Pizza was childhood delicacy, but for Dillard, comfort food now is cobbler

With another round of the coronavirus rolling through Arkansas, the folks in Features thought maybe we all needed some comfort — comfort food, that is. So we’ve asked our own regional celebrities to submit their favorite “Local Flavors,” and we’ll be sharing them with you throughout the rest of 2021.

In Northwest Arkansas, Tom Dillard is perhaps best remembered as the head of Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville. He’s been interested in history since he was a youngster

living on a farm outside the “small village” of Sims, Ark., and writes the weekly “Arkansas Postings” column in this section of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Perhaps less well known are his lifelong interest in gardening — at 72, he still maintains a large vegetable garden in addition to his ornamental gardens — and his passion for a good peach.

“Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I ate a lot of homegrown foods, but we also had a charge account at a local general store and purchased food,” Dillard says. “We had a peach tree in the corner of our vegetable garden, and we harvested small fruit from it. Once, as a small child, I cut a bunch of those small peaches into halves and put them up on the roof of the house to dry in the sun. I had read a book about Navajo Indians drying their peaches on the roofs of their homes, so I gave it a shot. Those peaches dried beautifully, [and] my mother showed me how to put a bit of sulphur in the bottom of the container to keep out insects. Occasionally my mother would make peach fried pies.

“A real delicacy for me was pizza, a food I did not know until I was in high school. People never made pizza at home when I was a child, but I bought one whenever I was in Hot Springs, the city where we shopped. I don’t understand this pizza preference today, probably because they are so ubiquitous.”

Now, “nothing makes me feel better, especially in the heat of summer, than a bowl of my wife’s peach cobbler with Yarnell’s vanilla ice cream. All seems right about the world for at least an hour after I have such a cobbler treat.”

Below is Mary Dillard’s recipe for Tom’s favorite summertime comfort food.

Blackberry or Peach Cobbler With CoconutPecan Topping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Fruit mix:

8 cup blackberries (or peaches or other berries)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup instant tapioca (or 3 T. corn starch)

Juice of 1/2 lime

Pinch of salt

Toss fruit with other ingredients and spoon into a

2 quart baking dish.

The topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup sweetened coconut

3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup pecans, chopped

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed (1 stick)

1 egg

Combine flour, coconut, sugar, pecans, baking powder and salt. Using fingertips (or a pastry blender) mix in butter until it looks like coarse sand. Blend in the egg. Drop in clumps on top of the fruit mix and bake for 45-50 minutes until the topping is golden and crisp and fruit is bubbling. Cool on a rack one hour before serving.

NOTE: Dillard notes that the peaches were the variety “Cresthaven,” and Mary picked them at Suzanne’s Fruit Farm near Hampton in Calhoun County.

(File photo) Dillard’s first love is history — he was head of Special Collections at the University of Arkansas libraries when this photo was taken — but he’s also been an avid gardener since his childhood on a farm outside Sims.

(Courtesy photo) Tom Dillard’s favorite summer comfort food is cobbler homemade by wife Mary and topped with Yarnell’s vanilla ice cream.

(Courtesy photo) Dillard’s favorite cobbler, whether made from peaches or berries, is topped with a crusty coconut-pecan combination.