No Proust am I

OK, I don't have much of a memory.

My childhood is largely a blur. I have some moments here and there, but usually I find that what I think I remember is really based on a photograph of me and my sister in a rare Dallas snowfall or me sitting on an alarmingly red-nosed Santa's lap. If I bite into a madeleine (or in my case, a barbeque sandwich), rather than being swept up in memories of a past moment associated with that food, I'm far more likely to think, Oh yeah, I like barbeque.

When I photographed the cookbook that my remoulade recipe came from for my last post, I saw that Mrs. Brown is not who gave it to us. I mentioned it to MO who pointed out that Mrs. Brown had given us another cookbook, a cookbook that I have to admit I find irritating due to its tying the southern Louisiana recipes together with folksy stories told about and by a character called King Culinary. Sure enough, there on the title page (which came out of the binding years ago and is stuck in the middle of the book) is the inscription: "May this serve as a reminder of good food and good friends in Louisiana--The Brown's." A bit of irony, no?

So maybe my memory of Mrs. Brown's remoulade being the same as in the River Roads Cookbook is as faulty as so many of my other "memories." So maybe I needed to make the remoulade recipe from the Brown's gift, Royal Recipes from the Cajun Country by John and Glenna Uhler (1969).

I did, and it isn't at all what I remembered Mrs. Brown's perfect remoulade being. It's good. It's much sharper, and it's really good on boiled shrimp atop a bed of mixed salad greens. But it's different, and I'm not feeling as much love for it as I do for the remoulade I made last week.

Before I provide the recipe, let me add two caveats. First, the recipe calls for Accent, and I felt no desire to add msg to all those lovely fresh ingredients. Second, the recipe recommends boiling shrimp then pouring the sauce over them to sit overnight. Maybe if I lived in a place where fresh shrimp is bountiful and is an everyday occurrence, I'd be open to this. But I love shrimp, and if it's ready to eat, I'm eating it.

Oh, and some folks say shallots but are referring to green onions. So I went with green onions, although shallots would be good, too.

Here's the recipe verbatim:

Combine:

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/4 cup finely chopped celery

1/4 finely chopped shallots

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon Accent

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons Creole or dijan [sic] mustard

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco (I used more)

1teaspoon horseradish

Mix well.

Boil, peel and devein 2 lbs. jumbo shrimp. Pour the sauce over them and refrigerate overnight. Serve over shredded lettuce.

You can see in the picture above that it's not at all the same color as the remoulade I made last week. The remoulade I made today is yellow and much more chunky with finely chopped celery, onion, and parsley. I pumped up the Tabasco, but it still needs more.

So the next remoulade will be moving out of the arena of personal history (or at least as much personal history as I'm capable of remembering--which ain't much apparently).

I think I see mayonnaise in my future.