It’s Still Okra Season at Statesboro’s Farmers Market

Whenever I’m stuck for a recipe, I go first to my mother’s copy of Good Housekeeping Cookbook. The spine is torn, the pages brown around the edges, and slips of paper mark special recipes. It wasn’t her only cookbook, I’m sure, but this 1962 edition was, judging by its use, one of her favorites. It is one of three things I have of my mother’s. The other two are her Sergeant’s hat from the Marines and her diamond cocktail ring.  The hat is stored safely in a cedar chest and I rarely have occasion to wear the diamond. The cookbook, however, is often out on my kitchen table even when I’m not looking for a specific recipe. I like thumbing through the pages, reading recipes for pleasure, and looking at the illustrations and photographs which seem now as dated and quaint as pictures of the early 1900s probably were for my mother.

 

My mother’s Good Housekeeping Cookbook was – and still is – well loved.

When I noticed Statesboro’s local Main Street Farmers Market again had okra for sale – I always thought of okra as a mid-summer vegetable – I was out of ideas of what to do with it. You can only eat so much okra. Or so I thought.

Okra is one of those vegetables you either love or hate. There’s no in-between. Most southerners grew up eating okra and don’t have the aversion to its characteristic sliminess that turns most of our northern neighbor’s away from  this wonderful vegetable. The truth is that okra is a much maligned vegetable.

My mother was a southerner.  My father was a first-generation Greek born and raised just a little south of the Mason-Dixon line. Their food backgrounds didn’t exactly mesh, but there were a few common denominators, including okra. Okra is a favorite vegetable in Greece and in Middle Eastern countries, and is often served with tomatoes and with lamb.

Typically, we ate our okra fried or in a gumbo, but my favorite way to eat it was in my mother’s famous vegetable soup. Those dishes, along with the few Greek okra recipes, were the extent of my okra experience.

With our continuing okra season and the great selection available at the farmers market, I needed other recipes. When I pulled out my mother’s cookbook and turned to find okra, the page was full of dried splatters and discolorations, always a good sign from a cook’s perspective.

What I found was both interesting and disappointing.  There is only one okra recipe, “Okra Medley” with squash, carrots, and scallions.  The cookbook did recommend sautéing okra with fresh snipped scallions in butter, steaming okra and serving it with lemon juice or herb vinegar, or cooking it in a skillet with one inch of boiling water, draining and tossing it with sour cream. It also recommended lightly steaming and serving the vegetable with various dips such as hollandaise or thousand island dressing.

Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best. Sautee sliced okra and scallions in butter, season with lemon juice and a little salt. Don’t overcook. As the okra cools it looses its “gelatinous” quality and absorbs the butter and lemon juice. The okra should have a slight crunch. 

I was hoping for more but I realized that the recipes in the cookbook were a reflection of the time. In 1962, judging from this cookbook, the trend in American cooking was to de-regionalize cooking and make fixing the evening meal fast and efficient. I noticed, too, that a lot of the recipes began with “zesty,” or “easy,” or “skillet.” This hadn’t been a page of great okra recipes but I did discover the reason why it was such a well-worn page: the last recipe is French Fried Onion Rings. I had finally discovered my mother’s secret for her wonderful onion rings!

With a little computer research, I’ve found many more okra recipes than I can possibly try – 212 in one search!  I’m starting out with okra fritters and will move down the list from there. I haven’t given up on my mother’s cookbook. It still has some of my favorite recipes which have now become my family’s favorites, too.    

   

Fresh, local and ready to eat in just a few minutes. Okra Medley is a great Southern side dish to compliment almost any meal.

Even if your palette doesn’t stray far from the traditional southern fried okra or gumbo, you can still enjoy fresh okra – and lots of other fresh vegetables -- through October up until Thanksgiving week thanks to our local farmers who are sharing their superb produce with us every Saturday at the Main Street Farmers Market in downtown Statesboro at the Sea Island Bank parking lot. Every market features a raffle of a basket filled with samples from the market.

- Story by Stephanie Tames, Photos by Julie Churney