When Amy C. Evans and Martha Hall Foose set out to write A Good Meal Is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes From the Deep South, they began to conjure up a group of women and the foods that they might love to make. They decided that a character named Dot would need a convenient breakfast pie for her purse.
The first time Martha and I got together to write our book, A Good Meal Is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes From the Deep South, we sequestered ourselves at Pluto Plantation, the spot of land in the Mississippi Delta that Martha’s family has called home for generations. Since Pluto is 17 miles from the one place where you can get not much more than a gallon of milk, some Nabs, and a quart of motor oil, we packed for every contingency. Martha even brought along her cotton candy machine to entertain Sofia, my daughter. Sitting at the dinette table in the kitchen, looking out onto the Delta landscape, we began to conjure up a specific group of ladies. We discussed their lives and their loves, their favorite finger foods, and their foibles.
The clubs they belonged to and the groups they wouldn’t dare be a part of. Who wouldn’t care to take the time to make a pie dough, and who has a taste for baby corn. We even got nitpicky about how these ladies take their coffee and what they keep on their bedside tables. Somehow, as we said their names aloud — Esther, Ouida, Josephine — they emerged from the ether and appeared as fully realized women.
Maybe it is part of our personalities, perhaps it is part of being Southern, or maybe it is just something in the Delta air, but Martha and I have always shared a certain affinity for oddball characters. We are both drawn to people who can make a way out of no way and stick to their guns.
Meet Dot and her Sweet Potato and Bacon Purse Pie:
“After arriving home in the morning, still in her evening clothes, Dot made a quick change into a shirtwaist, washed her face, and combed her hair. Then Dot put her breakfast in her purse and headed out the door. The Carondelet streetcar waits for no one.”
Recipe by Martha Hall Foose
Makes a dozen small pocketbook-size pies
1 cup mashed baked sweet potato
1 tablespoon cane syrup
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon ground allspice, divided
3 bacon slices, cooked until very crisp, and crumbled
One 14.1-ounce package refrigerated pie dough
Vegetable oil for frying
1/3 cup granulated unrefined cane sugar
IN A MEDIUM BOWL, combine your sweet potato, cane syrup, egg, and 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice. Fold in your crumbled bacon.
ON A LIGHTLY FLOURED WORK SURFACE, roll each piece of dough a bit thinner than it arrives out of the package. Cut out 4 (4 1/2-inch) rounds of dough from each piece. Gather the scraps and roll again and cut 4 more circles.
DIVIDE THE FILLING EVENLY among the squares by placing 1 heaping tablespoon of filling a little off of center in each round of dough. Fold the dough over the filling and, using the tines of a fork, press the edges to seal them. Work carefully to press out any air pockets as you seal the edges of your pies.
WHEN YOU’RE READY TO FRY YOUR PIES, heat a deep skillet with 1 inch of oil to 350 F. Put your sugar and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice in a bag and shake it up.
PLACE THE PIES, TWO AT A TIME, in the hot oil and fry for 2 minutes per side or until deep golden brown and crisp. Remove the pies from the oil, allowing any excess oil to drain back into the skillet. Gently flip each fried pie around in the bag with the allspice sugar. Wrap each cooled pie in wax paper.
NOTIONS & NOTES:
These purse pies are a true joy to have on hand. Finished pies can be frozen and reheated in a 350 F oven for 20 minutes, or until warmed through.
Cane syrup is made from boiled-down sugar-cane juice and is not to be confused with molasses, which is a byproduct from making granulated sugar. It has a lighter, sweeter, less sulfur-ish flavor than molasses. We like ALAGA (a mashup of Alabama and Georgia) and Steen’s brands, which are widely available, but we are devoted to Leo Beatty’s syrup from Louin, Mississippi.
This story was published in Issue No. 1 of The Bitter Southerner magazine.
A Good Meal Is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes From the Deep South. By Amy C. Evans and Martha Hall Foose. Chronicle Books, 2020. Shared with permission.
Amy C. Evans is an award-winning artist, writer, and documentarian based in Houston. She holds a BFA in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an M.A. in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. Amy's paintings and words have appeared in various publications including Southern Living, Southern Cultures, Saveur, and The Bitter Southerner.
Martha Hall Foose is an award-winning cookbook author who’s written Screen Doors & Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales of a Southern Cook; A Southerly Course: Recipes & Stories From Close to Home; and I Cook in Color: Bright Flavors From My Kitchen and Around the World with chef Asha Gomez, among others. Martha makes her home in the Mississippi Delta with her husband and son.
