mess A noun
1 A collection or portion, esp of meat, sufficient for a meal.
1913 Kephart Our Sthn High 98 I ‘low I done growed a bit, after that mess o’ meat. 1937 Hall Coll. Cosby TN The bear killed lots of stock. He wouldn’t eat but two messes out of a big’un and then kill him anothern’n (Neil Phillips) 1940 Haun Hawk’s Done 112 I started that day I sent her up yonder to Arwood’s branch to pick a mess of wild sallet.
—Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
We will eat our first mess of fresh okra this week. The dry weather has hampered our okra from setting more than a few pods but hopefully the rain we’ve got over the last several days will jump start the plants to produce.
Typically we harvest okra right up until frost. I’m disappointed that on the day of planting I failed to find my Jing Orange okra seeds. I know I have a ton of them that I’ve saved but I have no clue where I put them.
I’m hoping we like the variety we did plant—Alabama Red.
We like okra in soups and stews but our favorite way to eat it is fried.
FRIED OKRA
Slice up as much okra as you’d like to serve and toss it in a mixture of cornmeal and flour (more cornmeal than flour) that has been salted and peppered well. Heat a cast-iron frying pan and add enough oil or bacon grease to cover the bottom. Once pan is piping hot throw in the okra and cook for about 3 minutes. Try your best to turn the okra over and cook for another three minutes. I never manage to turn every piece over—I just give it a good try with a spatula. Put the pan in oven that has been pre-heated to 350 degrees and cook for about 10 minutes and you’ll have a perfect pan of fried okra to eat. The time in the oven seems to remove some of the grease
Tip: Tossing okra in a plastic bag with coating makes quick work of coating the pieces.
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley
If you’re interested in picking up a copy of Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food – Recipes & Stories from Mountain Kitchens you can find it here.
Last night’s video: We Replanted the Beans.
Tipper
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Tipper- have you ever tried slicing your okree (that’s what we call it too) tossing it in a gallon zip loc bag with your meal/flour/salt /pepper? Give it a good shake so it’s all coated and then throw in the freezer? We do the same with end of season green tomatoes. We just portion out of the bags what we need. So good in the middle of winter.
Truly enjoy watching your channel. Makes me feel right at home. Thank you.
Karen-I have froze it like that before 🙂
I love oakree about any way you fix it. Pickled, boiled, fried, or even raw, but my favorite is fried.
WHEN MY WIFE AND I WOULD TRAVEL ACROSS THE COUNTRY WE ALWAYS STOPPED AT CRACKER BARREL SHE WOULD GET A VEGETABLE PLATE AND TELL THE SERVER I WANT A PLATE OF VEGGIES. TWO OF THEM MUST BE FRIED OKRA AND YOU PICKED THE THIRD ONE. KAREN LOVED FRIED OKRA AND ALWAYS ORDERED IT.
I love Cracker Barrel fried okra too!
Mama always chopped up a green tomato in the sliced okra. She floured it all but it never came out crispy–just delicious! It always looked awful but everyone loved it!
We love okra salad. You just mix fried okra, a Vidalia sweet onion chopped and a tomato chopped. As the tomato juice gets on everything, it is delicious. I can make a meal off of it. You should try it.
Tipper, I’ve never used the oven method of frying it afterward. We like ours a bit crunchy!
Gene, I liked to read articles by Lewis Grizzard. I never let my Mother forget this and often teased her about it. When I was a young child visiting my aunt and uncle that lived at Union City/ Fairburn,Ga we were eating a big pot of vegetable soup. I asked mother what a green pod of something in my soup was, she told me it was a pod of okra- she lied, it was a pod of hot pepper and set my mouth on fire.
I love fried okra and the fresh smell of it too!
I have been listening to your live streams on Monday and really enjoy them. I tried twice to leave the words of wisdom but for some reason it won’t work. I thought I would put them here in the hopes you would see them.
The first one my Dad has said all my life and that is , “If you are going to dance you have to pay the fiddler”. Meaning there are consequences for our actions. The second one is from my Mamaw. She would say, “ you better be careful or you will fall and bust your crust”. If I had a nickel for every time I have heard that one! Lol I say both of those all the time.
Everyone around here says ‘mess’ when talking about lots of different food. I would love to have a good mess of fresh green beans. We have been eating lots of tomato sandwiches. I forget each year just how delicious a fresh tomato tastes until I take my first bite. I have never eaten fried okra. I don’t even know anyone who grows it. I have eaten okra in my homemade veggie beef soup because it is in packages of frozen vegetables I add to it. I love fried squash and fried green tomatoes, so I am sure I would loved fried okra too.
