savor — guide to dining on the azalea coast
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Anderson first heard of it. In her cookbook,
“A Love Affair with Southern Cooking:
Recipes and Recollections,” she shares her
experience with Frogmore Stew and provides
Ceviche
Taste of the Southern tropics
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
a downsized eight-serving recipe for
home kitchens.
Southern culinary expert John Martin
Taylor says the owners of Gay Seafood
Company in Beaufort claim to have
invented the boil in the 1960s, but he
thinks it is just a natural way of doing
things.
“Nothing could be more truly regional,”
Taylor says.
Taylor’s “Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry
Cooking” features plenty of recipes; one of
his favorites being Frogmore Stew. Taylor
heard of the iconic Low Country dish
sometime after his 1967 high school graduation.
He often serves his with local smoked
sausage, just-picked corn and shrimp right
out of the nets.
Sean Franklin, a local Carolina Beach
chef, says that Low Country boils have been
a traditional Southern feast for quite some
time but he isn’t sure if one location can be
labeled the official origin.
“Everyone wants to be first at something
great,” says Franklin, one of the co-owners
of The Sawmill, a restuarant at the
southern end of the county known for its
Calabash-style fried seafood. Named for the
coastal Brunswick County town that calls
itself the Seafood Capital of the
World, lightly breaded and fried
seafood was originally served buffet
style in the 1930s at fish camps
in the Calabash area. Now paired
with hushpuppies and coleslaw,
the golden-brown fried fish and
the Eastern North Carolina city
are popular nationwide.
Regardless of a seafood
style’s point
of origin, one thing
all agree on is the
importance of freshness and flavor.
With its history anchored in
the Southern Hemisphere, ceviche
is a unique way of preparing
seafood that relies on marinating
and seasoning, without cooking.
Ceviche, also spelled cebiche
and seviche, gains its name from
the Mexican verb cebar, meaning
to saturate, which is the main
instruction in all ceviche creations.
Diced flounder, snapper,
tuna, crab, shrimp or even conch
are marinated in citrus juices.
The saturated meat should be
placed in a cold refrigerator for
at least two hours or until it is
Ceviche at Boca Bay.