We’ve written before about Mildred “Mama Dip” Council, who is a Chapel Hill institution in her own right, beloved by generations of students and townies for her good cooking and her community engagement.

This News & Observer article is just the latest reminder of how Mama Dip changes lives on a regular basis:

Council doesn’t judge the dudes who work for her, which may be the reason they seem to appreciate her so much. “I don’t ask them what they’ve done, but sometimes they tell me. They’re not all bad people. Most of them are locked up for drugs. If you could take a broom and sweep out all of the drugs, … you’d be surprised at what you might find.”

Read more

How can a community say enough thanks to match the quantity and quality of the gifts she has given? By dining at her restaurant, sure, that’s the delicious part; but also by saying thanks, publicly, as often as possible.

So thank you, Mama Dip, for your gifts and your willingness to give them. This town–and the world!–is a better place because of you.

An excerpt from our own interview with Edelman:

Q: What kinds of desserts and candies can we find in Sweet Carolina?

A: You’ll find authentic, tried and true favorites. Almost fifty cakes are included. To top off your cakes, there are recipes for icings, fillings, or sweet sauces. Pies are just so easy to make and as popular as cakes among the North Carolinians I met. If you want portable desserts, you can try recipes for cookies, bars, and squares. If you’re in the mood for puddings and custards, you’ll find a variety of recipes. Cold desserts include America’s favorite, vanilla ice cream, as well as flavored ice creams, sherbet, and a frozen strawberry pie. The candy recipes are all delicious and range from no cook mints to fairy kisses.

Q: Do you have a favorite recipe? Why is it your favorite one?

A: All the recipes are my favorites, but I have to admit that I associate most of them with particular seasons and enjoy them more during those times. The minute I see the canopies go up in early spring on Wake County corners, my taste buds wake up and get ready to enjoy fresh strawberries. Marie Bachelor’s strawberry pizza is a tasty way to kick off the fresh fruit season.

When the magnolias pop open with huge, fragrant blooms, I bake blueberry biscuits, cake, and pie. When the crape myrtle blossoms look like huge chunks of watermelon, I reach for Barbara Michos’s open face peach pie recipe or make sour cream peach pie. During the dog days of high summer, what’s better than homemade ice cream or sherbet? And you can’t go wrong with a lemon pie.

In the fall, any of the apple desserts are just right. It’s also a perfect season for pear pie. When the weather begins to cool off and I can get local sweet potatoes and pick up persimmons, I enjoy sweet potato and persimmon puddin’. And as the holidays approach, magic pumpkin pie, fruitcake, and apple stack cake are just right on my table.

When the hardwoods have lost their leaves and nature begins to showcase evergreens and hollies, I prefer brownie cupcakes, egg custard, nutty fingers, and shortcake cookies. During the winter, I enjoy making fudge, jet age brownies, and heavy, rich desserts, pound cakes, cheesecake, and layer cakes.

You just can’t go wrong with chess pies, bread pudding, and cookies all year long.

Click here to read the full interview.

There is also an audio interview, which you can listen to here.

Don’t forget to check back for more interviews from our authors!

“He was experimental and had a lot of failures,” Peter Hatch, the director of gardens and grounds, said on a recent afternoon, as we stood under a scorching sun in the terraced garden that took seven slaves three years to cut into the hill. “But Jefferson always believed that ‘the failure of one thing is repaired by the success of another.’ ”

After he left the White House in 1809 and moved to Monticello, his Palladian estate here, Jefferson grew 170 varieties of fruits and 330 varieties of vegetables and herbs, until his death in 1826.

As we walked along the geometric beds — many of them planted in an ancient Roman quincunx pattern — I made notes on the beautiful crops I had never grown. Sea kale, with its great, ruffled blue-green leaves, now full of little round seed pods. Egyptian onions, whose tall green stalks bore quirky hats of tiny seeds and wavy green sprouts. A pre-Columbian tomato called Purple Calabash, whose energetic vines would soon be trained up a cedar trellis made of posts cut from the woods.

