All about Cherry Bounce

Cherry Bounce

 edited/transcribed from La Tasse Cafe

« Cherry Bounce is a thick sweet strong liqueur that people in south Louisiana make around the holidays.  You shake the wild cherry trees (merisiers) so that the berries, called merises or choke cherries, fall onto a sheet. You know they are ripe when they get very red, almost black on the tree. You collect them and make a cherry syrup that is mixed with alcohol to make Cherry Bounce. People say that the birds like to get a hold of the berries before people harvest them and that they make the birds act coo-coo, fly into widows, hallucinate and things, because the prussic acid in them is very toxic. The robins and the ciriers start wobbling and get "on high" comme dit bougre....or low, because they end up on the ground... »

 The Mercedes Vidrine cookbook features a Cherry Bounce recipe similar to this one:

1/4 gallon wild cherries
10 1/2 lbs of sugar
Whiskey

Place cherries (that have the stems removed and have been washed and dried) and sugar in a wide-mouth gallon jar with a good fitting lid and store for 25-30 days until the sugar has all melted and turned to syrup. The cherries will be black when the aging period is over.  

 Take an empty bottle of a fifth of whiskey and pour in some of the cherries and syrup until the bottle is 1/4 full. 

Fill the bottle with whiskey and repeat the process until you have used up all the cherries and syrup. Cover the bottles tightly and let them stand for a week before opening. 

Serve in crystal cordial glasses, or for a treat, over vanilla ice cream.

Dolphin Gumbo

No matter what team Louisiana sports teams play, we will make a gumbo with the opposing team's mascot. I have heard of Gator Gumbo when we play Florida, Dumbo Gumbo when we play Alabama, War Eagle Gumbo when we play Auburn, and Blue Jay Gumbo when we played Saint Edmund's Catholic in Eunice. In high school, the boys would hang a dead Blue Jay in the gym and on Friday we would chant "We want gumbo, bluejay gumbo!" *clap clap*

I have never, however, until today heard of a Dolphin Gumbo. Sounds like clean eatin'!

Here, via the Tasse de Cafe radio program, good sport Dr. Tim Fontenot cheers on the Who Dats! GO SAINTS!


But they'll say:

Ask any Who Dat

You happen to see

What makes the best gumbo?

Da Chicken of da Sea

The Dolphins!






Dolphin Gumbo Ingredients

2 lbs pounds fresh dolphin fillet, cubed
1 pound peeled medium shrimp
1 dozen medium to large oysters in their liquor, about 9 ounces
3/4 pound crabmeat
3 chopped onions
1 chopped green bell pepper
1 chopped celery stick
a few cloves of garlic

Seasoning Mix:
2 whole bay leaves
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper (preferably cayenne)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

5 1/2 cups Basic Seafood Stock 



 

Jungle Candy

                             Mister Allen Ortego is 90+ years old and calls in to the Tasse Cafe' regularly to tell his amazing stories from war times. Today, he is telling about how he made Jungle Candy (recipe follows) when things had quieted down in Guadalcanal, and how he cut it with his bayonette (to keep it shiny, Charlie says) and sent it back to his sister and friends in Ville Platte. They were happy to have it and liked it a lot.

Bonjour Qui qui parle?
C'est Allen Ortego.
Ouais Monsieur Allen, comment les affaires?
Alright, j'vas conter un autre histoire.
Alright.
J'étais à Guadalcanal. Les affaires avait quieten-down. Et j'faisais du candi coconut Je l'envoyait à mes tites sœurs à la maison.
Il était bon.

6 coconut
10 livres de sucre
8 vanilla tablets
4 can de PetMilk
2 livres de beurre
 
Là je faisais un grand plateau, et j'aurais pack quek' boëtte pour envoyer à mes sœurs les autres j'ai donné à mes amis.
Et ça aimait beaucoup ce candi là. On appellait ça du Jungle Candy.
Jungle Candy...
Coconut, écoute c'est pas méchant!
Comment tu dis coconut en français?
Uhh.. là j'connais pas...
There's a word for it, huh?
On devrait connaitre ça Mister Allen!
Ouais...
We gonna find out...
So that's the recipe for that Jungle Candy, huh Mister Allen?
Je mettais dans un grand plateau pis là je praidrais mon bayonette et on faisait squares.
Wow, You'd use your bayonette to cut the squares in the candy...Wow...
ça la gardait brillante comme ça!

Manglier Tea, it's Nasty!

When I taught at Beau Chene High School, I asked the students to tell me about home remedies that their families used. The students all told of the "nasty tastin'" mongreae tea. I hadn't heard of it, but the students all nodded their heads. One boy, Chwayne Esprit said, "ma grandmother makes dat mongreae tea! She try to put some peppermint or honey in there or something, but it don't work! it still tase naaaaasty!! the tea works, though."

I offered extra credit for this mysterious mongrea plant, and the very next morning, Kelly Carmouche showed up with a branch wrapped in a plastic grocery bag and hung it on my doorknob before school. I immediately recognized it as a "trash" scrub plant that grew in utter abundance in our fallow field and along every ditch and coulee in Saint Landry Parish. I have since learned that manglier means mangrove (and come to think of it, the bushes do resemble a mangrove, but they grow in the prairie, not the water).

According to Wikipedia, Baccharis halimifolia is unusually salt-tolerant, and often found along salty or brackish shores of marshes and estuaries, and the inland shores of coastal barrier islands on the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains of the eastern United States.
 

How I do it: Boil two or so cups of water with a handful or two of manglier leaves. Boil the leaves, strain. Sweeten the tisane with a peppermint, cough drop, honey, lemon, whiskey, or any combination of each. Drink a cup three times a day, and even to ward off a cold or sore throat.

Information from:

Groundsel Bush, Manglier
Baccharis halimifolia
Asteraceae
Respiratory, Flu
Leaves, Stem, Root; Tea
Perennial, Tree, Shrub

Groundsel Bush
“When someone gets a fever, give him some tea made with manglier. Serve it in a coffee cup three time per day.”
Manglier is the hidden jewel of the medicinal plant collection. Little seems to be known about it outside of Louisiana, but it is well known by our Native American, Cajun and Creole communities as an excellent remedy for fevers, chills, congestion, and other cold or pneumonia type symptoms. The leaves of the plant are boiled to make an aromatic yellow/green brew. Because of its strong, bitter taste, it is usually served with honey and lemon, a cough drop, or some whiskey to cut the flavor. Whole branches can be dried and stored for later use. The tea can be made several times using the same leaves.

Manglier
“Quand quékin gain la fiève, donne li di thé fait avéc menguilié. Donne li ein ti tasse à café trois fois par jour.”
Le manglier est le bijou caché de la collection des plantes médicinales. On le connaît peu ailleurs au monde, mais il est bien connu des communautés amérindiennes, cadiennes et créoles comme remède excellent contre la fièvre, les frissons, la congestion et d’autres symptômes associés avec un rhume
ou la grippe. On fait bouillir les feuilles pour en faire une tisane aromatique. À cause de son goût fort et amer, on la sert d’habitude avec du miel et du citron, une pastille ou du whisky pour la rendre buvable. On peut faire sécher des branches entières et les garder pour plus tard. On peut réutiliser les memes feuilles plusieurs fois.