Nancy Davis - Coastal Carolina Cooking

Acknowledgments We would like to thank the following people for their help in compiling this book: Joyce Taylor, seafood agent with the University of North Carolina Sea Grant College Program, for sharing her knowledge about seafood B. J. Copeland, director of the Sea Grant Program, for allowing us to pursue this project Jim Bahen, Bob Hines, and Randy Rouse, marine advisory agents with the Sea Grant Program, and Rhett White, director of the North Carolina Marine Resources Center on Roanoke Island, for supplying the names of several cooks the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service home extension agents in many coastal counties who supplied us with more names of coastal cooks Carolyn Lackey and Nadine Tope of the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service for assistance with many of the pickling and preserving recipes and Dorothy Davis and Bert Hart, for their comments and support. Foremost, we would like to thank those who are included in these pages. They opened their homes, reached into their recipe boxes and drawers, dusted off their memories, and talked to us about food and recipes. Introduction This is a book about the traditional cooks and cooking of the North Carolina coast.

In its pages, you will meet thirtyfour cooks from Currituck Country to Brunswick Country and everywhere in between who have shared dishes you do not find on restaurant menus or in the pages of fancy cookbooks. The recipes start with the basics and almost never call for a can of soup or a readymade pie crust. To hear cooks like Eloise Pigott of Gloucester and Letha Henderson of Hubert tell it, you would think there was nothing special about their ways of cooking. They can hardly believe you are asking about their recipesones that were passed along from a relative or neighbor and are as much a part of coastal tradition as boatbuilding and netmaking. But we did ask, and the cooks shared more than just their recipes. They told us about their families, their traditions, their way of lifeall in the context of food.

Food is central to the family in coastal North Carolina, and it is associated with togetherness and good times. The aromas of frying bacon or a simmering stew signaled the beginning and end of each day when all the family gathered at the table. Sometimes, food drew together more than just the family. Clam bakes, oyster roasts, and mullet barbecues were gatherings for the whole community. At these events, tables were laden with each cook's best efforts. Food also drew together the young many a girl's first date was a fudge party or candy pull supervised by her mother.

As anywhere, food had its seasonal aspects too. People ate seafoods, meats, wild game, vegetables, and fruits according to the season. When possible, they extended the availability of these seasonal foods by corning, smoking, salting, canning and preserving, and pickling. To find those who knew how to corn fish and salt pork, we called home economics extension agents and Sea Grant marine advisory agents in the coastal counties. We explained that we were looking for good cooks from longtime coastal families. They provided us with names of cooks or the names of those who would know good cooks.

Then we set out to meet these people in person. A few were hesitant at first, but we found that if there is one topic that will open up a conversation, it's food. It seems that if people enjoy cooking and eating good food, they enjoy talking about it. We had one problem. Most of the cooks measured their ingredients by the handful or the pinch. When we asked them how much water to add to a cornmeal dumpling, they were likely to answer, ''Just enough." Measuring cups and spoons were as foreign to these people as cake mixes and artificial flavorings.

But we pushed and prodded and tested their memories. Finally, we learned that "just enough" was four tablespoons, not two or three. Some of our cooks treated us to a taste of their cooking. Others, like the Morrises in Smyrna, prepared a feast of seafoods with all the fixings. In Edenton, Frances Inglis pulled out a handwritten family cookbook compiled in the 1860s. And Katherine Taylor in Maple still refers to a 1924 cookbook that she used in her high school home economics class.

Most of the cooks we included grew up in families that combined farming and fishing. For the most part, they were selfsufficient. If they went to the grocery store, it was for flour, sugar, and coffee or tea. Often, it wasn't money that changed hands for these goods the storekeeper would accept a few dozen eggs in return. Although many of the cooks' families were not wealthy by today's standards, they were rich in the variety of foods that blessed their table. They knew the goodness of fresh seafood, justpicked vegetables, and freshly churned butter.

They cooked these ingredients into dishes that pleased the palate and nourished the body. When we set out to compile this book, we thought we would find distinct regional differences in the cooking. Instead, we discovered that a cook from Manteo is just as likely to drop cornmeal dumplings into her collards as are cooks from Downeast towns like Gloucester and Atlantic. We did find that, from north to south, cooks used species of fish according to their availability. Dishes using herring and striped bass were prevalent in the north, drum along the Outer Banks, and catfish in the south. With a few exceptions, most of the cooks we interviewed were men and women old enough to remember when shrimp were a dime a bucket and softshell crabs were just coastal fare.

