Open Container

My mother is a teetotaler. If that word has fallen out of use, it means she doesn't drink liquor; she abstains from alcohol altogether. The simplest reason is that she doesn't like the taste or smell of the stuff. Second, it makes people act funny; it causes them to lose control of their good sense. The most important reason she has for never drinking is the fact alcohol has a way of ruining lives, families, and finances.

She doesn't get on her high horse and preach about the curse of drink. People can make their own mistakes. She doesn't judge.

That's not to say she didn't have some colorful relatives who were known to imbibe too much. At an occasion at her parent's house when my brother and I were small, some of the men were passing around a bottle of cheap booze. They had already loosened up a bit, and someone asked my grandmother if she wanted a drink. Read my 6-11-18 post about the goat in the house to find out what a good sport she was.

She good-naturedly abandoned the cooking and sat at the table with the guys where they poured her a drink. None of these people had ever heard of a highball glass or a shot glass. They poured a generous amount of undiluted rot gut into a water glass, and she proceeded to drink it like it was water. My dad recalls she was quickly on her way to dancing on the table when my brother, who was about four years old at the time, wandered into the kitchen.

"Gwammaw," he said in an innocent voice, "that's whicky."

She put the glass down and left the table to the sound of several male voices calling to the females to keep the kids out of the kitchen.

My mom spent twenty-two years working at a restaurant where the owner was in the habit of hitting the bottle during the evening shift. It was his own bottle and some people wouldn't allow their high school aged kids to work there because they didn't want the youths exposed to drinking. This was before 'liquor by the drink' laws passed in Kansas. Everyone in the restaurant knew how much he had been drinking by how loudly he sang. He only knew one song:  Happy Birthday.

When I was in high school, a craze for a holiday dish swept through the area. Everyone wanted the recipe. It was called Bourbon Sweet Potatoes. What exactly is bourbon? Quite simply, it's whiskey distilled from at least 51% corn and other grains, and aged in new charred oak barrels. 'Corn squeezins' was the slang during Prohibition.

Corn squeezins in the sweet taters? No worries, all you teetotalers. The alcohol cooks off in the heat from the oven. Or does it?

In their website What's Cooking America, the authors state that anywhere from 4 to 78 percent of alcohol remains in food after it is cooked. The results depended on the temperature and area of the cooking vessel not to mention the density of the food, such as cake batter. However, at the end of the article they cite the following author:

James Peterson, a cookbook writer who studied chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, stated in his encyclopedic cookbook called Sauces:

You need to cook a sauce for at least 20 to 30 seconds after adding wine to it to allow the alcohol to evaporate. Since alcohol evaporates at 172°F (78°C), any sauce or stew that is simmering or boiling is certainly hot enough to evaporate the alcohol.

I'm confused. Does the alcohol completely evaporate or not? Nearly everyone who sampled the sweet potato dish thought it was divine, couldn't taste any liquor, and decided no spirits lurked in the food to cast their wicked spell. My mom wanted to make it for Thanksgiving.

Ah, now she had a problem. How could this lady of high moral standards walk into an establishment that sold spirits and purchase even a small bottle? Someone might see her. In a flash of inspiration, she asked her boss if he would sell her some bourbon out of his bottle. He was a jolly old guy who never turned down a reasonable request. He pointed out that without a liquor license he could get in a lot of trouble if he sold it to her, so it was a gift.

Armed with the recipe, a measuring cup (as though there wouldn't be such a thing in a restaurant kitchen) and a pint mason jar, she stood by as he doled out the prescribed amount. She put the container in her handbag and took it home with her at the end of her shift. Back at home, she left the jar on the kitchen counter.

"What's this?" my dad asked.

"It's whiskey for a recipe I'm making for Thanksgiving dinner. You stay out of it."

"Where'd you get it? The only booze that comes in a jar is moonshine, and it's illegal."

"Harlan gave it to me."

Dad twisted the lid off, gave a sniff to the high quality contents and raised his eyebrows. "You drove home with this jar on the car seat?"

"It was in my purse."

"I'll rephrase the question. You drove home with this open bottle within arms' reach of you?"

"What difference does it make? It's not open, or wasn't until you sniffed it. The lid was on it."

"It's an open container. It's not sealed. You could have been arrested if you'd been stopped."

"Why would anyone arrest me for bringing an ingredient for a recipe home with me?  I wasn't drinking it."

"It doesn't matter." Dad's voice rose an octave as it always did when he argued with my mom. "It's an open container. It was accessible when it was next to you on the car seat. It's part of the drinking and driving law."

He never convinced her she had broken the law. The distinction between carrying a mason jar of booze in her purse or in the trunk sounded ridiculous to her. He didn't even try to get into the ramifications of the jar not being labelled.

The sweet potatoes were delicious, and I'm sharing the famous recipe with you.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving whether you make this dish or not.

Bourbon Sweet Potatoes

4 pounds fresh sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed

(you can save a lot of time by opening a couple of two-pound cans)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup Bourbon (your choice of brand)

1/3 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice or allspice

Add in order and mix well.  

Line a large, greased casserole dish with pineapple rings (1 can, drained). Spread the above mixture over the pineapple. Sprinkle with walnut or pecan pieces.

Bake 45 minutes at 350F.  

At the end of the 45 minutes turn on the broiler. Remove the casserole from the oven and sprinkle it with mini marshmallows. Place it under the broiler until the marshmallows are lightly browned. Watch closely.

This dish reheats well with the Thanksgiving leftovers.
Bon appetit.