Southern Comfort

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

It could be the change of weather. Goodbye Indian summer, hello oncoming brutal winter. It could be the unusual number of natural disasters in the last year: tsunamis, hurricanes, mudslides, and earthquakes. And let's not even go into the general unrest in the world.

Needless to say, desperate times cry out for the comfort of home. Little will take you back to your happy place quicker than the deep satisfaction found in a plate of some down-home Southern cooking. Perhaps that is why in this Post-9/11 world, foods that previously didn't have much of a place above the Mason-Dixon line have been vaulted to the level of haute cuisine all over the menus of this country's top restaurants. Upscale versions of macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, and fried chicken can be found just about anywhere you look.

But what is it about Southern food that makes even us Yankees reach for it in times of trouble? It may be in part because Southern food was one of the first cuisines that we recognized as being distinctly American. True, it is a combination of the native cooking of generations of immigrants and slaves as well as of local agriculture and customs, but isn't that what being an American is all about? Thanks to Paul Prudhomme's first cookbook on Louisiana cooking published in 1987, "American" and "cuisine"--two words that had hardly ever been seen in the same sentence--were suddenly put together. The phenomenon of Southern cooking introduced the world to the concept of American regional cuisine.

The appeal of Southern cooking could simply be that the rich carbohydrate-laden food is just the sort of thing that will fill your belly, send happy signals to your brain, and make you slip into an immediate food coma. And what could bring more pleasure than a big meal and a long nap? When it comes to the richness of the food, safe to say the South may have borrowed an idea or two from the French, especially the mantra that "bacon and butter makes everything better." Yes, when in doubt, add bacon. And unless you are deep frying your Thanksgiving turkey (in peanut oil, naturally), don't even think of cooking with anything other than butter. No E.V.O.O. here!

Biscuits and gravy, creamed corn, barbequed chicken, collard greens, ham and ribs--the list goes on. But you may perceive that these dishes look like they take some effort in the kitchen. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands (and chances are that if you are reaching for comfort food you are too stressed out to bother), there are dishes that feel like they took all day that can be made start to finish in about the time it takes to make your favorite blue box mac and cheese.

If meat is the main course, stick to cuts that cook quickly: chops and medallions, or pieced chicken. More surface area means faster cooking time. After that, unless you are feeding an army, it is all about the sides. Here I've made classic creamy grits with pan fried pork chops. But instead of reaching for that jar of apple sauce, I like to sauté pears (or apples if you are a traditionalist) in a little brown sugar syrup with some chili for variety. Sweet and spicy, mixed with rich and creamy, this dinner has all the elements of down-home Southern comfort. In these uncertain times, a little trip to the South by way of your kitchen can produce a plate of well-being and a taste of home no matter where you are from.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 3 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup cream
• 1 1/2 cup coarse cornmeal
• salt
• black pepper
• 4 tablespoons butter

Serves/Makes: 6

• 6 (1 inch thick) center cut pork chops on the bone
• salt and pepper
• oil
• 3 Bosc pears, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 3 tablespoons water