Back to School Foodways Series: Pre-Dormitory HCCC

Smothered cabbage, recipes below.

I enrolled in Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) in the Mohawk Valley in the fall of 1981. At the time, Herkimer (Herk) did not have dorms so I shared an apartment downtown with teammate Brian Palmateer. My cooking skills and love of cooking started at Herk out of necessity. HCCC classmate Ed Anderson, a 6’ 5” basketball player from Rochester who went on to play several years of pro ball over in Europe, experienced the same phenomena in his first apartment in Herk too. Ed’s place was just around the corner from mine. We hung out together and broke bread at each others' apartments. Ed and I both knew how to cook from watching our parents cook back home. We both called our mothers from our Herk apartments, and other relatives too, to talk us through on how to cook something like a sweet potato pie. “I called my mom to have her walk me through how to cook something,” said Ed. “I did that until I got to the point where I could cook it on my own.” He said, “I basically cooked southern food because that’s what I grew up on in Rochester.” His father came from Florida and his mom from Georgia. According to Ed both his parents were great cooks. My parents grew up in New York with my grandparents from North Carolina and Virginia. As a result of our de-facto southern child rearing Ed and I cooked southern food in our Herkimer apartments. We cooked the traditional stuff that tasted good and called for inexpensive ingredients such as cabbage and chicken and pork parts. Below is a recipe for smothered cabbage that reminds me of days in my Herk kitchen.

Smothered cabbage recipe: http://www1.essence.com/recipes/dinner/info/smotheredcabbagepot

Vegan ginger cabbage recipe:

Ingredients

3 cups of cleaned and cut cabbage

Cup of cut and shredded carrots

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup diced fresh ginger

¼ cup brown sugar

Fresh curry, cayenne pepper, thyme and sea salt

Method

Cut cabbage into shreds, Cut carrots into shreds by holding the carrot up and lightly shaving downward. In a pan place olive oil and then sauté ginger. Add about 1/4 cup of brown sugar then add the cabbage and carrot mix and coated it with the brown sugar ginger mix. Add a bit of curry, cayenne pepper, thyme and a dash of salt. Let it steam until cabbage is soft but carrots still a bit crunchy. Recipe from http://thegoddesseffect.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html: