Newspaper Extract: Lewis Family Cobbler

Article / FALL Issue 1998


ATHS Member Recipes:

	Lewis Family Cobbler

by Dr. David Lewis
REPRINTED FROM THE HARDIN COUNTY INDEPENDENT, ELIZABETHTOWN, KY

    Editor Gerald Lush of the Hardin County Independent advises me that he has been getting requests for reprinting the Lewis family recipe for a fruit cobbler. My mother never had a tendency to spend too
much time in the kitchen so this time saving recipe was right up her alley. As soon as the blackberries were ripe, I was sent (as a 10 year old) on a foray into the fields and fence rows in order to forage for this ingredient. Actually the recipe works well with any fruit.

    Our North Star cherry tree provided an abundance of cherries this year. Since we didn't get around to putting a net on the tree, we had to share the cherries with the birds. I salvaged a few quarts and made my famous cobbler for a recent gathering of the Lewis Clan who ate the cobbler enthusiastically.

    The important element of making this cobbler is that it simply requires assembling the ingredients. There's no rolling out of dough.
    First melt a stick of butter in the bottom of a nine inch square baking dish about 4 inches deep. I usually do this in the microwave. Next combine one cup of sugar and one cup of self-rising flour and use enough milk to make a thick batter. Pour this into the melted butter and spread out evenly.

    Finally sweeten to taste about a quart of blackberries (or any other fruit) and add to the cobbler dish. Push the fruit well down into the batter so that some of the flour /milk /fruit mixture flows over the top of the fruit. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for about an hour. If the cobbler is not sufficiently brown, turn off the oven and leave for a few more minutes. While you are cooking the cobbler there is a heavenly aroma coming from the oven which may cause the
neighbors to come running over to your house for a sample. I have used this recipe with peaches, apples, rhubarb and 
strawberries, all with great success.

   Fried Green Tomatoes

    Our good friend and former proprietor of the Magnolia Clinic, Dr. Marion Douglas, was in Louisville recently and we met him at the Oak Room of the Seelbach Hotel for dinner. Fried green tomatoes were on the menu. I could not resist this item, but was somewhat disappointed. I wanted to go back to the kitchen and tell the chef how to cook fried green tomatoes, but Leslie wouldn't let me  do it. So I will content myself with describing how my mother cooked fried green tomatoes back on the farm. They were invariably delicious.

    First go to the garden and get some green tomatoes.
Actually, they can be any degree of ripeness. Usually four large ones will do it.  Cut each of them into about four slices. Coat the slices with a mixture of 1/2 cup of flour, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper. Next, fry the tomatoes in your favorite shortening until they are somewhat softened. The greener the tomatoes are, the longer it will take. When the tomatoes are done on both sides, they are ready to serve. Jean Janes tells me that she sometimes also throws in a few squash slices and fries them the same way.

    Several years ago, I went to a gourmet 2-star (Michelin rating) restaurant in the south of France and ordered tomatoes a la provencal. As best I could tell they were fried ripe tomatoes. They were almost as good as those my mother used to make back on the farm.