SNOOZE ON THE BEACH

Nothing says relaxation quite like a good afternoon nap. And there’s no better place to drift off into la la land than on the beach. With 10 miles of unspoiled shoreline, Jekyll Island beaches are a veritable sanctuary for those looking to take a load off. Pop over to St. Andrews Beach to unwind while birdwatching, or take in a sunset. Visit South Dunes Beach Park, where you’re more likely to spot a shorebird than another person. Or revel in the wistful sea oats and pristine sand dunes of Glory Beach. No matter which hideaway you choose, soft waves and fresh ocean air provide the perfect ingredients for the ideal daytime doze.

Here’s a hearty meal straight from the island’s rich culinary history

By ALLISON ENTREKIN

Food and drink have been an integral part of Jekyll Island’s culture throughout its history. Native Americans cooked fish over open fires. Colonial settlers brewed the state’s first beers. Jekyll Island Club members entertained with large dinners, and State Era residents experimented with fancy seafood dishes. Here, we share historically inspired recipes that bring the flavors of Jekyll’s past to present-day kitchens.

Yield: 6 servings

1 cup butter

½ cup flour

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon cayenne

1 cup chopped onions

½ cup chopped parsley

2 packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed & drained

¼ cup anchovies, minced

1 ounce absinthe or sherry

3 dozen oysters on the half shell, 1 cup juice reserved Rock salt

Melt butter in a large sauce pot, stir in flour, and cook five minutes. Do not brown. Blend in oyster juice, garlic, salt, and cayenne. Place onions, parsley, spinach, and anchovies in a food processor and combine. Add to pot and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove cover and stir in absinthe or sherry; cook until thickened. Top each oyster with sauce and put half shells in a broiler over rock salt (which cradles the oyster and helps to distribute the heat) for about 6 minutes, or until edges of oysters begin to curl.

This recipe comes from a State Era seafood cookbook entitled A Pretty Kettle of Fish, by Tallu Fish. It was Fish who helped open the Jekyll Island Museum on December 11, 1954, the same day the Jekyll Island Causeway opened to cars on the island. Until her death in 1971, Fish compiled the museum’s archives and wrote books about Jekyll. The title of her seafood cookbook was a play on words: Yes, there were fish in many of the recipes, but to her, the prettiest kettle of ‘’Fish” were her 13 grandchildren. — Excerpted from A Pretty Kettle of Fish: Jekyll Island Seafood Cookery, by Tallu Fish

Yield: 15 servings

5-pound chicken

½ pack extra chicken gizzards

1-2 bunches scallions, chopped

1 pound bacon

1 medium onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

2 carrots, chopped

1 tablespoon minced garlic

8 tablespoons butter

8 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon paprika, or to taste

8 potatoes, chopped

1 pint half and half

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup water

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Place in a large stew pot, along with extra gizzards. Add water to cover. Boil about 1½ hours, until falling off the bone. Let cool about 20 minutes. Debone chicken and place back in broth. Sprinkle scallions in broth. Cook bacon and set aside. Pour off some of the bacon grease, then sauté onion, celery, carrots, and garlic in remaining grease. Add butter and flour mixed with paprika to vegetables. Add everything to broth, stirring well. Chop bacon and add to broth. Add potatoes. Season to taste with parsley, thyme, salt, garlic powder, pepper, seasoned pepper, white pepper, red pepper, and dill. Add half and half. Simmer about an hour, until potatoes have cooked through. In a separate bowl, mix flour and cornstarch, then add water. Add to pot, stirring constantly to desired thickness. Simmer until ready to serve.

This recipe is emblematic of the kind of dish that Major William Horton, who settled Jekyll Island during the Colonial period, might have eaten. The Georgia Trustees granted Horton the island for one pound and one shilling in 1735; with the help of indentured servants, Horton went on to plant crops and build a tabby home (now known as the Horton House), the facade of which still stands today. This recipe would likely have been prepared in a large pot over an open flame and accompanied with beer; Horton planted hops and rye and founded Georgia’s first brewery on the island. — Recipe courtesy of Gretchen Greminger and Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum Curator Andrea Marroquin

Jean Brown Jennings, wife of Standard Oil Director Walter Jennings, acquired this recipe from a friend in August 1896. In 1927, the Jennings built a modern stucco mansion called Villa Ospo on Jekyll Island; Walter was president of the Jekyll Island Club, and he and Jean often welcomed island newcomers into their home. This recipe is something Jean might have offered at one of her many Club-era parties. To update this recipe for modern palates, consider including adding optional ingredients (see recipe) to the mixture. — Recipe from Mrs. J.A. Weekes, gathered by friends in the book of Jean Brown Jennings, wife of Club member Walter Jennings

