Kumback/Comback Sauce; Pot Stickers

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

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   No subject line and no e-mail address on the ADS-L Digests?  Oh, all right.
   This post on "Kumback/Comeback Sauce" and "Potstickers" is brought to you by Barry A. Popik (Bapopik at aol.com), famed "hot dog" etymologist, contributor to the DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN REGIONAL ENGLISH, HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, and others.  His goal in life is to earn enough money to pay for the Dell computer that he types on, and to quit adjudicating parking tickets five days a week.  He usually gets no credit for his work, and no one loves him.
   As usual, he spent a half hour on this post, only to see it destroyed.  He is typing it again on another computer here at NYU.

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KUMBACK SAUCE/COMEBACK SAUCE

   I was asked about this.  I thought that I'd posted it before.  FACTIVA has some good stuff.

(FACTIVA)
Fame came from a backyard factory and grandma's recipe

Jessie-Lynne Kerr, Times-Union staff writer
459 words
4 April 1999
The Florida Times-Union
FINAL
A-2
********** CORRECTION (4/7/99)
Patrick Michael Prosser, who made the bottled "Patrick's Kumback Sauce," died April 3, 1968. Because of an editor's error, the wrong date was used in the Millennium Moment on Page A-2 Sunday.
(...)
Celebrate 2000 April 4, 1968 A daily look at events in First Coast history

A Jacksonville man who took one of his grandmother's recipes, added a little of his own imagination and built a dozen businesses died on April 4, 1968.

Patrick Michael Prosser, whose sauce was the source of his renown, made and bottled "Patrick's Kumback Sauce" used by a number of local restaurants.

Prosser came to Jacksonville from Atlanta in 1929 and opened a drug store across from Lee High School. At one time he owned and operated the Big Five Restaurant on Main Street.

Prosser also owned 10 other restaurants and two motels, including Patrick's Motel on Atlantic Boulevard.

After leaving the restaurant business, he began to mass produce the special barbecue sauce he had perfected as a restaurateur from his grandmother's recipe and distributed it wholesale to many local restaurants.

At one time, he and his wife, Evelyn, were turning out the barbecue sauce at a rate of 400 to 500 gallons a day.

The first mass-produced sauce was made in a special "backyard" factory, and Mrs. Prosser would help when she got home from work in the evenings.

The Prossers sold the sauce business in 1964.

While the restaurant business is known to be risky, perhaps Prosser found it less so than his earlier calling as an amateur and professional boxer.

A former Golden Gloves fighter, he later won 59 professional bouts.


(FACTIVA)
Cookbook-travel guide a great idea by backers of West Feliciana Library
Cheramie Sonnier
654 words
6 February 2003
The Baton Rouge Advocate
6-F
(...)
Other recipes include Sensational Sensation Salad; Apricot Punch; Vidalia Onion Pie; Duck Breast with Raspberry Plum Ginger Glaze, a recipe from Arceneaux's of Louisiana restaurant; BBQ Shrimp; Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp & Mississippi Comeback Sauce, an offering from Magnolia Cafe chef Derek Edwards; Justin Wilson's Poulet au Gratin; The Bluffs Mississippi Mud Pie, a recipe from Buff Thompson, executive chef, The Bluffs on Thompson Creek; and Ice Cream Cake Irma.


(FACTIVA)
COMEBACK SAUCE ADDS A CERTAIN ZING TO PLAIN OL' SALTINES
Charlotte Durham Special to The Commercial Appeal
614 words
18 December 2002
The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN
Final
E5
COMEBACK SAUCE / POPOVERS / PAULETTE'S STRAWBERRY BUTTER

We ate a lot of peanut butter on crackers when I was in college, but I had never heard of a restaurant serving a sauce with saltines until Mandy K. Styles asked about the sauce used on saltines at Elite Restaurant in downtown Jackson, Miss.

Nell Smith of Germantown sent this recipe and some history: "I lived in Jackson over 20 years and was told it originated at the Mayflower Cafe. Every year when classes started in the fall, the college students flocked to the Mayflower to eat the sauce on crackers." Since they always came back, the sauce got the name "Comeback Sauce" or "Kumback Sauce," she said. Smith added it makes a great chip or vegetable dip or a salad dressing.
(...)
COMEBACK SAUCE

2 large garlic cloves

1 large or 2 medium onions, grated

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup chili sauce

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup mustard

1/2 cup salad oil

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. black pepper

Dash of paprika

2 tbsp. water

Place garlic and onion in blender and blend until mixed. Add other ingredients and blend well. Refrigerate.


(FACTIVA)
This part of Atlanta missed Olympic legacy
693 words
13 March 1999
The Toronto Star
1
(...)
At Aleck's, where Dr. King himself would eat pulled pork drenched in Comeback Sauce, the joint was jumping every night. Alexander, whose family has run this business for nearly 50 years, loved every minute of it. But the tap shut off before the Games, gushed during the Games, and now it's as dry as a church social.


