No matter how you dress it ...
Pimento cheese is truly the 'Southern pate'
By Russ Lane
The Sun News
Its recipes are hotly debated and, yes, it might look a little funny, but pimento cheese is the classic example of a Southern food that can be dressed up and dressed down according to the whims of the cooks churning out batches of the cheese-pimento-mayonnaise mixture all summer long.
Golf devotees are at least familiar with the renown pimento cheese sandwiches served at Augusta National during The Masters, but Southerners lay true claim to what Gourmet magazine called the "Southern pate."
For those who grew up stealing spoonfuls of it out of the fridge, slathering some onto a slice of fresh bread or settling it onto a fresh celery stalk or a crisp cracker, pimento cheese carries with it an almost religious significance. It tends to happen when a food becomes almost synonymous with mid-summer night fridge raids, picnics and good family memories.
For the shared reverence we Southerners have for the stuff, God forbid you give someone what they feel is the wrong pimento cheese recipe.
While it's available every Southern supermarket, many opt to make it themselves: partly for ease, partly for the mixture's long shelf life, partly for the sense of pride of having the pimento cheese to eat at a social function.
But in most cases using anything less than Duke's mayonnaise is blasphemy. Jerry Springer-worthy fistfights can erupt from discussions of whether you use Velveeta, sharp cheddar or the bake or no-bake technique. And even then no one's exactly sure what the little jars of pimentos actually are.
But for all the fascination, reverence and derision this simple-but-classic mixture can cause, it's telling that the recipes readers submitted to The Sun News - as well as a few from cookbooks and those in the know - can run the culinary gamut.
Gwen Watson of Pawleys Island and Betty Hayes of Surfside Beach both make the purist's choice of pimento cheese using two very different techniques: Watson pairs sharp cheddar with evaporated milk, melts it down in a double boilers and chills it, adding mayonnaise as needed. Hayes chops up some Velveeta, adds the two other members of the trinity, and lets the mixture sit overnight to marry the flavors.
Lu Craig of Murrells Inlets takes a different route, adding lemon juice, onion, a kiss of Tabasco to her cheddar cheese. And Gourmet magazine uses two versions of extra-sharp cheddar and throws in some cayenne.
Pimento cheese is like the little black dress of Southern cuisine - depending on personal tastes and the circumstances under which it's served, you can dress it up and dress it down to suit any occasion.
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