I’m glad you finally got some rain and a mess of okree. I’ve tried the seasoned, store-bought breading but I always go back to cornmeal and flour to fry zucchini, okra, and green tomatoes.
Norman, I’m praying that you will continue to fight the nasty cigarette habit. You can do it! Your health will improve each day and your piggy bank will soon be bursting at the seams. Hopefully, the bank can fix your account and find the sinful hackers, and hold them accountable.
I’ve never made fried okra, but I sure like to eat it. I’m the only one in my family that likes fried okra, so that’s why I’ve never cooked it. Any time I’m out at a restaurant and they have fried okra, I usually order it. Tipper, yours looks delicious!
One more thing, The only things besides weeds and grass I have growing in my garden are tomatoes, corn and okry. That’s the best base for soup I’ve ever tasted. Sometimes I have to can or freeze one or two of them because they don’t always come on at the same time. That lowers the quality of the soup a little but not much.
I’ve had two messes of okry so far, the third will probably be tonight. My first mess was the conventional fried okry cooked something like you describe.
The second time I sliced the okry about ¼ inch thick and stirred it into a cornbread batter. I fried it as you would fried cornbread. Like a pancake on top of the stove. That was good but I think it could be better. It was crunchy like battered anything but with a fried okry taste. I had made up my batter too thin though and didn’t realize it until my pancake was ½ inch thick. I thinned the batter for the second pancake but I had put most of the okry in the first, so it didn’t have as much okry flavor. Don’t get me wrong, both pancakes were good but could be better.
I didn’t even think of finishing my okry off in the oven. I’ll incorporate that into my next attempt! I don’t really like to have the stovetop and oven on at the same time because Duke Energy will harass me about not being up to their standards for a modern energy efficient home. Btw I pay $127 a month for electricity in my all electric 1980’s house. Is that bad?
PS: Mommy chided me as a child for playing with my food. Apparently she failed because 74 years later I’m still doing it.
I messed up! I said I made my batter too thin when I actually made it too thick and then thinned it down for the second okry/cornbread pancake. Sorry!
I love fried okra. It’s like eating popcorn because it’s hard to stop once I start. Our former neighbor used to grow okra just for us. She didn’t care for it at all.
I’m a long time viewer of your YouTube but only a blog follower for about 2 years.
Our favorite way to eat okra is ……..
1 bag of frozen cut okra (we don’t have a garden).
1 medium sized potato chopped in sizes like okra I use 2 sometimes
1 medium tomato chopped I used 2 sometimes
1 small onion
2 tablespoons of corn meal
2 tablespoons of flour
Mix all this together and begin cooking in hot oil or lard.
Use a lot of salt and pepper to flavor
This is one of the best ways of eating okra I have eaten. It’s my mother in law’s recipe and we refer to it as grandma Hagood’s okra fry.
Laura-sounds so good!
P.S. I don’t always put in half n’ half or use the cornstarch. It’s not always in the house. . The spell check had Jazelle spelled Janelle and love and hugs, is the phrase I typed but again spellcheck messed it up. . Sorry for not watching out for mistakes. ♥️♥️
Hi Miss Laura and Miss Tipper, Your recipes both sound delicious. Miss Laura is your tomatoes red or green in Grandma Hagood’s fry? I have a recipe that varies at times. It’s okra, green tomatoes, onions, green peppers. I put the veggies in half n’ half. Drain that off. Shake the veggies in a bag with salt, pepper, flour and cornmeal. You can put a tablespoon of cornstarch if you want it a bit crispy. I fry that in what’s available, bacon grease, shortening or whatever type of oil you have when you want to fry. I’ll be praying for Pastor Lon, Janelle and Tina. Love your blog Miss Tipper. You are so talented and loved by so many. Thanks for being you. Live and hugs to all the family. ♥️♥️
My okra has never even reached knee high because of the drought. Bought some at the farm market. Fried okra is one of my vegetables of choice when we eat out which is one reason to like Cracker Barrel. Last night the preacher and I were talking about how they needed to have field peas on their menu though. They need to get and use your and Jim’s cookbook Tipper. Wonder who they right person would be at their Lebanon, TN headquarters.
Ron, me and my late wife did not eat out very often, but if we went to Cracker Barrel I would often get their fried okra even though it is not as good as home fried fresh okra. You could bet the bank on me getting at least one side of their chicken and dumplings and if I got the dumpling meal with the three sides at least one of the sides and sometimes two would be more dumplings. Need I say I love dumplings but now have no ladies in the family to cook them so I have to settle for Cracker Barrel. When growing up we ate a lot of squirrel dumplings. I agree with you, field/crowder peas (I like Mississippi purple hull) cooked with a chunk of fatback, southern ( not sweet Yankee) cornbread and sweet ice tea is mighty hard to beat.
