TODAY's CASES:

• Morrison's Spanish Rice
• El Perico Mexican Sweet Bread
• Morrison's Spoon Bread

Morrison's Cafeteria Spanish Rice From: Jessica Sent: Friday, December 08, 2017 10:18 PM To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com Subject: Morrison's Cafeteria Spanish Rice recipe? Do you happen to have Morrison's Cafeteria Spanish Rice recipe? I am told it is different than the Yellow Rice. (Although I could be wrong!) Thank you, Jessica Hi Jessica, Below is the Spanish rice recipe as found in the “Morrison’s Kitchen Manual.” This is a cafeteria recipe, so it makes a large quantity of Spanish rice. You will have to figure out for yourself how to cut it down for home use. Phaed Morrison's Cafeteria Spanish Rice Ingredients Amount Rice (raw) 6 lbs Bacon drippings 2 lbs Diced bacon (if any handy) 1/2 lbs Diced onions 2 lbs Bell Peppers (diced) 2 lbs Tomatoes (#10 can) 2 cans Chili Powder (not necessary) 1/2 oz. Salt 4 ozs. Sugar 3 ozs. Pepper 1 tsp. Beef stock 2 - 1/2 gals. Wash the rice thoroughly and drain well. Brown the rice in the bacon drippings until golden brown Fry together the diced bacon, onions and Bell peppers. Add the tomatoes, chili powder, salt, sugar and pepper. Cook about 10 minutes. Pour the tomato mixture over the rice. Add part of the beef stock and cook about 20 minutes more until rice is tender, adding more stock as mixture thickens. Allow to simmer on back of stove. El Perico Mexican Sweet Bread -----Original Message----- From: Kaye Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2017 11:22 PM To: Phaedrus Subject: El Perico, Mexican Sweet Bread Dear Phaedrus, I found a picture of this treat on Pinterest last year and have been looking for the recipe since. All I've found so far are references back to Pinterest or to a website that no longer exists. The picture is of a powdered sugar covered ball with a V-shaped wedge cut in the top. Through this wedge you can see that the ball has been filled with a vanilla pudding like filling. The picture has shown up numerous times on Pinterest under various heading mostly having to do with Mexican sweet breads, cakes and cookies. I'd really appreciate your help in locating this recipe. Thanks, Kaye Hello Kaye, Sorry, no success. I cannot find any other Mexican sweet bread that resembles that Pinterest photo at: Pinterest "Pan dolce" is the generic term for Mexican sweet breads, and many of them are given clever names. "El Perico" means "The Parrot". Most Mexican sweet breads use the same pan dolce recipe for the dough. If that is true for El Perico, then the filling would be the difficult part. It seems quite yellow and might be lemon rather than vanilla. The photo appears to be a bakery photo, and there may be only the one bakery that makes this type of pan dolce. As you say, that Pinterest link is dead. "El Sol Network" appears to be defunct. It was a website that posted articles in both English and Spanish for the benefit of those who spoke one of those languages and were trying to learn the other language. I looked at dozens of photos of different kinds of pan dolce and lots of Mexican bakery sites, but I could not find any similar pan dolce. I'll post this for reader input. Phaed Morrison's Spoon Bread From: kathy Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 3:28 AM To: phaedrus@hungrybrowser.com Subject: Morrison's Cafeteria Recipes Dear Sir, I found your Uncle Phaedrus website when I was looking for a recipe for Morrison's Cafeteria Spoonbread. I grew up with Morrison's and was deeply saddened when they sold out to Piccadilly and eventually closed (at least they closed the restaurants in my home town). I was wondering, Sir, if you happened to know of the recipe for their spoonbread or knew someone who may know. It is a childhood memory I really wish to recreate, if possible. Any help you would be able to give will be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Kathy Richmond, Virginia Hello Kathy, Well, I haven’t heard a response from you to my question about whether the spoon bread you remember had corn in it. That’s disappointing. However, that did not prevent me from investigating the issue. The first thing that I did was to check my copy of the Morrison’s Kitchen from the 1960s. The below recipe for “cornpatch spoon bread” was in it. However, to be duly diligent, I checked the Internet as well. I did not find any recipe at all on the Internet for Morrison’s Spoon Bread. What I did find was another request for the same recipe on a message board. This request was also from Virginia, although the requestor’s name was not your name. This request said that the spoon bread did not contain any vegetables, by which I speculate they must mean corn. My next step was to contact a friend, a former Morrison’s manager, who has a more recent copy of the Morrison’s Kitchen Manual and ask him to check it for a spoon bread recipe. I just heard from him, and he says there is no spoon bread recipe at all in the manual he has. That leaves us with three possibilities: 1) The spoon bread served by your Morrison’s did contain cream style corn after all. (I’d try the below recipe before going any further.) 2) Some Morrison’s locations, including those in Virginia, might have used this same recipe, but left out the corn. (You can try this yourself. Use the below recipe and omit the corn. You might need to adjust the liquid ingredients to keep the bread from being too dry. Cream style corn contains a lot of liquid.) 3) Your local Morrison’s in Virginia used a spoon bread recipe of their own creation to make a spoon bread for local tastes. (If this last is the answer, then the only way you are going to get the recipe is by locating former employees of your local Virginia Morrisons.) I will, of course, post this for reader input. Phaed Morrison's "Cornpatch" Spoon Bread Ingredients: Boiling Water 8 ozs White or yellow cornmeal 4-1/2 ozs (Your Choice) Eggs, beaten 3 ozs Milk 8 ozs White or Golden cream style corn 1 #2 size can (Your Choice) Baking powder 3 teaspoons Baking soda 1/2 teaspoon Salt 1 teaspoon Butter 2 tablespoons Method Stir 8 ozs boiling water into 4 1/2 ozs of white or yellow cornmeal, mixing thoroughly. Add 3 ozs beaten eggs, 8 ozs milk, one #2 can of white or golden cream style corn, 3 tsps baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp soda and 2 tbsps melted butter. Stir quickly until just mixed. Pour into a pre-heated, very hot, generously buttered skillet or casserole. Bake at 375° about 40 minutes or until nicely brown. Serves 5 to 6.