Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Okra and Cornbread


As much as I love living in the Pacific Northwest there are a few things I miss about Texas, actually only two things, okra and white cornbread mix.

I'm not big on veggies, can't say that I've ever been, but there are two that top the list for me, okra and yellow summer squash. The first year we lived in Oregon I was very distressed the stores did not carry okra. 

I later learned people in the Pacific Northwest have not acquired a taste for okra because it doesn't grow well here. It takes a long season of very hot sunshine to grow okra.  The growing season here is not long enough, the weather is too cool, and there's not enough hot sunshine.

Oh how I longed for okra, but then a WalMart Grocery went in and I thought to myself that just might be the answer I'd been waiting for. Their headquarters is in Arkansas. They should be familiar with okra so off I went and indeed found it frozen.  What a wonderful sight.

The same thing happened with cornbread mix.  I like white cornbread but could only find yellow.  I contacted the Martha White company and was informed it was only distributed in the southern states. The first few years we were here our daughter would bring several packages when she came to visit. WalMart solved that problem as well.  I now have two items I buy at WalMart.

A new WalMart Grocery opened near us so I stopped by to see if they stocked okra and white cornbread mix.  I discovered they do more than that, they have a small section listed as "Southern Seasoned" food.  My southern sister-in-law tells me their Glory brand southern seasoned green beans taste "just like mama used to cook." I'll be checking those out soon.

Have you had such an experience with food?

6 comments:

  1. Never have had okra; never have had white corn bread. Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing!

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  2. I am so glad our Arkansas based Walmart could bring you a touch of the south.

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  3. We love okra and cornbread too. Do you coat the okra with cornmeal and fry it? That how we eat it. Okra is one crop the I always have good luck with. I enjoyed your post about opposites. Sounds like us!!

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  4. To make cornbread I buy a box of Albers cornmeal and use the recipe on the box. Once I mistakenly bought white corn meal. I frankly could not tell the difference except that my cornbread was white.
    No, we don't grow okra here. We grow zucchini! Lots of zucchini! :-)

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  5. Being a Yankee, I had to acquire a taste for some of the fare here. I love okra, but I couldn't go the white cornbread. I couldn't find blackstrap molasses and no grocer would order it - I finally found some at the health food store. Wal Mart has some things I am used to, but it is poor quality and quantity in season - like rhubarb. Nothing tastes like heaven more than a rhubarb custard pie from fresh rhubarb.

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  6. We do get quite a bit of okra here in Hawaii. You can find them at the farmers markets too. Mom puts okra into our miso soup which is very good.

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