Ain’t nothing better than fried okra! I also like it grilled! I take my whole okra pieces and toss them in a bit of extra virgin olive oil, course salt, course pepper, and maybe just a smidge of garlic powder then grill them on the charcoal grill or even a flat surface (like a Blackstone or griddle). You can even do it on a camp stove with a cast iron skillet! So, so good! And of course soups and stews–as you mentioned–also so good in that, too! Thank God for the rain we’ve seen though the past few days. We had a gully washer of one last night, so I’m hoping it helps my little garden along some.
Probably my favorite vegetable is Okra and along with that fried green tomatoes. We planted extra okra for our son. The hot dry spell we have gone through has left us with 1 bag to put into the freezer. We are hoping the rain we just got will boost the beans and okra back up. Hope all is well at your house. God bless.
I love okra no matter how it’s cooked. I have found that when frying it if I leave it in the bag with the meal/flour mixture at least 15 minutes the coating adheres better.
Fried okra sure sounds good! I’m sure you’ll enjoy that first mess of okra from your garden. Hoping and praying the much needed rain continues. ❤️❤️
my plants are producing enough for me. I like saute them with onion and tomatoes from garden too.
I remember reading that “ mess” also used in the Civil War” . Referred to a group of soldiers who cooked sharing their provisions. Some companies of soldiers would nick name their groups” Hot Java Mess”. ( Java- coffee”
People grow them in northern Michigan, too, but have to start them indoors a month or more before last frost. I love fried okra. Better than French fries, and my daddy loved them, too.
Nothing better than your first mess of okra unless it’s the second mess!!
Everyone enjoy this beautiful morning!
Love fried okra! And I like to add it to vegetable soup as well if I have it. We’ve always used the word
“mess” when we were talking about green beans, getting or cooking a mess of green beans.
Thanks, Tipper.
We had 2 messes of okra this week. And we fried our with green tomatoes (or turning). Gives it an extra tang. And we start it in a hot pan on the top of the stove, turn once, then put it in the oven at 500 degrees (!) and cook until brown, turning frequently. Not so greasy that cooked that way. And we had that with half-runner green beans and crisp, sliced Vadalia onion. So good!
I tried growing okra, but didn’t have any luck. We just don’t have long enough to really produce anything substantial.
I’m so glad to hear ya’ll got some rain.
We like a mix of okra, squash and onion fried together. All coated in only yellow cornmeal. It is so good!
I like fried okra but I can’t cook it, God bless you friends have a great day, today I have 53 days delivered from smoking cigarettes, pray for me please my bank account has been compromised
Our okra didn’t make it this year. We now have rain. Lived in the North Ga. Mtns, all my life. I have always heard and said, a mess of something.
There is nothing I like to eat much better than good crispy fried okra -okree to me. I do like to add sliced okra to vegetable soup. I also like fried squash, this is the only way I will eat squash. Anyone remember Jerry Clower telling in one of his stories about throwing out some slick, slimy, boiled okree to his two hound dogs and of one dog eating it and because it went down so fast he thought the other dog had ate it and fought that dog the rest of the afternoon. He said there wouldn’t but one dog that knew what they were fighting about. I will have to buy my okra this year, the deer ate the okra and squash in my garden. A friend has a big field of okra and told me a few days ago he is having a hard time with the deer eating it. He has started playing a radio placed in the field at night tuned to a talk radio station and said that so far it has stopped the deer.
I don’t intend to hurt any feelings by writing this, but I still laugh when I think about it. About a month ago I was at a local produce stand and a lady that was obvious to all not from the south asking the owner if a field of corn that was beginning to tassel was okra and then proceeded to tell the produce stand owner about how much she had began to like okra.
That sounds like the late Atlanta newspaper man Lewis Grizzard’s book title, based on a popular WW II song, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me”, which Grizzard changed to “Don’t Sit Under the Grits Tree . . . .” in which he poked a little fun at outlanders who didn’t know where grits came from. He also wrote “When My Love Gets Back From the Ladies’ Room Will I Be Too Old to Care?” and reminded certain folks that “We don’t care how you did it in Michigan (or was it another northern state?) He said, “Delta is ready when you are.” After working for a paper Up Nawth for a while, he said, “If I ever get back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground.”