Bear Grease - Ep. 358: This Country Life - Country Cooking

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Get the grease hot! It's time to eat. This week Brent's talking about country cooking. That can mean different types of food in different parts of the country. The similarity, regardless of the food you're eating or how it's prepared, is the feeling you get when you're sharing it with family and friends. Ring the dinner bell and gather at the table! It's time for some "Country Cooking" on MeatEater's "This Country Life" podcast. Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From Coon Hunting to Trotlining and Just General Country Living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This Country Life is presented by Case Knives from the Storemore Studio on Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share. Country cooking.

Y'all pull up a chair, it's time to eat. Did you notice that I didn't ask you if you were hungry? I walked out on the porch one time to tell my dad the supper was ready. I said, Dad, food's ready. Are you hungry? And he responded with, what's hungry got to do with it? Now, I never made that mistake again. It would just holler, come eat when it was time.

Now, I bet I've told that story of me. because I've had some of you folks say it back to me. It bears repeating because I like to hear that story too. And we're going to talk all about Vittles this week, but first, I'm going to tell you a story. Now, this may be a stretch for the theme of this week's struggle since I'm talking about country cooking, but there is food in this story, kind of, and it's one of my favorites. Not food, but story, that is. Also, it's my show, and I pretty well make all the rules.

So with that said, here we go. My oldest brother Tim was on a school bus coming home from a high school football game. The whole rising Wildcats team was on there, including the coaches. Now, they just put a beat down on the Junction City Dragons. The year was 1972. Junction City is in Union County, and sets on the Arkansas and Louisiana state line with 3rd Street running east and west along the border

separating both towns. That's right. Plural. Because Junction City, Louisiana, well, it starts where Junction City, Arkansas stops. Anyway, Tim said it was 13 to nothing when the horn sounded at the end of the fourth quarter and we'd whipped them pretty good.

Some disgruntled Junction Cityan chunked a brick through the window of the bus on their way out of town, but it didn't change the score. Now, when I was a lawman down in Union County some 30 years after that, fateful Friday night under the lights, I found the folks of Junction City to be somewhat more hospitable. Most of them anyway. But that night, the victorious Wildcats were making tracks north horizon. The seat of government for Cleveland County was W number five in what would wind up being one of eight in a nine-game season. Tim said frivolity was rampant on that bus for the first 45 minutes or so as he and his teammates celebrating beating the dragons and surviving the brick. And then the monotonous drone of the bus engine and darkness of rural Arkansas lulled the tired players into quiet.

They slept the dreamless sleep of victors on their triumphant return from battle. Most of them, anyway. Tim and his seatmate were awake, wide awake, and whispering back and forth about anything and everything. And it was during this quiet time when Tim felt something under his foot. Abending over, he retrieved a discarded can of Frito's bean dip. The can had been opened and left on. on the bus defying whomever was responsible for cleaning the bus for quite some time. Tim said the occasional light from passing cars shine through the bus window and lit up that

can well enough that he could see a liquid had started to form as it decomposed in the can that was almost full of what had initially been intended for human consumption. What it had morphed into over time resembled more what you might find in a base. his diaper after feeding him a diet of bean dip. A pair of 15-year-old boys saw an opportunity. An opportunity to play a prank on their teammates by sharing their found treasure amongst the rest of the team. So, with the aid of waxed paper drinking cups torn to resemble those little wooden spoons

you get with portions of complimentary ice cream, Tim began launching the free-dough-free holy bombs over his shoulder towards the back of the bus and a squad of unsuspecting travelers. Volley, after volley of weapons-grade pent-old bean contaminants arched their way, rearward towards their hapless victims. Tim said, I don't know how long I'd been chunking them back there, but by the time we got to Hampton, about 45 minutes from Junction City, I was all out of bean dip. As the bus passed through the little town, the street lights lit up to the interior about the same time the folks in the back of the bus began to wake up and see and feel what had befallen them. Coach, somebody's throwing crap!

Tim and his co-conspirator laughed quietly and giggled as they looked around at the carnage they'd unleashed, seeing that a large portion of their artillery fire had stuck to the ceiling and was falling off onto the folks in the back who were, beyond disgusted and furious at the thought of what was now all over them. They got the full effect an hour later when they pulled up to the field house and Coach Hendricks turned on the bus lights. Tim said, you just don't realize how much bean dip is in one of those cans until you start slinging it all over creation. Now, his friends were wiping it off their clothes and trying to get it out of the hair while not puking all over each other until they realized what it actually was and wasn't. But like any wartime secret, loose lips sink ships. And Tim's

battle buddy told someone they'd done it. And in short order, Coach Hendrix had cracked the case and issued out some bombs of his own upon Tim and his blabber-mouthed partners posterior. early the next morning they were at the bus yard with cleaning supplies scarring the interior of that bus from one end to the other to this day Tim says really you have no idea how much bean dip is in one of those cans you you really don't and that's just how that happened last spring Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts now I'm going to tell you

tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. First of all, entitling this episode as country cooking is it's only semantics. It's to get your attention that what we're talking about it, It should really just be called cooking because that's the only kind of cooking I know.