Jefferson kept a personal horticultural diary for more than fifty years. Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, which we distribute for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, contains a facsimile of his Garden Book, additional letters and other documents, plus commentary from Edwin Morris Betts on Jefferson’s varied approaches to gardening, whether as landscape architect, pleasure gardener, or horticultural scientist. Peter Hatch provides the introduction to the volume. You can browse inside the book via Google Books here.

Since then, I’ve been just sort of hopping around–a couple days drinking mint juleps with some southern smarty pants types in Michael O’Brien’s Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860;  an afternoon trying out the chocolate-free recipes in Foy Allen Edelman’s Sweet Carolina; and yesterday, I tested my paw at a little car racing in Daniel S. Pierce’s Real NASCAR (though I had to ride shotgun as my feet would not quite reach the pedals).  Yes, I’ve been called a Renaissance Man.

But my true passion is history–I’m this close to finishing my dissertation on the disintegration of the Tsarist autocracy.  Anyway, the other day I was hanging back in North Carolina circa 1789; did you know that what is now Tennessee was ceded by North Carolina to the U.S. government in 1789?  If you didn’t know that, you’re a disgrace–kiss my paws and get a copy of The North Carolina Gazetteer to study up.  There will be a quiz later.  Check in soon to see where…excuse me, when I travel to next.

Gus Reads INTELLECTUAL LIFE AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1810-1860

Gus Reads SWEET CAROLINA

Gus Reads THE NORTH CAROLINA GAZETTEER

-Gus

Mama Dip has two recipe books: Mama Dip’s Kitchen and Mama Dip’s Family Cookbook, both of which are filled with recipes and personal anecdotes about her life and experiences with food. The greatest challenge in our mission was picking out the recipes! There were so many options for main dishes, and let’s not even get started on dessert. If “one of everything” had been feasible, it certainly would have been attempted!

Flipping through the books, nearly every recipe has a story behind it or a recommendation on serving the dish. We finally decided: Country Baked Chicken, Creamy Corn Pudding, Green Bean Casserole, Buttermilk Biscuits, and Pecan Pie. All classic southern favorites. The journey to culinary bliss began!

The recipes were simple, both in ingredients and instructions. Who knew combining three basic ingredients typically found in the kitchen would lead to soft biscuits to complement the meal?

The baking commenced with dessert. The pecan pie was overflowing, slowly dripping through the cracks of the pie crust before baking. After an hour in the oven, the pie was ready but we realized picking out the recipes wasn’t the most difficult task: resisting a bite of dessert until after dinner was absolute torture!

The biscuits were delightfully messy. Combining the ingredients and getting messy hands really triggered the inner-chef mentality. Baked until golden brown, the biscuits proved impossible to resist while warm.

The green bean casserole and the creamy corn pudding were easy side dishes that added flavor and color to the meal. This part of the cooking process is where we messed up, but that mistake led us to finding the true essence of soul food: you’re allowed to make mistakes!

After cooking the corn pudding, the consistency didn’t seem quite right. Referring back to the recipe, we realized we forgot the one essential ingredient to bind the others together: flour! Stirring it in after the dish had cooked for nearly an hour, we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. But none of that mattered: we had a great dish on our hands, with all the flavors that counted. So what if it was more like creamed corn than corn pudding? There was no doubt it would be delicious with the juices running across the plate and being soaked up by the biscuits.

Then came the main dish, the country baked chicken. While many people might think of southern soul food as “fried everything,” Mama Dip’s cookbook includes many recipes for those with a fear of frying. The chicken turned out juicy on the inside with a crispy crust on the outside.

While indulging that meal, we talked and laughed around the table, catching up on each other’s lives and dreaming ideas for the next meal. Dinner was how it was supposed to be: not a microwave dinner in front of the computer or a power bar in the car on the way to work. It was a meal with friends, both sharing and listening.

