Coming together around a book: The meals of 'Mockingbird'

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - When I was 13 years old, my mother put something special in my Easter basket.

It was a paperback copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird." Mother was a librarian, and she had her own notions about the best way to nourish children.

She was certainly right on this one. Malted milk balls don't last, but my love of that book did. I read it until the covers fell off and the pages started falling out. Then I bought another and did the same.

I'm on my third or fourth copy today, and I'm happy to report I had to dig it out of my son's bedroom last week. A tradition goes on.

What my mother didn't know was that she was giving me more than a story of the South. She was giving me the first food story I really noticed.

Miss Maudie's Lane cake. Calpurnia's crackling bread. Fried chicken for breakfast on the day after the trial, dewberry tarts and charlottes at the Ladies' Missionary Circle meeting. The Halloween pageant featuring a parade of Alabama products, where Scout had to dress as a giant ham.

And of course, the molasses that Walter Cunningham went and poured all over his lunch.

Food is laced as tightly through that book as Aunt Alexandra's corset.

THE CHARACTER OF FOOD

Many cities, including Charlotte, N.C., are digging into "Mockingbird" for The Big Read, a nationwide effort by the National Endowment for the Arts to engage communities in books. And I'm not the only one who has noticed that author Harper Lee breathed life into her characters with food.

In New Orleans, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum has written a lesson plan for teachers, "Food in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" It lists every food mentioned (52 of them) and explains references like scuppernongs and ambrosia salad. The museum has heard about schools from as far as California and Medellin, Colombia, that are using it.

Museum director Liz Waters says food is a powerful way to reach students. At the museum, they do exercises where students show what a character is feeling by what the character is eating.

"If your character is walking down the street eating a Tootsie Pop, that says something about their mood."

At UNC Chapel Hill, American studies professor Marcie Ferris uses "Mockingbird" for her class "Material Culture of the American South." She has students pick characters and study them closely.

"It's that great line Atticus says, 'You can't understand someone until you've stepped in their shoes.'"

WHAT LIES BENEATH

For Ferris, what really resonates is the female characters and what food says about their station in life. The way Calpurnia the cook might make something as humble as crackling bread _ cornbread laced with bits of crispy pork _ while Miss Maudie Atkinson is renowned for her cakes.

"We understand cakes as the top of the hierarchy," she says. "Cakes have such power and magic _ you have to get it right, you can't dink around with measurements, it takes skill. There's an art and ritual to it.

"Those cakes speak of her station _ she has enough affluence to have the income to have those ingredients."

Ferris was tickled last year when one of her students baked a Lane cake, bourbon and all, and brought it to class.

"I've never seen anything like it _ it was massive and incredibly beautiful. And when she walked in with it, there was a powerful aura coming off that cake."

Another of Ferris' favorite cake moments: In the beginning, when Miss Maudie makes a poundcake, she makes three little cakes for Jem, Scout and Dill. But toward the end, she gives Scout and Dill each a little cake and cuts a slice for Jem from the big cake, a silent acknowledgement of his passage from childhood.

"On the surface, they're just baking Lane cakes. But what lies beneath? It's about all these social relationships."

MESSAGE BEHIND MOLASSES

Even Walter's molasses is about more than making his lunch sweet. He's pale and shows signs of having hookworms, he looks "like he was raised on fish food." And molasses contains iron. Helping himself to the molasses wasn't just a rare act of luxury, he was getting something he really needed.

"Each family is so strongly revealed in what they eat and how they eat it and what they don't have access to," says Ferris.

John T. Edge, the founder of the Southern Foodways Alliance, lives in Oxford, Miss., a town that could fit any reader's image of Maycomb, Ala., from the wide-porched houses to the courthouse square.

"You're talking to a man who, for a couple of years, had a papier mache ham hanging over his son's bed," he jokes. (It was actually a ham-shaped pinata filled with pork rinds. But there was a definite resemblance to Scout's pageant costume.)

Edge specializes in writing and studying how race and food shaped the South. For example, he points to the scene the morning after Tom Robinson's trial. The black people of Maycomb thank Atticus, Tom's lawyer, by bringing very simple, very rural food and leaving it silently at the back door.

But when Atticus' sister, Alexandra, arrived for a visit, the family's white neighbors brought more elaborate food to the front door.

"That house becomes the ground between front door food and back door food, and it all comes together on their table," says Edge. "Everybody's food ends up on the table."

And that's what really sticks with people who study food and class: These foods aren't just set-dressing, they're powerful symbols of race, class and gender, the very reason so many cities taking part in The Big Read picked "Mockingbird."

Liz Williams at the Food and Beverage Museum has found that food can pave the way for readers who might be uncomfortable talking about race.

"Nobody is afraid to talk about food," she says.

Ferris notices the same thing in her class. Most of her students have already read the book in high school, but they're happy to read it again.

"Students come in energized and ready to talk the moment they come in. People understand food, eat food, get food. So it is a way to talk about everything.

"I can't imagine a better way of looking at American life."

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TALKING ABOUT 'MOCKINGBIRD'?

Discussion points:

Where would a genteel lady like Miss Maudie get access to whiskey for her Lane cake filling in a dry county?

What's the oldest family recipe you own and what does it say about your family's origins and history?

If Mecklenburg County children dressed as food products for a Halloween pageant, what would they wear? What's a dewberry?

Harper Lee painted a picture of life in Alabama during the Great Depression in "To Kill A Mockingbird." Here are few foods you'll find in the book.

Crackling bread: Cornbread made with buttermilk with bits of pork cracklings _ the crispy bits left after rendering lard _ added to the batter.

Dewberry tarts: Dewberries are another name for blackberries. While some sources think that they were simply a nickname, others claim that dewberries came from low bushes, while blackberries came from higher bushes.

