The guide at the hunting lodge I was visiting said, as the day turned to dark. “Go on up to the big house and in the sittin room get you some hors D’oeuvres.” (I do believe that is the hardest word to spell) I didn’t know at the time I was about to indulge in a simple gastronomic delicacy that would remain a part of my culinary life for the next 10 years. I don’t see myself not eating this for the rest of my life. A little back story. 

I was in a small town called Huntsboro Alabama. Not far from Atlanta Georgia. We were on a plantation called Enon. I was there for a hog hunt and a turkey hunt. We were in the Deep South where country food should be expected. The type of food I grew up on and the type of food I cook. So I don’t know why I was surprised by the Hors D’oeuvres that we were about to eat. We walked up the lane to the “big” house after an evening of fishing and as we climbed up the grand staircase. I was imagining soldiers returning from war or a gentleman riding up on his horse dismounting with the same intentions as me. Which were….Eating some good food. As I walked through the foyer the smell of fried chicken in the air, dark woods and a fire in the fire place. There on a coffee table the size of a hot tub was a plate and a glass of sweet tea. with leather couches and chairs worn with years of chats about prior and future hunts. There it was right in front of me. A bowl surrounded by ritz crackers and in that bowl was the “caviar of the south”. Yes our fancy appetizer was Pimento Cheese. A giant bowl of freshly grated cheese, mayo and red peppers. More ingredients than that but at the time that’s all I knew. And carefully placed around the cheese was a whole sleeve of Ritz Golden Crackers the perfect vessel for this food of the south. Pimento Cheese. Now don’t get me wrong I have been eating “cheese” as we called it for years. Cheese on white bread and mixed in grits. But this was different. It was perfect and I couldn’t stop eating it. So after I had my fair share i was on a mission. I had to find the recipe. So ventured into the kitchen. Where I often end up……there frying chicken was an older lady who I knew was the maker of the pimento cheese. She just looked the part. A smile that welcomed me and gleam in her eye that radiated hospitality. She was like my grandmother who would cook the most amazing simple dishes that still make my mouth water. Just like my grandmothers, this lady would influence my future cookery forever. I don’t recall her name. But what i do recall because I wrote it down was the recipe for the Enon Plantation pimento cheese. She gave it all to me. And as she recited it from memory I wrote it down. With intentions of duplicating it. Not expecting it to be as good as what came out of the kitchen at the hands of a “true chef”. …..but I did. And now you have the chance to do the same. To learn this recipe and carry it on from generation to generation. “The Caviar of the South”.