The entire experience embodied soul food from start to finish. Don’t worry about ingredients and measurements. If it looks a little sticky, add some more flour. If it’s not quite the golden brown you want, leave it in the oven a bit longer or crank up the broiler. Soul food is about feeling your way through the food, cooking with your heart, and sharing that time with people you love. And if you don’t feel like cooking, there’s always an opportunity to visit Mama Dip’s Kitchen for any meal of the day.

And remember: if all else fails, just add more butter!

-alyssa

Both of Mama Dip’s cookbooks – full of easy and delicious recipes – are available through UNC Press.

Last year we told you the guidelines for North Carolina barbecue, as set forth by John Shelton Reed and Dale Volberg Reed, authors of Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue. This got us thinking: while we have versions of barbecue, what constitutes barbecue for the rest of the United States?
Turns out, there are four styles of barbecue: Memphis and Carolina, both pork-based, and Kansas City and Texas, which use beef.

For Carolina barbecue, there are three variations that expand on the basic pork flavored with spices and vinegar. North Carolina hosts the friendly rivalry between Eastern and Western barbecue. In the east, the entire pig is cooked, with all the parts chopped, mixed together and seasoned with the traditional spice and vinegar mixture. Barbecue from Western North Carolina – also known as Lexington barbecue – comes from the pig’s shoulder and includes a tomato-based sauce. South Carolina barbecue is accompanied with a sweet and tangy yellow sauce based from mustard and brown sugar.

We know, this is a lot to take in. The good news is, the rest of the regions aren’t nearly as complicated as the ‘cue-loving Carolinas.

Kansas City barbecue is flavored with a thick, sweet sauce. You might recognize this sauce through its widely available version, KC Masterpiece.

In Memphis, slow-cooked pork ribs are served either wet or dry. Dry ribs are smothered with a spice rub. Wet ribs are cooked with a tomato sauce similar to what is found in the Carolinas.

Texas barbecue is divided in four regions: East, West, Central and South. East Texas serves chopped barbecue, which can be pork or beef. Central Texas barbecue is typically sliced beef brisket. In West Texas, the beef is slow cooked and sauce added at the end rather than during the cooking process. South Texas barbecue takes inspiration from the Mexican border.

Those are merely the major barbecue styles! Every region has its version of slow-cooked meat. As much as this may have answered questions about barbecue throughout the nation, we think the best way to learn about this culinary delight is with a hands-on approach! Napkins and sweet tea, of course, are recommended.

If you’re in the Triangle this weekend, the Got To Be NC Festival is running through Sunday, May 23 at the N.C. State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. With a food and wine exposition and our two favorite words (“Free Admission”), this festival might be the perfect way to celebrate National Barbecue Month, North Carolina style!

-alyssa

bbq photo credit: Steve Snodgrass

For additional reading on food from the South, check out these books:

I thought it would be fun to take pictures of Zina making these cookies, especially to show people who want to bake–and aren’t sure they know how–that it really is easy. All the basic moves are here in this recipe: getting that sugar and butter together, using a real vanilla bean, adding the flour, rolling, baking. Just take your butter out an hour or two before you start–you’ll want it to be at room temperature for this recipe–and then you’ll see the easy magic that you and a wooden spoon can make. (You really don’t need an electric mixer.) These shortbreads are always welcome, munched with hot coffee or cold milk, or propped alongside a ball of ice cream. Karen gives some great serving tips at the end of the recipe, below. The cornmeal gives the shortbread a little southern touch. And remember: the more butter in a cookie, the shorter it is. Thanks, Zina and Karen.

Cornmeal Vanilla Bean Shortbreads

from Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker’s American Desserts

Makes 32 2-inch cutouts or 16 wedges

Every baker has a favorite recipe for shortbread cookies, and here is mine. The addition of fresh vanilla bean and the slight crunch of cornmeal make these buttery treats irresistible. You can customize their shape, depending upon your mood and the occasion. Try cutout stars for Christmas or the Fourth of July, hearts for Valentine’s Day, or Scottish-style wedges for tea.