I doubt the folks in China or Mexico call their food Chinese or Mexican, and I realize there are different areas of the U.S. with ethnic and regionally biased foods and recipes. I happen to be a fan of both of those varieties of cuisine. But when it comes down to sitting at the table with family and friends, the food on the table usually represents where I'm from and could actually be a form of identification. Last week, I had the fortune of being a guest of Can-Am up in Connecticut with my colleagues Matt Miller and Ryan Callahan.

We were up there for the unveiling of the 20-26 Can-Am Defender, which is pretty sweet, by the way, but Connecticut is an absolutely beautiful place with some really nice folks. and Ryan and I were discussing the local trout streams we'd seen which got us on to other types of fishing. Talking about like what I do here in Arkansas. And I told Ryan that I love fish. I could eat fish every day and had eaten it three out of the five days before joining him and Matthew up in the Constitution State. Now, Ryan, he's a smart guy, a real smart guy.

But he asked me the dumbest question I've been asking quite. some time when he said, what all ways do you cook? Ways? What other ways are there, Ryan? There's two ways to eat fish where I come from. That's the traditional way of deep frying them with a cornmeal breading. Or if you're looking for something different, you might try taking a bite out of one before you take the hook out of his mouth

and drop it in the ice chest. That's always been the options around the ponderosa, Ryan. Fried or fried. man, come on. Now, there are arguments for baked and seared fish and even for somewhat a friend fixed for me on an offshore fishing trip last October that I called raw and he called saviche. Regardless of what you call it, I was sure I was going to get worms after I ate it, but, alas, I did not. Also, it really tasted pretty good.

But there's a comfort to country cooking, I guess, a quiet goodness of familiarity that speaks of country food, not as a collection of recipes, but as an enduring language of love and memory. A pan of cornbread paired with purple hull peas, butter beans, or pinto beans, says as much about where you're from where I live, as poutine and butter tart says about my hockey playing friends way up in the Great White North. Growing up, if we were headed to Mama Sly's house for dinner after church, you could guarantee the head count in the chicken coop was going to be minus at least three

when roosting time came that evening. That big cast iron skill of hers having done quite a number on the topsack full of chicken part, she'd run through a buttermilk and seasoned flour bath. Good night, nurse, I can smell it cooking right now. There'd be vegetables and potatoes and biscuits and gravy, and none of that terrible Hoover Gravy. Hoover Gravy was named after President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression when folks didn't have milk to add to the flyer increase to make gravy.

So they substituted water. Let me tell you, that is not a good substitution. As far as I know, President Hoover had two things named after him, the Hoover Dam and Hoover Gravy. One of them saw 138 people died during its construction, The other makes me want to die after I try to eat it. It's terrible. And milk, during the depression for my family, was as close as the barn out back.

I had a couple more examples of parallels for the names Hoover Dam and Hoover Gravy. I'm trying to keep the cussing on here at zero. And saying Hoover Gravy, without including the term for a water control structure, is hard enough. That gum. It's awful. But I think a big part of the cooking experience, especially when I think about Mama Sly's kitchen, centers around any holiday when the whole family would gather to visit and eat. All the grown ladies of the family would be busy as bees in the kitchen with Mama Sly right in the middle

navigating the tight space with the coordination of a well-old machine. Regardless of what was cooking, the feelings and the sounds were the same. laughter, joy, and reverence, and love poured out of that kitchen more than the food they were preparing. Mama's lie, I'm hungry. It'll be ready directly. Get outside and don't slam the screen. Out we'd go, starving, and feel it nearly dead from a lack of groceries.

The meal you could count on as being almost as satisfied as the socializing, but that wouldn't be realized until later in life when one by one, time reduced the presence of the older ones, and new ones were added, either by marriage or birth. Family gatherings were a being of their own as they grew and changed with time shifting from what I first remember them being to what they are today. The faces change, the locations change, but the food mostly stays the same. We are creatures of habit, and while we can't control the progression of time, we can control the menu. The staples of sustenance that remind us that the pie were eaten in 2025 could have been made from a recipe from many generations before.

The connections between now and then are subtle and endearingly timeless. It may be cooking that gets me to the table, but the people I share it with is what keeps me in my chair. My mother asked me once what she should get Alexis for Christmas, and I didn't have a clue. And then I suggested that she write down her recipe for cherry pie that she's made me since I became a tax deduction. It is my favorite pie, not a cherry pie from the store, not one from a restaurant, not one from a bakery, the one she's been making me all my life. When birthday time came around, there may not have been a lot of. lot to go around as far as presents went, but the birthday person got to pick their favorite meal

to share with the rest of the family and the dessert. Mine was a lead pipe cinch every year. You could bet on it and you'd win. Fried chicken, biscuits, gravy, mashed taters, English peas and cherry pie. That was it every year I lived at home. The year I turned 16, I asked her to make me two cherry pies, and she did. And they had had just enough time to cool off when I walked in the kitchen from whatever I was doing outside before supper. I saw the pies sitting on the table, and I asked her if I could have one piece before supper since I was the birthday boy.

