More More Food

LEE BROTHERS
Cooks tout the joys of Southern food
Posted on Thu, Jan. 10, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY JOHN GRIFFIN
San Antonio Express-News
Related Content
Recipe: Corn and Okra Pudding
Recipe: Sorghum Pecan Pie
Recipe: Frogmore Stew
Recipe: New Ambrosia Salad
Recipe: Cheese Straws
Matt Lee and Ted Lee call themselves ``would-be Southerners.''

That means they were born in New York. But, as a bumper sticker might have you believe, they got to the South as fast as they could.

In their case, the destination was Charleston, S.C., home of such Low country culinary favorites as shrimp and grits, boiled peanuts, Frogmore Stew and she-crab soup.

CATCHING CRABS

The brothers were young when the move occurred, and they quickly slipped into the more rustic lifestyle, which included the fun of luring blue crabs. ''To two kids from New York, it was like the most magical thing we'd ever seen,'' Ted said during a recent cooking class in San Antonio.

Years later, after the Lees graduated from college, ''we found we couldn't get boiled peanuts and all the stuff we'd come to love, like grits,'' Matt said. ``In our dejection, we came up with this idea: We'd introduce boiled peanuts to New York and make them hip to the New York bar set.''

But they couldn't interest a single bar in serving the snack. So, they set up the Lee Bros. Boiled Peanuts Catalogue, from which people across the country could order their favorite Southern foods.

The New York Times ran a small item on the hand-stitched catalog, and it drew a huge response. Calls came in from all over.

Soon, the two were doing more than selling Southern food. They were selling Southern food stories to Travel + Leisure magazine, The New York Times and other publications, plus they started work on their first cookbook,The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook: Stories and Recipes for Southerners and Would-be Southerners (Norton, $35), which won the 2007 James Beard Award for Cookbook of the Year.

But it's not easy selling everyone on the joys of such foods as Jerusalem artichokes, lard or okra. ''Researchers tell us [okra] is America's most hated vegetable,'' Ted said.

Yet if you treat okra right, the flavor may surprise you, the Lees said.

They like to cook out the rope, or slime, as it's often called, in a dry skillet. This method 'serves two functions: it cooks out most of its `rope,' and it gently caramelizes the okra, giving it an appealing toasty flavor,'' they wrote in their introduction to a recipe for a silky, seductive Corn and Okra Pudding.

Frogmore Stew doesn't have frogs in it, Matt said. Instead, the name came from the town in South Carolina where it originated. Blue crabs, shrimp and pork sausage all merge with corn, celery, onions and potatoes in a spicy broth that's perfect for a picnic or an informal gathering.

In the South, all of the ingredients are generally boiled together, a one-pot wonder. The Lees have slightly refined it by adding the shrimp at the last minute, so they don't overcook.

In their recipe for cheese sticks, they insist on extra-sharp Cheddar so the cheese balances the heat of the chile used. But they're not picky about the form. You can press them into crackers or roll them into small balls if you don't like straws.

ANY SHAPE

''You can cut it into whatever shape you want,'' Matt said. ``We just like the architectural bravado of the cheese straw.''

When the Lee Brothers were young, that Southern staple, ambrosia, came as a bit of a surprise. They had never tasted anything so sweet served alongside a savory entree.

''Marshmallows and mayonnaise?'' Ted said, still somewhat nonplussed at the popularity of the salad, which also features canned oranges and sweetened coconut.

So, the Lees' New Ambrosia took the citrus angle and went in a different direction. Freshly peeled orange and grapefruit mingled with cucumber and celery in a buttermilk dressing. Avocados were used instead of marshmallows, but unsweetened coconut was included as a nod to tradition.

The end result was a savory salad, full of contrasting textures and layers of flavors. It was bright and summery, but it was too radical a departure for some.

CUTTING SWEETNESS

The same held true of the pecan pie that used sorghum instead of corn syrup as a way to reduce sweetness.

To each his own, the Lees said. ''We're all about personalization,'' Ted said. So, if your taste runs to corn syrup, use it. If you don't like cucumber, try jicama.

The brothers don't write together. One will write, then pass it on to the other. Yet their stories seem to flow together seamlessly. ''I don't think we've ever fought about the direction of a story,'' Ted said.

Their class followed in the same manner, with one talking while the other cooked. Once a recipe was finished, the duties reversed.

Yet everything in the class worked its way back to the traditions they learned in Charleston, New Orleans, Mississippi and the rest of the South.

THE DIFFERENCES

''Folks who haven't done much exploring in the South tend to see its cuisine as monolithic and singular,'' they wrote. ``But what immediately became apparent as we traveled throughout the southeastern United States is just how differently people eat from place to place.''

Yet no matter the differences and the diversity, as Ted said, ``Our engine of inspiration is the South.''