Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good bite
By By Robert St. John / food columnist
Dec. 18, 2002
Robert St. John is the executive chef/owner of New South Restaurant Group, www.nsrg.com. His weekly food column appears in various newspapers throughout Mississippi and Louisiana. If you have any questions or comments he can be reached at robert@nsrg.com or (601) 264-0672.
I grew up on Bellewood Drive in my hometown of Hattiesburg.
It was a small street as streets go, only 10 houses. But it was a great street to grow up on. The neighbors knew each other, the kids played with one another, each person took care of the other and I borrowed food from everyone.
Most of all, Bellewood Drive was a magical place during Christmas. Once Thanksgiving ended, it was if someone took a giant cord and plugged-in the entire neighborhood.
The feeling up and down the street was electric but not because yards were filled with plastic-backlit Santas or houses were strung with millions of twinkle lights or the Chipmunks Christmas album was blaring from every phonograph.
Bellewood Drive was a special place at Christmas because kitchens up and down the street were working overtime in preparation for the season.
The street of my youth was lined with great cooks who labored tirelessly during the holidays. I am talking about real food and real cooking. There were no lame and boring fruitcakes being cooked on Bellewood Drive. Nothing but true and pure Southern holiday fare and cuisine so memorable it has fostered my love of food, friends, cooking and the South to this day.
Two of the best cooks I have known, Barbara Jane Foote and Mary Virginia McKenzie, lived directly across the street from my childhood home. Those two ladies are more gifted than any restaurant chef I have met. Their kitchens pumped out delicious food throughout the year, but at Christmas they shone brighter than the Rockefeller Center tree.
Christmas morning wasn't complete at the St. John house unless you had a few dozen of Mary Virginia McKenzie's Orange Sweet Rolls (and a gallon of ice-cold milk). And the weeks leading up to, and following, Christmas weren't as enjoyable and satisfying without Larry Foote's Salty Pecans.
Larry, a retired banker and Barbara Jane's husband, missed his calling. He had a successful 40-year career in the banking industry, but he could have been a crackerjack chef. Larry is a detail man, and in the professional-restaurant kitchen, the key to success is attention to detail.
A practical joker, a fiercely competitive gamer and an avid hunter and fisherman, Larry excels in outdoor game and fish cooking. However, his culinary specialty is not of the hook-and-line variety or in the preparation of game and fowl. Larry Foote makes the best cocktail pecans you ever tasted. At the St. John house, there are bowlfuls of Larry's pecans on every table during the Christmas season.
Meticulous, thorough and painstakingly particular, the mere roasting of pecans is a complicated but wonderfully fun procedure left in the hands of Larry Foote. As with most great recipes, simplicity is the key.
The ingredient list is short, only three items; once again, attention to detail is the key. Larry watches the oven like a hawk. Sixty-three minutes to-the-second after Larry has put the pecans in the oven they are ready for consumption. They never last long.
Larry was the first person to teach me how to shoot a basketball. He took my daughter on her first fishing expedition. He can clean bream with more ease than anyone I know. But the fishing prowess doesn't stop there. Larry Foote takes the eating of fish to another level. He prefers whole fish (rather than filets) and when he is through, the carcass left on his plate looks like a fish skeleton from a Saturday morning cartoon. Attention to detail, even in eating.
My wife would eat Larry's pecans for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and does). So far this year we have received three batches of pecans on three separate occasions. We are still hanging on to the hope that Larry will drop by the house one more time, pecans in hand, before the holiday season is over. I love Christmas.
