Florida Cracker Bar-B-Que: March 2013

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Recipes

Conch Fritters

Ingredients:

2-3 cups all-purpose flour

1Tbsp baking powder

4 egg whites, lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

1 lb conch, finely minced, with juice

2 celery ribs, chopped

1/2 cup finely minced white onion

1 finely minced bell pepper

1 Tbsp clove garlic, minced

1 Tbsp old bay seasoning

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Vegetable oil, for frying

Directions:

1. Make the Fritters: Pour oil into a small frying pan or deep skillet, so that it comes at least one inch up the sides of the pan. Heat the oil to 350 degrees F.

2. Meanwhile, combine the flour, baking powder, and egg whites in a large bowl and stir well (the combination will look shaggy). Add the milk, and juice to create a thick paste. Stir in the conch, onion, bell pepper, garlic, and seasoning, making sure that the ingredients are evenly distributed.

3. Using spoons or a cookie scoop, drop 1-inch balls of batter into the oil. Fry, turning with a slotted spoon, until golden brown, about 2 minutes for smaller fritters, up to 4 minutes if you made them a little larger. If you need to, work in batches so that you don’t over-crowd the pan.

4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the fritters to paper towels to drain. Serve immediately with the dipping sauce.

Florida cracker refers to original colonial-era English and American pioneer settlers of what is now the U.S. state of Florida, and their descendants. The first of these arrived in 1763 when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain.

Historical usage
The term "cracker" was in use during the Elizabethan era to describe braggarts. The original root of this is the Middle English word crack meaning "entertaining conversation" (One may be said to "crack" a joke); this term and the Gallicized spelling "craic" are still in use in Northern England, Ireland and Scotland. It is documented in William Shakespeare’s King John (1595): "What cracker is this ... that deafens our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"
In the 1760s the English, both at home and in the American colonies, applied the term "cracker" to Scots-Irish and English American English American settlers of the remote southern back country, as noted in a passage from a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth: "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by Crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascals on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." The word was later associated with the cowboys of Georgia and Florida, many of them descendants of those early frontiersmen.
Cracker Cowmen
In the late 1800s they were often called cow hunters, a reference to hunting for cattle scattered over the wooded rangelands during roundups. At times the terms cowman and Cracker have been used interchangeably because of similarities in their folk culture. The Florida "cow hunter" or "cracker cowboy" of the 19th and early 20th centuries was distinct from the Spanish vaquero and the Western cowboy. Florida cowboys did not use lassos to herd or capture cattle. Their primary tools were cow whips and dogs. Modern usage
The term is used as a proud or jocular self-description. Since the huge influx of new residents into Florida from the northern parts of the United States and from Mexico and Latin America in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the term "Florida Cracker" is used informally by some Floridians to indicate that their families have lived in the state for many generations. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens."