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Cookbook offers favorites from across state
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Published: October 4, 2009
Church homecoming season is hard upon us. The annual homecoming celebration is an integral part of organized religion as practiced in the South. It is a day of faith, family, friends and food.
These days, the homecoming meal is usually served in the fellowship hall, but it used to be held outdoors under the trees and it was called "dinner on the grounds."
It is mostly the women of the church, God bless 'em, who prepare the food for the meal following morning worship service, and among them there is a sort of unannounced and unacknowledged competition.
A new book from UNC Press could give a winning edge to a novice entrant into the culinary competition: "Sweet Carolina: Favorite Desserts and Candies from the Old North State," by Foy Allen Edelman.
Ms. Edelman's book of sweet Tar Heel treats has 230 recipes ranging from simple to complex, most with fewer than 10 ingredients. Any of the recipes would be a worthy contribution to the homecoming spread. If you'd had this book a week ago, it would be your offering on the dessert table that folks would be sampling.
"What," you may ask, "does cooking have to do with history?"
Plenty.
Our ancestors, besides bringing tangible items with them such as clothing, tools, furniture, etc., also brought intangibles, such as ideas about religion, concepts of right and wrong, folk tales, songs, notions as to what a house should look like, the proper roles of men and women ... and what constituted food and how to prepare it.
Once over here, our ancestors sometimes made changes in recipes due to the availability or unavailability of ingredients they would have had back in the old country. They also learned new recipes and discovered new spices and cooking methods from their neighbors.
Other recipes were handed down, generation to generation, with little change, so Grandma Betty's potato salad recipe and Aunt Sallie's fried apple pie recipe are as much family heirlooms as that faded photo of great-grandfather or great-grandmother's silver wedding ring.
"The cooks I met," says Edelman, "contributed personal stories and recipes that they have loved, prepared, carefully recorded and handed down. Many of the recipes are inherited, and some families have made their recipes for so long that they can't remember where they got them. ... As often as possible I use quotes from the cooks themselves to try to convey the essence of their relationships with the foods."
Ms. Edelman claims to have collected recipes from each of our 100 counties. There are three from Iredell: "Harvey's Bristol Cream French Apple Ice Cream" comes from Jane Sherrill Lasley, formerly of Statesville but now of Raleigh, while "Blender Chocolate Pie" and "Pineapple Pie" were contributed by Elizabeth "Libby" Lowder, of Mooresville.
From other counties come such fare as "Granny's Green Tomato Pie" from Bertie and Nash, "Hot Chocolate Cake and Topping" from Stanley, Mae Wells's Gingerbread" from Perquimans, "Blackberry Dumplings" from Wake and "Fried Sweet Potatoes" from Pasquotank.
Surry County provided the recipe for "Lazy-Day Sonker," a kind of deep-dish cobbler with alternating layers of fruit and pastry. The Qualla Boundary furnished the recipe for "Kanuchi," a Cherokee dessert made with hominy, pinto beans, walnuts and sugar.
If you get a copy of "Sweet Carolina," at next year's homecoming you'll be able to say something like:
"Oh that? That's just some blackberry dumplings I threw together this morning. Old family recipe, you know. I really don't know if it's fit to eat; the berries just didn't look as plump as I like them to be. I started to throw it out."
"Sweet Carolina" would make a fine addition to any Tar Heel kitchen. The 320-page book sells for $25 and can be found in bookstores or ordered at (1-800) 848-6224.
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We owe a profound debt of gratitude to Ms. Edelman for the six years she spent crisscrossing the state, from Manteo to Murphy, collecting and sampling, and sampling again, these recipes — tough, thankless work, but somebody had to do it.
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Elizabeth Lowder's Pineapple Pie
9-inch graham cracker crust
1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice (to taste)
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple, drained, or equivalent amount of fresh, crushed pineapple.
Mix the lemon juice with the condensed milk. Blend in the cream cheese. Add the pineapple and mix well. Pour the filling into the graham cracker crust; chill until firm. Refrigerate any leftovers. Serves 6 to 8.
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