"I'm Good"

This is a bit of a shaggy beast story, ostensibly about the evolution of one of the dishes coming out of our soul food kitchen, but actually an object lesson in southern linguistics. Hang on. It’s a bit of a tortured ride.

The dish pictured here is the latest iteration of our baked beans. It was originally a humble, simple, honest dish, despite the fact that it takes about 16 hours to prepare: first soaking the beans for about 12 hours, then cooking them, then placing them in the oven overnight on a low heat with soup stock, thyme, garlic, orange zest, mustard, molasses, and maple syrup. Classic southern comfort food.

My guests, particularly my vegan guests, loved it. However. Sure were a lot of beans there, not much else. And the beans themselves? A bit too juicy by some reckoning.

Good feedback. Digging back into my vegetarian past, appreciating the almost perfect nutritional symbiosis of beans and rice, I l put down a base layer of basmati, which had the added benefit of soaking up some of the excess gravy. My guests loved it. However, still a bit too wet.

Good feedback. So I decided to sieve off the baked beans before plating, capturing the liquid in a separate plastic sauce container that be came part of the overall plating. It was a hit. However. My vegan guests were craving a bit more protein.

Good feedback. I decided to add a fistful of tofu slices, bbq’d with one of our homemade sauces. It took a bit of doing, but finally got the tofu looking right, with the charred grill markings adding a nice pop.

Yeah, still not there yet. So I took the remnant bbq sauce and used it to glaze the tops of the tofu. The gravy as a bit on the thin side, so I used a vegan version of a beurre manie technique to thicken that up. And for more visual eye-candy, plated the whole thing with sprigs of fresh thyme and slivers of orange peel.

Bingo. So what the hell does all of this have to do with southern linguistics?

We southerners are loath to say the word “no.” We’ll do crazy verbal gymnastics to avoid it.

Wan’ a bit more grits there hon? “I’m good.”

Waddayasay to putting your book down, getting off that sofa, and going outside to play for a while? “I’m good.”

How ‘bout takin’ off that ratty thing and puttin’ on that lovely blue shirt I bought you for your birthday. “I’m good.”

We’ve got time for another ten-mile loop. Let’s do it. “I’m fuckin’ good.”

“Nuf said.