This Thanksgiving week will be a time for you to view part of our state’s agricultural heritage if you go to Cattle Creek Plantation near Reevesville, and while you are there, try to arrange your visit when Aunt Nellie Mae is serving her Fried Bread.
The cute Ruth Anne Reeves O’Cain tells me about this. Ruth Anne and our daughters Catherine and Elizabeth have been friends since high school days and see each other only occasionally, not often enough.
Ruth Anne and her husband Michael O’Cain also live in Reevesville, where, after teaching school for seven years, Ruth Anne is now a full-time mom for Benjamin, Anna Reeves and Mary Ellis. This means she is a busy young woman: teaching Mission Friends, discipleship training, leading the Baptist Young Women’s group, serving as women’s committee chairman for the Dorchester County Farm Bureau, and volunteering at the children’s school.
I have used similar recipes before: One was for Indian Fry Bread, and the funnel cake recipe was not much different, but there is a good story that goes with this as there was with those. Here it is:
A long time ago, in the 1800s, Tom and Lizzie Reeves lived near Reevesville on a farm now known as Cattle Creek Plantation, but family members think of it as “the old home place.” One of their children, Dave, married Nellie Mae Westbury, and they lived in the Reeves house all their lives. Dave died many years ago, but Nellie Mae, who will be 90 in January, still lives there. They had three children: Mickey, Durham, and Nell.
Nellie Mae Reeves
Nellie Mae has been a member of Reevesville Baptist Church all her life. Joey Branch is the pastor and the church is part of Screven Association, and that is also the church of Ruth Ann and Michael.
“Aunt Nellie Mae is active in many areas, but her first love is the church nursery, where she has worked for more than 60 years literally rocking generations of babies. She is known as ‘Aunt Nellie Mae’ by all the church children who rush to greet her each Sunday morning for a hug and a stick of gum from her pocket,” Ruth Anne says.
During Thanksgiving week each year, the Reeves family and many friends and neighbors spend the days grinding the sugar cane that grows on the plantation, extracting the sweet juice which is then, by boiling, made into syrup.
“Each day, lunch and dinner are served by different family members for those working and also for those who come to visit and to watch the syrup being made,” Ruth Anne said. “The evening meal always includes fried bread, made each day by Nellie Mae, and served with the freshly made cane syrup.”
This Fried Bread is simple but good. Try it. Ruth Anne suggests that, because the dough must rest overnight, you can make it on Saturday and it will be ready to roll out and fry for … Sunday Dinner.
Aunt Nellie Mae’s Fried Bread
2 cups self-rising flour
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons oil
1 cup milk
Mix all ingredients. Knead with flour until dough is not sticky. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let the dough sit overnight on the counter, or at least 8 hours.
On a cutting surface, roll the dough thinly, approximately ¼-inch thick.
Cut dough into 2- to 3-inch-wide pieces of various shapes: strips, squares, triangles, etc. Fry the strips in 1½ or 2 inches of hot oil until edges turn golden brown, flip, and cook other side. Remove from oil and place on paper towels.
Serve hot. Dust with powdered sugar, cinnamon/sugar, or pour cane or any other flavor syrup over them.
These can burn quickly, so watch the oil temperature and keep checking the bread as you fry. This is a good recipe to use when you have a helper in the kitchen. One person can cut and add the bread to the oil, while the other flips the bread and takes it from the pan.