Yield: 6 servings

1 loaf white bread, divided

10 tablespoons melted butter, divided

2 medium apples, divided

4 tablespoons brown sugar, divided

2 tablespoons molasses, divided (optional)

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Yield: 8 servings

9 ears corn, husks and cornsilk removed (or substitute 2 cans cream-style corn and 2 cans wholekernel corn, drained)

2 cups milk

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Optional: 8 ounces cheddar cheese, 1 teaspoon seasoned pepper, 1 teaspoon cumin or paprika, and/or 1 teaspoon minced garlic.

Fill a large soup pot with enough water to cover corn and bring to a boil. Boil corn approximately 10 minutes. Remove corn from boiling water and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Grate corn on a coarse grater into a 9x13 (x 2.5 deep) casserole dish. Add milk, eggs, salt, and sugar (and any optional ingredients, as desired). Stir until well blended. Bake at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes, until it sets (it should not jiggle when shaken) and top is golden brown.

Butter a 1.6-liter round CorningWare souffle dish. Remove bread crusts and cut as much bread as needed into shapes (rectangles, half circles, squares, triangles, as needed) to tightly fit the sides and bottom of the mold. Brush onethird of the melted butter on both sides of the bread pieces. Use buttered bread to line the bottom and sides of the dish.

Peel, core, and slice apples. Add a layer of apples on top of the bread. Sprinkle half the brown sugar on top of the apple slices. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of molasses on top (optional). Add another layer of bread brushed with one-third of the butter, the rest of the brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon of molasses (optional). Cover with a final layer of bread and butter. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until apples are tender and bread browned. Cool for 30 minutes. Place plate on top of baking dish, and flip to unmold. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Jean Brown Jennings acquired this recipe from her friend, Mrs. J.A. Weekes, in August 1896. Jennings’ home on Jekyll Island, Villa Ospo, had a magnificent great room with easy access to sprawling, cypress-lined grounds. This dessert is something she might have served to members of the Jekyll Island Club when she and her husband Walter were in town. — Adapted from the original recipe by Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum Curator Andrea Marroquin

BY TONY REHAGEN

eyond the famed Georgia Sea Turtle Center, where visitors meet convalescing turtles and learn all about them and other marine life, Jekyll Island features a thriving ecosystem renowned for its varied wildlife. Within a short walk from hotels all over the island, visitors can mingle with ghost crabs, alligators, plovers, banded water snakes, bobcats, and all manner of other fauna in their natural habitat. The rich biodiversity on Jekyll is the result of a conscious and organized effort by the island's stewards to balance responsible development with historic preservation and conservation.

While the idea of featuring Jekyll as a natural wonderland in order to attract tourists is not new, public attitudes about the best way to show off that splendor have changed drastically through the years. In fact, there was a time, not long ago, when some locals believed that the best way to bring in vacationers and right the island's economic affairs was to build a sprawling seaside spectacle in which some of Jekyll's marine life would be paraded before onlookers in a permanent sea-life circus. Literally. In 1970, a group of Brunswick residents formed a company called Marineland of Georgia (later changed to Sea Circus, Inc.) which was to develop a six-acre oceanside "superaquarium" to be built where the South Loop Trail now becomes Beachview Drive. According to backers, there were to be trained seals and trick-performing dolphins and penguins. Sharks and barracudas would swim in huge glass tanks. Horace G. Caldwell, executive director of the Jekyll Island State Park Authority from 1967 to 1972, told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine that the Sea Circus would be "clean recreation." The project, though, almost immediately ran into complications from within and without, including zoning issues and troubled finances. But it was more than bureaucracy and money that prevented the circus from coming to Jekyll. "This project was out of its time," says Faith Plazarin, archivist and records manager at Mosaic, Jekyll Island Museum. "It would've meant massive change for the beach environment, and some people weren't pleased. It came at a time when our understanding of conservation was changing."

Looking back, this sea-themed water park may have been more than a simple casualty of shifting moods. The Sea Circus might have served as the catalyst to rouse island passions and set Jekyll on its current conservation-conscious course.

