Norma Jean Darden - Spoonbread and strawberry wine: recipes and reminiscences of a family

Maxine McKendry
who was there at the conception

Bernadine Morris
who shone the light

Jean Naggar and Marie Dutton Brown
who had confidence

Hattie, Jed, Scott, Diana, and Joshua
who pushed

Ed Lloyd, Caroles husband
for his encouragement

Peggy, Cordell, Jeanie, Louella, Barbara, and Lola
who typed

The host of cousins
who gave generously of their time,
recipes, and reminiscences

and

The many friends
who so cheerfully tested and partook

In the event that some of you wish to prepare portions of recipes and run into odd amounts, we have included this list.

A pinch = less than teaspoon

3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons = 1/6 cup

4 tablespoons = cup

5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon = cup

8 tablespoons = cup

12 tablespoons = cup

cup = cup plus 2 tablespoons

cup = cup plus 2 tablespoons

cup = cup plus 2 tablespoons

16 tablespoons = 1 cup = 8 ounces

2 cups = 1 pint = 16 ounces

2 pints = 1 quart

4 quarts = 1 gallon

1 ounce = 2 liquid tablespoons

Brown sugar: 1 pound = about 2 cups packed

Butter, shortening: 1 pound = 2 cups 1 stick = pound = 8 tablespoons = 4 ounces = cup

Cheese, hard: 1 pound = 4 cups grated

Chocolate: 1 square = 1 ounce = 1 tablespoon melted = 4 tablespoons grated

Confectioners sugar: 1 pound = 3 cups

Cornmeal: 1 cup uncooked = 3 cups cooked

Cream (heavy): 1 cup = 2 cups whipped

Flour, all-purpose: 1 pound = 4 cups sifted

Flour, cake: 1 pound = 4 cups sifted

Granulated sugar: 1 pound = 2 cups

Lemon or lime: 1 medium = 23 tablespoons juice

Lemon rind: 1 medium = 23 teaspoons grated

Meat: 1 pound = 2 cups diced

Onion: 1 medium = cup chopped

Orange: 1 medium = cup juice

Potatoes: 1 pound = 4 medium = 2 cups diced = 2 cups mashed

Raisins: 1 pound = 3 cups

Rice, raw: 1 cups ( pound) = 4 cups cooked precooked: 1 cup = 2 cups cooked

Tomatoes: 1 pound = 5 medium = 1 cups chopped

Norma Jean Darden runs a successful New York City catering business called Spoonbread, Inc. She also operates two restaurants in ManhattanMiss Mamies Spoonbread Too in Morningside Heights and Miss Maudes in Harlem. She has also toured the country in her one-woman show, Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine, for over a year. The sisters have appeared on TVs FoodNetwork, on Martha Stewart Living, and in O, the Oprah Magazine. After working as a child therapist for many years, Carole Darden-Lloyd now runs the family real estate business and is a consultant for Spoonbread, Inc. Both Norma Jean and Carole are graduates of Sarah Lawrence College, and both live in New York City.

Gentle, wise, ingeniousthese are the adjectives most used to describe him by those who knew him. Family legend has it that in 1868, at the age of fourteen, Charles Henry Darden walked into Wilson, North Carolina. He had no money, no relatives, no friends there, and no one knew where he had come fromhe wouldnt say. Somehow, somewhere in his mysterious fourteen years, he had gained considerable skill as a blacksmith and could make and repair wheels. These abilities allowed him to eke out a small living and to put together the long wooden toolbox that was to become his trademark as he traveled door to door repairing broken locks and sharpening knives. In a short time he established a good reputation and at seventeen was able to open a small repair shop at the end of the main street in Wilson.

Charles Dardens future in his new town was shaped by a chance encounter. While attending a church social, he met and fell desperately in love with the perky and haughty young lady who was serving the lemonade. She was Dianah Scarborough, a fourteen-year-old seamstress and daughter of a freeborn couple who owned a small confectionery store in Wilson. Charles was shy, but not too shy to propose after a few breathless meetings. However, the Scarboroughs were firm in their refusal. After all, Charles was new to town, a stranger of untested character, and Dianah had many suitors. With the added pressure of love denied, Charles literally hammered his way out of this dilemma. Working with wood, glass, and iron, he produced washing boards, ax handles, troughs for animals; shoed horses; and made and repaired wagons and carriages. His business quickly prospered. Within a year after their first meeting, the Scarboroughs were sufficiently impressed by Charless diligence and his quiet persistence in wooing their daughter to reverse their previous stand and welcome the marriage.

The first of thirteen children (ten lived), a son, John, was born when Dianah was sixteen, and the rest followed in rapid succession. As the family grew, so did the business. Because of his skill as a carpenter, Charles was asked to make coffins. As requests multiplied, he realized the need for a funeral establishment and became the first black undertaker in the State of North Carolina. But wagons, wheels, and coffins did not content such an enterprising soul.

Ever mindful of the needs of his expanding family, as well as those of the community, he began growing vegetables and fruits in volume and opened a little store to sell his produce. His hot roasted peanuts, melons, and soda water were popular items, but the thing that brought the customers in was Charles Dardens own homemade wines. Wine making was his hobby. He used whatever fruits were in season and was especially known for his grape, dried peach, and watermelon wines. People seemed to enjoy his company and gathered at the store for wine and discussion.

By the middle 1870s, politics was the subject most discussed by folks who came into the store. There were three black senators and nineteen black members of the House in the North Carolina legislature during those postCivil War days, and all black folks took an optimistic interest in voting. Charles Henry was a forceful, sometimes humorous speaker, who never used profanity and never smoked or drankeven his own wines. His opinions were valued and sought after, and it was known that he harbored political aspirations. Wilson was a small, slow-paced, rather quiet tobacco town with about 4,000 citizens, 40 percent of whom were black, so the climate looked encouraging for black political progress. But by 1875, Reconstruction had given way to terrorism. In Wilson as well as throughout the rest of the South, the Ku Klux Klan had spread its sheets. Voting was over. First by intimidation and finally by law, blacks were banned from the ballot box. Political power as a tool for black advancement had failed, so Charles Henry Darden focused his energies on his business, the education of his family, and the leadership of his community. He was convinced that economic self-reliance now held the key to the survival of the black community.

Papa Darden would have been about nine when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, but he did not talk about being a slave. Never did he tell his family about a single day in his life before the day he came to town as his own man. He merely set an example. Always self-contained, even in tense times he radiated optimism and confidence. He became head of the trustee board of his church, which he attended twice on Sundays and one day during the week, and led his family in an orderly life. As his children grew, they were put to work, before and after school, in the repair shop, the funeral parlor, store, or garden.