Life, liberty, and…..cooking?

Opinion

November 7, 2012

Life, liberty, and…..cooking?

Clay Mercer Cordele Dispatch The Cordele Dispatch Wed Nov 07, 2012, 05:42 PM EST

Pinehurst — Before I start talking about cooking, let me take a moment to explain why my book, “Low Country Boil: A Novel” does not contain a recipe for how to cook a low country boil. That reason is simple: It never occurred to me.

However, a number of people have requested, from me, a recipe for a low country boil. Here’s the way I do it.

For every person you expect to feed, you need to have a quarter pound of sausage, two ears of corn, two medium potatoes, and a half pound of shrimp.

There are some other things you do to do a low country boil correctly. You need a big pot that will hold all the ingredients at once, a whole lot of newspapers, and a picnic table to dump the food onto when it comes out of the pot. You also need a cooler and a lot of ice. Take the cooler with you to the store.

When you get to the store, start by buying two cases of beer. Then get two bags of ice. Next, get the potatoes and the corn, and then get the sausage and the shrimp. Pay for your purchases. This is the most important step; otherwise you’ll be in jail while everyone at the party is wondering what happened to you.

When you get to the parking lot, it’s very important to ice down the beer, sausage, and shrimp before leaving the parking lot.

The first thing you do is drink a beer. Some people do this on the way home. I’m not going to recommend it.

Put five gallons of water in your cook pot and put it on the heat. If your cook pot won’t hold five gallons of water, drink another beer and try to borrow a bigger cook pot.

Wash the potatoes, cut them in quarters, and throw them in the pot. Do not peel the potatoes. Drink another beer.

Cut the sausage in 1 1/2 inch slices and put them in the pot. Drink a beer and watch the pot to keep tabs on whether or not the potatoes and sausage are cooking.

While you’re waiting, shuck the corn and cut the ears in half.

When the potatoes and sausage are almost done, put the corn in the pot. Drink another beer while you wait for the water to come back to a boil.

When the water comes back to a boil, toss in the shrimp. Immediately spread newspapers on the picnic table. This takes three minutes. You don’t have time for a beer.

Drain off as much water as you can, and pour everything on the picnic table.

You’ll probably need salt, pepper, cocktail sauce, hot sauce, and butter, but resist the urge to use any type of ‘boil’ mixture.

Now then, low country boils are not ‘haute cuisine’, okay? Guests serve themselves with their hands and eat with their fingers. If any of your guests are automotive mechanics, make them go last in line.

Why do they call them “low country boils?” Because they originated in South Carolina’s low country. Why do the low country folks cook it all in one pot? I don’t know, but it probably has something to do with all that beer drinking.

I personally don’t like a low country boil, because I don’t like my shrimp boiled with my potatoes. So, why then, did I use “Low Country Boil” as the title to my book?

Well, because I couldn’t find my Ouija Board and it seemed like the right thing to do.

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