INGREDIENTS

16 tablespoons (8 ounces) butter, at room temperature

seeds of 1 vanilla bean

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar

1 ½ cups flour

¼ cup cornstarch

½ cup stoneground yellow cornmeal

Here’s how to get those vanilla bean seeds:

PREPARATION

1. Using a mixer with a paddle, cream the butter with the vanilla bean seeds, salt, and sugar, scraping the sides of the bowl once or twice.

2. Combine the flour,

cornstarch,

and cornmeal

and add to the creamed butter in 3 additions.

Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to make sure the dough is evenly mixed.

Gather the dough together, divide in half, flatten into rounds, and wrap in plastic.

Chill for one hour or up to 2 days. This dough can be frozen. Defrost overnight on the refrigerator before using.

3.  Preheat oven to 350°.

4. A. For shortbread cutouts: On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out ¼ inch thick.

Cut the cookies into desired shapes and place them on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps and reroll one time.

B. For shortbread wedges: On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece of dough into a circle 8 inches in diameter and ¼ to ½ inch thick. Use a plate or a cake pan as a guide. Place on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet. Score each round into 8 wedges, being careful not to cut all the way through the dough. Decoratively prick the shortbread with the tines of a fork if desired.

5. Bake at 350° for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the edges just start to brown. Reduce oven to 325° and bake an additional 10 to 20 minutes. Wedges will need a longer baking time than cutouts. Rotate the baking sheet midway through the baking process–you want the shortbreads to remain fairly light in color, but you do want to make sure they’re baked through. You can always break a cookie open to test for doneness. No traces of raw dough should exist in the center. The texture of the cookies will crisp up once they are cool. You’ll want to recut the scored shortbread wedges once the cookies are baked.

Baker’s Note: You can keep an airtight box of rolled shortbreads on hand in your freezer and bake them as needed.

Serving Suggestions: These are great all on their own or as a side cookie to a scoop of purple plum rum sorbet (page 282) or bourbon molasses ice cream (page 264). I have also fashioned a stacked shortcake-like dessert by layering 2 shortbread cookie wedges with fresh strawberries or bourbon poached peaches (page 149) and whipped cream.

But why should you care?  Well, I’d say, because what’s better on a cold, windy night than warm chili?  Isn’t that reason enough?  If you need another reason—if you’re like that—you need to know that today is also, by your great good fortune, National Chili Day.  Did we plan this?  No.  But it does seem that fortune smiles on us in this matter.

Chili Night:  Its beginnings are lost in the mists of time.  It just is.

What will be in store tonight?  There will be three, count em, three pots of chili: David’s (our Venerable Editor in Chief) famous chili, and Robbie’s (our Esteemed CFO) equally famous chili.  Not that this is a competition.  Of course it’s not, but still.  We’re just saying.  So David and Robbie cover the con carne options, and of course, we will also have veggie chili, made by Heidi (our Most Honorable Design and Production Manager).  And fixins, of course there will be all the fixins.

But enough about us.  How will you celebrate National Chili Day?  A cook-off?  A bowl and nice big hunk of cornbread at your favorite diner (and my choice would be Elmo’s chili and cornbread, if you’re near Durham or Carrboro).  Or, you can break out the pots and pans and try your hand at it.  I’d give you David’s or Robbie’s or Heidi’s recipes, but they’re not talking.

Since that’s the case, we’ve turned to our books to give you some recipes, in case you’d like to participate, along with us, and raise a glass at the same time we are, in Carrboro, NC.  Here are two recipes for you, one from Marion Brown’s Southern Cookbook, and the other from Cooking the Gullah Way Morning, Noon, & Night.

As Marion Brown writes, “Chili Con Carne, according to ‘Sally Ann’ (La Cocina Mexicana), ‘is no such basic staple of diet in Mexico as it is supposed to be—but is an Americanized dish.’”  That Marion Brown, she’s a stickler!