(FACTIVA)
HOT NIGHTS COOL CLUB THE HARLEM CLUB WAS SPOKANE'S ORIGINAL HIP HANGOUT, TAKING ITS CUE FROM THE FAME COTTON CLUB IN NEW YORK
Story by Jim Kershner Staff writer
2,127 words
2 November 1997
The Spokesman Review
SPOKANE
E1
(...)
Theo and E.J. presided over the kitchen. Theo's lemon pie was still one of the big draws. Since pie and liquor didn't always mix, the pie was more popular in the Harlem Club's tree-shaded family picnic area, called the "Oval Oasis."

Brown's specialties were his tenderloin steaks ("fried in pure butter") and his fried chicken.

"I still dream about those chicken dinners," said Adams, who went on to play jazz in clubs all over the Northwest and western Canada. She now lives in a Spokane nursing home, suffering from lupus.

Brown had one other specialty: smokey slabs of ribs covered with his own "Comeback" sauce (see recipe).

Brown, in fact, was featured as the city's "barbecued sparerib expert" in a 1958 Spokane Chronicle story after his retirement. In it, he discussed his philosophy of barbecue:
(...)
This sidebar appeared with the story: STRAIGHT FROM HARLEM CLUB'S KITCHEN Here are two recipes courtesy of Doris Mae Aaron: E.J. Brown's Comeback Sauce for Ribs 2 8-oz. cans of tomato sauce 5 tbsp. olive oil 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 clove garlic 1/2 cup molasses 2 diced onions 1/4 cup apple vinegar 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce 2 tsp. chili powder 2 tsp salt 2 cups red wine Hot peppers or hot sauce to taste Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan, cook slowly for approximately 45 minutes, or until sauce is thick Theo Brown's World Famous Lemon Pie 1/4 cup corn starch 2/3 cup sugar 1/2 tsp. salt 2 cups warm water 1/2 cup lemon juice Grated peel of 2 lemons 4 eggs, separated 3 tbsp. real butter Meringue ingredients (see below) One homemade pie crust, or ready-made pie crust In a 2-quart saucepan, measure cornstarch, sugar and salt. Stir and mix well. Slowly add whisked egg yolks, stirring all the while. Stir in 1/2 cup of warm water. Put on medium heat and cook slowly for five minutes. Slowly add remaining water, stirring constantly. Add lemon juice, lemon peel and butter. Cook slowly until mixture reaches slow boil, stirring all the while over medium low heat until it thickens. Remove from heat, and pour in a cooled, baked 9-inch pie crust. Meringue: Whisk 4 egg whites and a pinch of cream of tartar. Very slowly add 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp. salt until the mixture stands up in peaks, but not dry. Spread it atop the lemon filling. Bake at 350 degrees for at least 20 minutes. The top should be nicely browned.


(FACTIVA)
The Dixie Chic Inn
Eve Zibart
1,041 words
16 July 1993
The Washington Post
FINAL
n10
(...)
On the other hand, the corn-fried catfish fingers and the pecan-baked catfish are fine, although they're almost certainly farm cat rather than river and the "comeback sauce" (a sort of remoulade so called, if memory serves, because it's supposed to make sure ya'll come back) is kind of reticent. The country ham biscuits are close, but still on the roll call; the bowl of red beans will get you goin'.


(FACTIVA)
NEW CATALOG, RETAIL EFFORTS SPUR CUSACK MEAT SALES / 4 SONS OF HANK CUSACK BRING NEW IDEAS, GROWTH TO 52-YEAR OLD FIRM

MAX NICHOLS
1,210 words
11 December 1985
The Journal Record
(...)
One major customers was the old YWCA restaurant downtown in the 1940s and 1950s. Cusack started providing a rolled roast and sliced fresh side pork, which became specialties there. When Eloise Paskvan left the YWCA to become head of food operations at Baptist Hospital, she started buying the hospital's meat from Cusack.

"That was a big step for us," he said. "Now, we handle the meat for just about every hospital around here."

Another major customer in those days was Ralph Stephens at the old Dolores Restaurant on NE 23rd St.

"Ralph started ordering split tenderloins from us," said Cusack. "He would serve them on special steak sandwiches with Texas toast and his Comeback Sauce."


(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM)
Decatur Review - 4/24/1927
...Cottage Bar B-Q. Sandwiches with that COMEBACK SAUCE. 2500 N. Water. R. E. Carr.....lif Illf UK'hl Joyful Message to deaf in book by specialiflU It you art tmd for Olonn..
Decatur, Illinois   Sunday, April 24, 1927  661 k
Pg. ?, col. 7:
   White Cottage Bar B-Q.
Sandwiches with that comeback sauce.

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POT STICKERS

   The Bonnie Slotnick cookbook store nearest me didn't turn up a citation before 1968.  It's "wraplings" in an earlier version of the book, as a friend's e-mail also points out:

Barry:
I have a copy of How To Cook and Eat in Chinese - revised enlarged edition from 1949. The chiao-tzu are translated as "corners" or, as the author calls them, "wraplings."

   Helpful also is this book:

DIM SUM
by Rhoda Lee
San Francisco: Taylor & NG
1977

Pg. 37 ("The Cooker's Mistake"):
   The Emperor wanted to know why his food was burnt.  The son, who was a very quick witted fellow, explained that this was his new recipe called Pot Stickers, and that the bottom of each dumpling is supposed to be nice and brown.
   POT STICKERS (Kuo Teh)
(Recipe follows--ed.)