Divinity: A fluffy, white candy made from a cooked mixture of egg whites and sugar, sometimes with nuts added.

Lane Cake: According to the online Encyclopedia of Alabama, Lane cake was created by Emma Rylander Lane of Clayton, Ala., in the 1890s. Lane won a baking contest in Columbus, Ga., with the cake, so some references call it "Prize Cake." In the original recipe it was a four-layer sponge cake with a cooked filling of egg yolks, butter, sugar, raisins and whiskey (usually bourbon) and a boiled egg white icing. Over the years, the cake has changed slightly, with coconut and pecans added to the filling.

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LANE CAKE

Of all the foods in the book, Miss Maudie Atkinson's Lane cakes make the most appearances, "so packed with shinny (liquor) that it made me tight," Scout recalls. The cake, which has Alabama origins, is quite a production. This version is from "Southern Cakes," by Nancie McDermott.

Cake:

3 Ľ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

˝ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

8 egg whites

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups sugar

Filling:

8 egg yolks

1 Ľ cups sugar

˝ cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chopped raisins

1 cup chopped pecans

1/3 cup bourbon, apple cider or juice or orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Frosting:

ľ cup sugar

2 egg whites

3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon corn syrup

1/8 teaspoon salt

ľ teaspoon vanilla extract

CAKE: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare three 8-inch or 9-inch cake pans, greasing them well, lining with circles of waxed or parchment paper and dusting with flour. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl, or stir with a fork to mix well. Stir vanilla into the milk.

BEAT the egg whites with a mixer at medium speed about 1 minute, until foamy and pale yellow. Increase speed to high and beat until egg whites swell into white, soft clouds and hold a firm, curled peak when beaters are lifted. Set aside.

COMBINE butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat at high speed until fluffy and well-combined, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in flour and milk mixtures in thirds, alternating between them and beat at low speed only until flour or milk disappears. Fold about a third of the beaten egg whites into the batter. Fold in the remainder, mixing gently until just combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until cakes are pale golden brown and spring back when lightly touched. .

COOL in pans for 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto wire racks or plates, carefully remove the paper from the bottoms and turn cakes top side up to cool completely.

FILLING: Combine egg yolks and sugar in a medium bowl. Beat well with a mixer at medium speed for 4 to 5 minutes, until thick, billowy and pale yellow. Transfer to a medium saucepan, add the butter and cook on medium heat, stirring often, until thickened and smooth, 15 to 20 minutes. (The filling should coat the back of a spoon and reach 160 degrees on a candy thermometer.) Remove from heat and stir in coconut, raisins, pecans, bourbon, vanilla and salt. Cool to room temperature and spread between the layers of the cake. (Or cool, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.)

FROSTING: Bring about 3 inches of water to boil in a medium saucepan or the bottom of a double-boiler. Combine the sugar, egg whites, water, corn syrup and salt in a large heat-proof bowl that will fit snugly over the saucepan or in the top of the double-boiler. Beat 1 minute with mixer at low speed, until the egg white mixture is foamy and well-combined. Place over the boiling water and adjust heat to maintain a gentle boil. Using a hand-held mixer at high speed or by hand, beat the mixture for 7 to 14 minutes, until it swells and holds firm, curly peaks when the beaters are lifted. Remove from heat, add the vanilla and beat for 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice.

SPREAD the frosting on the top and sides of the cake. If possible, let stand for several hours before cutting.

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HAROLD'S CRACKLIN' BREAD

From "The Glory of Southern Cooking," by James Villas (Wiley, 2007). Cracklings are the crispy bits of pork left when you render pork fat. In this version, based on a recipe from Harold's Barbecue in Atlanta, you make the cracklings by frying small pieces of salt pork.

1 cup finely diced salt pork

3 cups yellow cornmeal

˝ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

˝ teaspoon baking soda

2 ˝ cups buttermilk

Ľ cup water

1/3 cup lard, melted

2 large eggs, beaten

PREHEAT oven to 400 degrees. Grease a large baking pan or dish with butter and set aside.

FRY the salt pork in a skillet over medium heat until well browned and crispy, about 10 minutes. Remove cracklings with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

COMBINE the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir until thoroughly blended. Stir in the cracklings and scrape the batter into the pan. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot.

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ALABAMA TEA CAKES

These don't have frostings of "sweat and sweet talcum," like the gentle ladies of Maycomb, but you could certainly dust them with powdered sugar. A tea cake is a simple cookie, easy to mix and to keep the dough in the refrigerator. From "A Love Affair With Southern Cooking," by Jean Anderson (Morrow, 2007).

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 ˝ teaspoons vanilla extract

Ľ teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in ˝ cup buttermilk

5 ˝ cups sifted all-purpose flour

BEAT butter, sugar, nutmeg, vanilla and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer for 2 to 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then stir in the soda-buttermilk mixture. With the mixer at low speed, add the flour 1 cup at a time.

DIVIDE the dough into four equal parts, flatten each into a large round disk on a sheet of heavy-duty foil, then wrap and refrigerate for several hours, or until stiff enough to roll. (You can freeze the dough up to 3 minutes.)

PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees. Lightly spray several baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

ROLL out one disk of dough as thin as a pie crust on a lightly floured surface. Using a floured 2 ľ- to 3-inch cookie or biscuit cutter, cut into rounds. Gather scraps, reroll and cut more circles.

SPACE tea cakes about 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake in the middle of the oven for 8 to 10 minutes until pale tan. Transfer to wire racks to cool. Store in airtight canisters, layering them between sheets of wax paper.

Copies of the Southern Museum of Food & Drink's lesson plan on the foods of the novel are free at www.thebigreadnola.com .

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© 2009, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).