They know how to slice a freshly killed hog into more than ham and bacon from head to tail, they used every ounce of meat and fat. These are special people, and they are what make this book more than a compilation of recipes. It's a taste of home. Contents Acknowledgments
Introduction Katherine & Emest Taylor: Maple Baked Bass Baked Bluefish in a Bag Fried White Perch Fried Oysters Fried Herring Fried Coot Fried Rabbit Roasted Coon May Peas Watermelon Rind Pickles Banana Cake Butter Icing Dorothy Treadwell: Grandy Baked Wild Goose Crab Meat Casserole Fried Sweet Potatoes Soupy Green Beans and Potatoes Mashed Rutabaga Bell Pepper Relish Pickled Figs Mae Tarkington: Camden Corn Bread Griddle Cakes Vegetable Soup Buttermilk Yeast Biscuits Never-Fail Pan Rolls Cucumber Relish Coca-Cola Cake Icing Jemima Markham: Elizabeth City Corn Pudding Stewed Corn Cabbage Sprouts Peach Pickles Pickled Beets Sweet Potato Biscuits Molasses Popcorn Cherry Cobbler Vera Gallop: Harbinger Mullet Barbecue Crab Salad Fried Soft-Shell Crabs Boiled Rockfish Fried Eels Fried Squash French-Fried Squash Squash Cakes Applesauce Sweet Pickles Raisin Pie Meringue Peach Cobbler Frances Drane Inglis: Edenton Baked Shad Rock Muddle Fried Herring Roe Baked Shad Roe Fish Pie Roasted Goose Homemade Catsup Tomato Sauce Corn Dodgers Egg Bread Beaten Biscuits Artichoke Pickles Lemon Chess Pie Apple Crisp Blight House Plum Pudding Sauce Jeanie Williams: Manteo Roasted Swan Clam Chowder with Rice Bluefish Cake Mashed Rutabagas Mashed Turnips Stewed Tomatoes String Beans with Potatoes and Cornmeal Dumplings Yeast Rolls Sticky Buns Chocolate Pound Cake Nora Scarborough: Wanchese Crab Soup Crab Cakes Fresh Tuna Fish Salad Raw Oysters Stewed Shrimp Oyster Dressing for Turkey Lucille Osborne: Engelhard Baked Country Ham Fried Pork Chops Chicken Soup with Vegetables Mashed Potatoes Baked Tomatoes Lacy Corn Bread Raw Apple Cake Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Batter Sarah Latham: Belhaven Fried Butterfish Baked Sugar-Cured Ham Fried Chicken Baked Chicken Dressing Ham Rolls Blueberry Cake Filling Topping Fruit Salad Molasses Pie Pull Candy Drop Doughnuts Brown Sugar Chewy Cake Fudge Venice Williams: Avon Fried Spot Stewed Pork Chops and Pork Liver with Dumplings and Pastry Pastry Fried Chicken Corn Pone Bread Coconut Pie Blackberry Spread Evelyn Styron: Hatteras Fried Trout Broiled Trout Stewed Goose Potato Salad Cole Slaw Fig Pudding Pumpkin Pie Pie Crust Elizabeth Howard: Ocracoke Puppy Drum (Channel Bass) and Potatoes Baked Leg of Lamb Blackberry or Apple Dumplings Sauce Jelly Cake Filling and Topping Chocolate Cake Lucille Truitt: Oriental Old Drum Stew Fried Mullet Broiled Spanish Mackerel Venison Ham Collards and Irish Potatoes Chocolate Cake Icing Glennie Willis: Atlantic Fried Scallops Stewed Oysters Deviled Crab Casserole Fish Hash Spot and Sweet Potatoes Stewed Diamondback Terrapin Stewed Venison Stewed Rutabagas Mitchell and Vilma Morris: Smyrna Stew-Fried Shrimp Oyster Stew Oyster Fritters Stew-Fried Birds[fn*] Molasses Gunger Bill and Eloise Pigott: Gloucester Conch Chowder Cornmeal Dumplings Downeast Clam Bake Clam Fritters Hard Crab Stew Crab Cakes Pecan Pie Georgie Bell Nelson: Harkers Island Clam Chowder with Cornmeal Dumplings Collards with Cornmeal Dumplings Stew-Fried Corn Fried Sweet Potatoes Fig Preserves Coconut Pie Bread Pudding Jessie Savage: Morehead City Conch Stew Cornmeal Dumplings Fried Hogfish Shad Roe with Sweet Potatoes Sea Mullet Stew Cabbage Hush Puppies Rita Guthrie and Flora Bell Pittman: Salter Path Baked Bluefish Stewed Pompano Spareribs and Rutabagas Fried Mullet Roe Stewed Chicken Mullet and Watermelon Scallop Fritters Lightning Rolls Stovetop Corn Bread Rice Custard Letha Henderson: Hubert Liver Pudding Sausage Souse Hog Brains and Eggs Stone Crab Cakes Boiled Shrimp Coon Hash Grape Pie Pie Crust Applejacks or Peachjacks Pound Cake Yaupon Tea Sassafras Tea Flonnie Hood & Dorothy Hood Mills: Burgaw Chicken and Pastry Pastry Squirrel and Dumplings Cornmeal Dumplings Fried Squirrel Pig Tails and Rice Deviled Crabs Baked Shad Shad Roe and Eggs Red-Eye Gravy Grits Rice Cream-Style Corn Butter Beans Fried Okra Baked Corn Bread Biscuits Pecan Pie Cold-Oven Pound Cake Percy Jenkins & Loraine Jenkins: Sneads Ferry Fried Shrimp Fish Stew Crab Soup Oyster Stew Hush Puppies Fried Scallops Fried Soft-Shell Crabs Baked Fish with Crab Meat Crab Casserole Stewed Mullet with Sweet Potatoes and Cornmeal Dumplings Blueberry Dumplings Biscuit Dough Filling Sauce Sunshyne Davis & Jo Ann Davis Griffin: Wilmington and Holden Beach Duck and Wild Rice Casserole Sauted Shrimp Steamed Oysters Red Snapper Throats Fish Cakes Venison Stew Venison Meat Loaf Frog Legs Bear Roast Stuffed Tomatoes Fried Sweet Potatoes Cheese-Onion Bread Sweet Potato Pie Lemon Meringue Pie Hall Watters: Winnabow Fried Catfish Sturgeon Stew Boiled Popeye Mullet and New Potatoes Eel Stew Fried Hard Crabs Fried Menhaden Roe Menhaden Roe and Scrambled Eggs Hickory Nut Pie E. L. Lewis & "Red" Otis Radford: Carolina Beach Clam Chowder Stuffed Flounder Crab Dressing Corn Bread Clam Fritters Catfish Stew Crab Cakes References Index