And she said, well, I guess so. One of them is yours. You go ahead. She poured me a glass of sweet milk, and I got a fork, and I sat down at the table, and the first bite I took came right out. of the middle. She leaned up against the counter to watch, and I didn't stop until I'd ate the whole thing. It was one piece of pie that just happened to be as big as the dish. It was baked in. Happy birthday, Brent. Now, that recipe is framed, and it sits in our kitchen. Special

occasions in holidays. We'll have Alexis moving gracefully around the kitchen, measuring flour and rolling out dough, preheating the oven. It's as good as our mama's, and it might be better. But I'm not sure if it's the taste or the triggered response of nostalgia that makes it so good. Country cooking is so much more than a culmination of ingredients and heat is an excuse for us to be together. I can't speak for anything above the Mason-Dixon line, but I can only assume the similarities would be more than coincidental. I've learned full well that outside of the differences in how we talk and the foods we eat, sentiment is the same. Down here you never get invited to do anything that doesn't usually involve or revolve around food. A fish fry, a crawfish bowl, potluck supper, all occasions and maybe even excuses to gather with family and friends.

And since we all got to eat, why don't we just do it all, visit cook, and eat? The recipe that my mama wrote down for Alexis will one day belong to Bailey. I have my dad's handwritten barbecue sauce recipe that he wrote down for a family friend many years ago. She ran across it and sent it to me, and I believe those items are meant to be shared amongst the family, not only to enjoy, but to have that link to the past that goes beyond memories and even pictures. I can imagine and remember what it sounded like to hear my mama sly and all the other ladies in the kitchen, but when we're fried chicken in my home now, I have a tangible link to the past that even though I can't see it,

it is as real to me as it can get outside of physically being there back in time. There is a direct correlation between smells and memory, and there's a good reason for it, too. Check this out. It's called the Proust Effect or Proust phenomenon, and it occurs when you experience a vivid, emotional, autobiographical memory that's triggered by sensory experience, particularly a smell or a taste. It can be both positive and, unfortunately, it can be negative too.

But in our case, it's all intertwined with the feeling of home and comfort. That's where the term comfort food comes from. But it may be entirely different depending on where you're from. On the ride back to the airport from the Can-Am event in Connecticut, I was riding with a daughter in a dad from Missouri and a lady from Australia. The event only lasted a day and a half, so when we weren't learning all about the new Can-Am, we were learning about each other. And the hour and a half ride back to the airport was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

I've always been fascinated with Australia, and I couldn't have been talking to a better representative of the land down under than Miss Jessica Edwards, or Jellaroo Jess, that She's known on Instagram. Just as country as cornbread and was overwhelmingly intrigued to learn about our way of life. She wanted to know about the things we ate and how we prepared them. And as we talked, I watched our driver listening in complete silence. For an hour and a half, he negotiated through the quiet little towns, forested mountains, and passed the well-groomed yards of houses that didn't have front porches.

As we talked, I thought to myself as we passed home after home where in the world their hounds sleep. Then I realized mine usually sleeps on the floor in my room or on my side of the bed when I'm on the road. But still, the absence of front porches on the homes puzzled me. It still does. I bet someone listening has the answer, so let me know. Anyway, I mentioned eating bullfrogs, and that brought on a conversation about the many ways to eat them along with squirrels. Whirls, deer, elk, coons, and bears. She was an absolute delight to talk to, and her accent was superb.

She mentioned something about my accent. I smiled and nodded politely, but I'm still not sure what she was talking about. Accent. What accent? Anyway, about five minutes before we piled out of that SUV at the airport, our driver spoke up, and in a very northeastern accent of his own, he thanked us for the hour and a half lesson on hunting, fishing, and the eating of animals he'd never thought would be on a menu in any country, especially his own.

But it doesn't have to be critics from the country. I was in Pennsylvania with Alexis and Bailey last year in my case family in the beautiful town of Bradford. And for the uninitiated, Bradford PA is where my champions of goodness. dipped buckets of case pocket nuffes out of the ever-flowing nifspring the Case brothers discovered back before the turn of the 20th century. There, it's a variety of foods with Italian and German influences and some of their own making. It doesn't matter really what it is or where it is, but knowing where it came from, that's important, just like where we come from. And if you dig far enough in your past,

you're going to find a link to the country and the foods you eat. It may not even be in this country. It might be Italy, Germany, or even Australia. I hope that one day, 100 years from now, a descendant of mine gets a cherry pie for his birthday, made from the recipe that's framed and sitting on the counter in our kitchen. I actually hope they get two, and that person eats one of them all by itself.

I hope you've enjoyed a little look at country cooking this weekend. I appreciate so much all of you giving me Lake and Clay some of your time here on the Merry Greece Channel. Until next week, this is Brent Reeves. Signing all. Y'all be careful. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts.

Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. but when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you do. did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action.