In June 1972, with the proposed Sea Circus still in limbo, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine published a cover story titled "Jekyll at the Crossroads." The impetus of the article was then Gov. Jimmy Carter's announcement that, starting on July 1, Jekyll would be responsible for paying its own operating expenses. To generate that sort of revenue, the island needed to lure tourists.

At the same time, the JIA was working on a new land-use plan that would provide the layout for Jekyll's future. A major question at the time: How much of the island's natural beauty would be razed to make way for the concrete and steel of private development? The magazine mentioned the inland marsh that already had been turned into a public dump and the pit that provided dirt for new construction projects. These new projects already included two motels, an apartment complex … and the proposed Sea Circus.

By the time the article hit newsstands, the Sea Circus was likely already doomed. It had been nearly two years since the Brunswick owners first announced their plans for the $750,000 project, which was to be publicly funded by a sale of stock

(ads for stock in Sea Circus, Inc. put the price at $7.50 per share). Modeled after similar Florida parks—in St. Augustine (Marineland) and Miami (Sea Aquarium)—Jekyll Island's Sea Circus sought to siphon off Northern travelers on their way south to the Sunshine State. The attraction would be a "living sea" exhibit, a "first of its kind in Georgia," according to developers. Renderings produced by architects Schlosser & Miller of Brunswick portrayed a spacious modernist park with signature shark fin-shaped awnings and spires. Inside, more than 454,000 gallons of water, mostly in three primary tanks, would house marine life and be available for research scientists. Still, the focus was squarely on entertainment, not science.

The facility will overlook the ocean from a garden of subtropical flowers, shrubs, and trees, said one local newspaper at the time. Trained porpoises, sea lions, and possibly penguins will be featured in shows to be presented several times daily. An array of other marine life, from tropical fish to sharks, will be on view at all times.

In January 1971, the company (then known as Sea World, Inc.) declared it had secured the desired site on Beachview Drive, south of the former Stuckey's Carriage Inn. "The site we have leased is one of the most valuable pieces of undeveloped oceanfront properties on the coast," Ferman Ricks, president of Sea World, told the local press.

Developers weren't the only people who understood the value of that beachfront real estate. Some of the people who live on the island, residents of this state park, have discovered ecology, reads the 1972 AJC article. They are demanding that marsh be saved and that habitat not be disturbed and that sand dunes be preserved and that not all of the rest of the beachfront go commercial.

The dunes were of particular concern. Archivist Plazarin points out that, at the time, Jekyll was still recovering from damage caused by 1964's Hurricane Dora. Dunes were especially important in protecting the island against future storms, acting as a natural rampart against storm surges, waves, flooding, and coastal erosion. They also serve as a habitat for many species of wildlife. "There is no reason in the world the sea circus should be put on the sea," E. Reeseman Fryer, Jekyll resident and president of the Coastal Georgia Audubon Society, told the AJC. "Those dunes are up to 26 feet [tall]. That's the highest point on the island. They're invaluable as protective barriers."

Adding to the public furor was the fact that the Sea Circus site had not been designated for commercial development in the first place.

Despite the public protest, island and Sea Circus officials staged a ceremonial Sunday groundbreaking on the proposed site in June 1971. Two months later, they secured unanimous approval of the plans and building permits from the Jekyll Island State Park Authority (commonly known now as the Jekyll Island Authority, or JIA).

But not another shovel of sand or dirt was ever lifted for the project. According to minutes from subsequent JIA meetings, developers continually returned before the board with new financial backers. In February 1973, a representative reported that the company had secured permanent financing and planned to be under construction "within 15 to 30 days." Two months later, they were back with another plan.

The last mention of the Sea Circus is in minutes from a September 1973 meeting, in which the Jekyll board said "a letter had gone out to Sea Circus, Inc. stating that the Authority could not approve their proposed method of financing."

It's difficult now to know just how much the increased public environmental consciousness of the 1960s and 1970s influenced the fizzling financial sup- port of the project. But it's clear that more than a few Jekyll residents and Georgia citizens realized what they had in the island's natural bounty. And they weren't about to give it up without a fight.

Whether this particular victory over unchecked development belonged to early environmentalists or not, the consequences of the failed project live on all over the island. Today, the South Dunes Beach Park sits near the one-time Sea Circus site. There, visitors can pack a lunch, stroll the boardwalk through scrub brush and trees, cross safely over 20-foot high sentinel dunes, and get a clear view of the beach, the sea, and the horizon beyond, without a fish tank or a penguin in sight.