Gooey. Butter. Cake...

...are three of the best words a Paula Deen admirer could want to hear. While travelling to St. Louis this past week to present in the Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honor Society conference, I had the opportunity to peruse the food scene around the Arch. After visiting the Culinaria Schnuck's market I learned that Gooey Butter Cake is the favored dessert of the region. The delightful treat is the consistency of a lemon or lime bar- substitute the lemon or lime flavor with butter. Underneath lies a thick graham crackery crust, making for a heavy combination. A small slice goes a long way.

I was also surprised to learn that St. Louis is renowned for the quality of Italian food (which will be an interesting comparison to the food I will be experiencing in Rome this May!). The Hill is characterized as a mostly Italian-American population in St. Louis, reflecting that of the Bloomfield "Little Italy" of Pittsburgh. Italians, prominently immigrated and settled in the area during the late 19th century, drawn to jobs in nearby plants developed to mine deposits of clay discovered in the 1830s. My regular spot in St. Louis was an Italian restaurant, Calico's, where I enjoyed delicious catfish, as well as toasted ravioli which was deep fried and served with marinara sauce. While at the Arch, there was a general store that sold delectable praline cremes, peanut brittle, and of course, in the mecca of Mark Twain enthusiasts, Huckleberry lozenges. I offered the Huckleberry lozenges as part of a presentation for my American Exploration class in which I explored the use of food as a signifier for regional identity in Mary Austin's "Stories from the Country of Lost Borders."

Regionality is such an interesting component of food studies that I am drawn to repeatedly. The vigor with which Austin considers both the Shoshone use of landscape and the society of the California's "Little Town of the Grapevines" emphasizes American identity as multi-faceted and confused. Austin takes on this characterization not with anxiety, but with a profound sense of wonder, experiencing within the natural and socially constructed landscapes Emerson’s “transcendental eyeball” moment repeatedly. She writes of her new found landscape, the California desert. For as regionally-focused as Austin is, the food reiterates a diverse American identity. In turn, food functions as a conduit of memory and history for American explorers to the west as well as the means for survival on the cultivated frontier. Reading this text during my own travels to "The Gateway of the West" resonated with my understanding of a new place in terms of food.

Throughout "Stories from the Country of Lost Borders," Austin pieces together sensory experience in meticulous ethnographic style. In terms of the Shoshone tribe, analysis of food reveals a reciprocal balance between men and women, as Winnenap, the medicine-man first teaches her of the many available nourishments of the landscape. The first focus on food for survival is explored in terms of the Shoshone Land as:

Desert Indians all eat chuck-wallas, big black and white lizards that have delicate white flesh savored like chicken. Both the Shoshones and the coyotes are fond of the flesh of Gopherus agassizii, the turtle that by feeding on buds, going without drink, and burrowing in the sand through the winter, contrives to live a known period of twenty-five years (Austin 59).

Here, Austin explores the landscape in terms of the food it provides. She does not express any disgust with eating either the chuck-walla or turtle, and offers pertinent information on the lives of the animals themselves, reiterating her profound reverence of the natural landscape and its inhabitants. Furthermore, she considers the flora of the landscape in terms of consumption: “It seems that most seeds are foodful in the arid regions, most berries edible, and many shrubs good for firewood with the sap in them” (Austin 59). Once again we are exposed to the specificities of the region in terms of her scavenging experience. Austin offers a how-to guide of living within the rugged landscape while maintaining a poetic, Transcendental tone. Most notably Austin finds her stride in explaining the many uses of the mesquite bean:

…whether the screw or straight pod, pounded to a meal, boiled to a kind of mush, and dried in cakes, sulphur-colored and needing an axe to cut it, is an excellent food for long journeys. Fermented in water with wild honey and the honeycomb, it makes a pleasant, mildly intoxicating drink (Austin 59).

While Austin does not offer an explanation on the specifics of cooking chuck-walla or turtle, here there are multiple possibilities for using the regionally grown mesquite beans. Interestingly, this one product can be used to make many products for survival, from solid meals to sustaining liquor. She learns many of these food preparations from the Shoshone Indians, yet there are other aspects of her experience that relate to food. Women become the primary focus of food preparation during her time with the Shoshones. During the day, Austin notices “These are working hours, and all across the mesa one sees the women whisking seeds of chia into their spoon-shaped baskets, these emptied again into the huge conical carriers, supported on the shoulders by a leather band about the forehead” (Austin 88-89). In contrast to the previous information given by Winnenap, the women here work with the raw materials to create edibles for the tribe.

Austin spends Fourth of July in El Pueblo de Las Uvas, known as “The Little Town of the Grape Vines.” In contrast to the Shoshone use of the land, here Austin finds agricultural constructs that contribute to the community’s consumption. The domesticated means of producing food are quite different compared to the Shoshone’s. Consider her description of food ritual:

Every house in the town of the vines has its garden plot, corn and brown beans and a row of peppers reddening in the sun; and in damp borders of the irrigating ditches clumps of yerba santa, horehound, catnip, and spikenard, wholesome herbs and curative, but if no peppers then nothing at all. You will have for a holiday dinner, in Las Uvas, soup with meat balls and childe in it, chicken with chile, rice with childe, fried beans with more childe, enchilada, which is corn cake with a sauce of chile and tomatoes, onion, grated cheese, and olives and for a relish chile tepines passed about in a dish, all of which is comfortable and corrective to the stomach. You will have wine which every man makes for himself, of good body and inimitable bouquet, and sweets that are not nearly so nice as they look (Austin 145).

Once again, Austin reveals an overwhelming sensory experience in terms of the consumption of grown products. There is a catalogue list of supplies here, reflecting the cataloguing Thoreau partakes in for preparations to Walden pond. The chiles overwhelm this section, being included in every dish and reflecting the regional taste. Furthermore, food focalizes community tradition, as holiday dinners include specific dishes and drinks depending on what successfully grows. While seemingly a minor point, these meals are noted as being “passed about in a dish” which reflects the settled nature of the landscape. This is an established community that has effectively domesticated surroundings to its anthropocentric use. Just as Austin explains her liking for the Shoshone recipes, she also finds that these dishes are “comfortable and corrective to the stomach” that reflects her own comfort in the region.

Food focalizes on ritual, as Austin notes in “The Little Town of Grape Vines.” She identifies and clings to familiarity in this sense, while also meticulously noting the regional specificity. A meal becomes a signifier of time:

There are two occasions when you may count on that kind of a meal; always on the Sixteenth of September, and on the two- yearly visits of Father Shannon. It is absurd, of course, that El Pueblo de Las Uvas should have an Irish priest, but Black Rock, Minto, Jimville, and all that country round do not find it so (Austin 145).

Here, occasions give rise to food, in terms of the same times of year. Interestingly, the inclusion of Father Shannon reiterates the diversity of people exploring the western frontier. Austin notes that he is indeed Irish, yet another transplant on the landscape just like her. This transplantation is not viewed as strange or absurd because so many of the settlers experienced the same uprooted experience. Tasting rejuvenating fresh-picked grapes and chili peppers were comparatively remedial for Austin as the gooey butter cake was for me.