Cut pieces of pork, beef, veal, or mutton into chunks about ½ inch square, and fry until crisp in very hot fat with a chopped clove of garlic. When meat is browned, pour in enough sauce of chili Colorado (which you have already prepared and have in the refrigerator) to cover the meat and let it boil. Add cooked frijoles (pinto beans) if you like, and never hesitate to put in a few pieces of onion and green chili. Chili con carne is best served on hot steamed rice along with a green salad and plenty of good strong hot coffee. It is an excellent way to utilize leftover beans.

From La Cocina Mexicana, by “Sally Ann,” Food Editor, El Paso Herald-Post, El Paso, Tex.

And also from “Sally Ann,” Chili Colorado (Red Chili Sauce) is made thusly:

“The base for all red and all hot sauces used in Mexico and Mexican cookery is made as follows, and no substitute, such as chili powder or tomato will do:

“Put a pound of dried red chili peppers to soak in hot water for about an hour. Drain and clean out the veins and seeds. Put through the meat grinder with one large onion and a clove of garlic.  Strain and put in salt and pepper. Place the resultant pulps and the water in which the peppers soaked in a glass jar and keep in the refrigerator for future use. The flavor of the chili can be varied by the kinds of peppers used.  Some red chili is hot and some sweet. Most cooks prefer a chili Colorado made of half hot (picoso) and half sweet (pasillo) peppers.”

Mrs. Manuel Rodarte, from La Cocina Mexicana, by “Sally Ann,” Food Editor, El Paso Herald-Post, El Paso, Tex.

But I’d like to give you some options.  Perhaps you cannot quite handle such a definitive recipe.  Perhaps you do not abhor a tomato to the extent that “Sally Ann” does.

Here, then, is Sallie Ann Robinson’s  Carolina Chili:

When you think of eating chili, most times it’s when the weather is cool. But eating chili can be good all year round, whether you like your chili with beans or ground meat, hot or mild. As with most soups today, it is easier for us to put it all in a crock pot and be on our merry way. Here is one way that I like to cook up a big pot of chili. Some like it with beef; I like it with beer and pork.  This is a real treat.

Disyah da way fa do it.

2 pounds lean ground beef

1 pound lean ground pork

3 ½ cups onion, chopped

1 ½ heaping tablespoons garlic, minced

1/3 cup green bell pepper, chopped

1/3 cup  red bell pepper, chopped

3 tablespoons chili powder

4 ½ cups fresh tomatoes, diced

¾ cup tomato paste

1 teaspoon cumin

2 bay leaves

black pepper

2/3 teaspoon dried oregano

4 cups red kidney beans (optional)

1 ½ cups shredded cheddar cheese

In a large soup pot, brown the ground beef and pork. Add the onion, garlic, and bell peppers. Cook over medium heat until tender. Add the chili powder, tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, bay leaves, black pepper, and oregano. Mix well and let simmer slowly for 1 ½ to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. You may add kidney beans at this time and cook for another 30  to 40 minutes. Stir in the cheese. Turn off the heat and dish up a bowlful of some belly-filling chili.

Well, I hope these ideas are helpful.  Think of us tonight, as we celebrate our chilly Chili Night.

–beth

TO START

Southern Fried Oysters (from Marion Brown’s Southern Cookbook)

Ingredients: 1 qt. large oysters (drained), Cracker Meal, 3 eggs mixed with 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tbsp. baking powder

Preparation: Drain oysters; coat them with cracker meal.  Dip each oyster in egg and water mixture.  Have another dish of cracker meal mixed with the salt and baking powder.  Dip oysters in this and fry in deep fat (yum!) about 5 minutes.

Marion Brown calls these “light and wonderful.”  Enjoy!

