Red Velvet Wisdom

Now that Mama is getting used to the idea of being an international superstar on a food blog (ok that may be an exaggeration but I can dream!), she has started making notes about stories she wants to make sure we tell.  One such story is that of the tater man.

I can remember being a little girl and sweet potatoes being a major staple in our diet.  Mama knows a million ways to make them, but one of my favorites was always when she would just bake them, and then slice them open and top them off with butter and brown sugar.  Totally simple but always amazing.  As a child I went on a million shopping excursions with her and she asked me today if I remembered going to get sweet potatoes with her from a little old man in the College Hill area of Texarkana.  I told her I didn’t recall, but was curious to hear about it nevertheless.

She said for about 5 years in 1980’s there was an older man who rented out a little building down from a laundry mat.  It didn’t even have electricity, but that was ok because he usually just put all of his fruits and veggies out front.  She said she loved to go there because from the late summer to fall he always had a good selection of stuff, but among others, he had the best sweet potatoes.  Every year she would go and get sweet potatoes and shoot the breeze with the man.  He told her how, during the Depression his family was poor along with everyone else’s  but his daddy was able to grow sweet potatoes really well.  This led to the incorporation of sweet potatoes into everything from biscuits to cornbread to pancakes, and even soups and stews.  Rarely did they ever have meat, and they were so hungry and poor, sweet potatoes had to become the main ingredient in much of their diet.

Around the 4th year of her visiting him, she went one day and there was a sign on the door that said “ill”.  He didn’t return to sell anything else that season, and it wasn’t until the next season when his crops came in that he returned.  That year Mama said he had grown the best sweet potatoes she had ever had.  One day, later in his selling season, Mama asked him what his favorite sweet potato dish was, and he told her to be honest he “hated the damn things.” In case you can’t tell, Mama is a talker and has a Barbara Walters-esque ability to make people tell her everything.  But then the old man paused and he told mama there were two ways he like them, but nobody ever made them.  The first was fried sweet potato pie, and second is sweet potato cobbler.  Mama (much like myself) never met a cobbler she didn’t like, and asked the man how his mother had prepared it.  He gave her a vague outline, and told her how he hadn’t really known anybody besides his mama who had ever known how to make it.  Then he told Mama that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors had told him it didn’t look good.  Mama made her purchases and went on her way, but she was armed with an idea.

She went home and in the way that only she can, she figured out the sweet potato cobbler recipe, and made one for the old man.  The next day, she drove to town, stopped by the Piggly Wiggly to get some whipped topping, and took the cobbler to the tater man.  When she arrived and presented it to him, he immediately took a bite, and then he began to cry.   He was so moved by the gesture and how it reminded him of his mother he wouldn’t let Mama leave without a bushel of sweet potatoes.   That was the last time she ever saw him; a few days after she gave him the cobbler he stopped showing up, presumably due to his battle with cancer.  She never did know his name and always referred to him as “tater man” due to the little paste board sign in front of his shop that simply said taters on it.  I was totally moved by this story and I am very pleased to share with you the recipe for sweet potato cobbler.

Sweet Potato Cobbler

• 4 large sweet potatoes
• 1 1/2 C. of light brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 pie crusts (you can use the frozen kind from the grocery store)

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into 1/2 inch thick round slices.  Spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick spray and spread the potatoes out and bake on 350 until they are about 3/4 of the way done.  Unroll one of the pie crusts and lay it into a 13×9 inch baking dish. poke a few holes in it with a fork and then bake it for about 10 minutes on 300.  Remove the crust and layer the potatoes on top.  you may have to cut the potatoes up more, and you can put them up the sides if you need to.   In a small saucepan, melt the butter, brown sugar, salt, and vanilla together until the sugar is well melted into the butter.  Pour this mixture over the potatoes, then place the other pie crust on the top.  Again, make sure to poke holes in the crust, and place it back in the over at 350 til the crust is golden brown.

Sunday, October 4th, 2009, 7:03 pm   |   Uncategorized  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.