. I kid you not, she would stop throw it in her trunk. Get home clean it and marinade the meat. When you had thanksgiving at her house you never knew what kind of meat you were eating but she seasoned and cooked it to perfection. Here is a recipe from my book Hog and Hominy http://www.amazon.com/Hog-Hominy-Traditions-Perspectives-Culinary/dp/0231146388.
Wild Hare in Tomato Sauce
1 young rabbit, cup of
Flour for dredging
Salt and black pepper to taste
Bacon fat
4 scallions with tops, cut up
2 gloves garlic, crushed
Sprig Fresh parsley
4 tbs. Butter
2 tbs. Worcestershire sauce
2 cups tomato juice
½ cup milk
1 tsp. sweet basil
Roll rabbit pieces in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Brown in bacon fat. Make a sauce with sliced scallions, crushed garlic, parsley, butter, salt, Worcestershire sauce, tomato juice, milk, and basil, Pour over the rabbit while still hot. Cook 2 hours in a covered pan, remove lid and cook 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the sauce. You can thicken sauce with a little cornmeal mixed in water if it is thin.
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