THE MAIN EVENT

For this, we turn to two culinary legends of North Carolina: Mildred Council (better known as Mama Dip) and Bill Neal

Okra and Ham Purloo (from Bill Neal’s Southern Cooking)

Ingredients: 3 slices bacon, 1 cup chopped onion, 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper, 1 cup thinly sliced okra, 1 garlic clove (chopped), 8 ounces country ham (cut into matchstick shapes 1 by 1/4  by 1/4 inch thick), 1 cup eggplant (peeled and cubed), 1 14-ounce can whole Italian tomatoes (chopped, with juice), 1 tsp. dried thyme, 1/2 tsp. dried basil, 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes, 1 cup raw long grain rice, 2 cups water

Preparation: Preheat oven to 400F.  Chop the bacon and render it over medium heat in a cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven until it browns at the edges, but is not crisp.  Stir in onion, pepper, and okra and saute until just wilted.  Add garlic, ham, and eggplant and continue cooking for about 5 more minutes.  Add tomatoes, thyme, basil, red pepper flakes, rice, and water.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Shake the pan well to distribute the ingredients evenly and place on the middle level of the preheated oven.  Immediately reduce heat to 325F and bake for 30 minutes or until rice is tender.  Serve as a main dish, not as an accompaniment.

Pair this tasty mix of vegetables and meat with…

Hot Water Cornbread (from Mama Dip’s Family Cookbook)

Ingredients:2 cups cornmeal, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 cup boiling water, vegetable oil for frying

Preparation: Mix all the ingredients.  (Simple enough, huh?)  Heat the oil over medium heat in a 10-inch frying pan.  Drop two tablespoons of the batter into the hot oil for each patty and then fry until brown on both sides.  To make a hoecake, instead of patties, spread the batter over the whole skillet and brown on both sides.

That is nowhere near enough food for our Anti-New Year’s Resolution Menu.  Let’s see…

FINALE

Scuppernong Grape Pie (from Sweet Carolina by Foy Allen Edelman)

Ingredients: 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust, 1 pint scuppernong grapes, 1 cup sugar, 2 egg yolks, 3 tbsp. milk, 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup sugar

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350F.  Cut the grapes in half and remove the seeds.  Combine the sugar, egg yolks, and milk.  Blend until smooth.  Add the grape halves and mix until well incorporated.  Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust.  Bake for 30 minutes.  To prepare the meringue, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.  Continue beating as you add the sugar.  Spread the meringue over the pie.  Return the pie to the oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the meringue is golden brown.

Now, for the second dessert.  Okay, okay…I’m absolutely kidding.  Do keep in mind you could throw in a salad of your own creation, but then again, you could just save all that for 2010.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at UNC Press!

-Rachel

A little closer…

Last Sunday, UNC Press held a book party at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.  The event celebrated three of our fall 2009 titles:

Foy Allen Edelman, author of SWEET CAROLINA, spent six years traveling every inch of North Carolina to collect the best in local dessert recipes; the result is both an easy-to-use cookbook and an enjoyable read, featuring biographical information about those from whom the recipes came, tidbits of folklore, and surprising anecdotes about the food and cooks featured inside SWEET CAROLINA.

Mississippi native and renowned folklorist William Ferris brings together for the first time his years of work traveling the Delta in the 1960s and 1970s to interview, record, and photograph blues legends from James “Son Ford” Thomas to B.B. King.  Of  GIVE MY POOR HEART EASE Morgan Freeman writes, “Like Bill Ferris, I grew up in Mississippi.  My life is continually shaped by the blues.  This book captures those rich voices so well.”  The book is accompanied by both a CD and DVD featuring footage of blues legends and those who connected with the blues in this turbulent and important time in American history.

LONG STORY SHORT, edited by Marianne Gingher, features selections of flash fiction by 65 of North Carolina’s best writers, including work by Daniel Wallace, Lee Smith, Sarah Dessen, and, you guessed it, 62 others.  These are truly short short stories; most of them can be read in under five minutes, making this the perfect gift for your friends who can’t seem to find the time to read anymore.

Among authors and contributors was a great crowd of lively book lovers.  Malaprop’s, famed Asheville bookstore, had an array of UNC Press titles available for sale.  After some mingling, glass clinking, and chow, party-goers gathered round for remarks from UNC-Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder, who stressed the importance of supporting university presses, especially in such dire economic times.  After her remarks, Chancellor Ponder joined in a rendition of  “This Little Light of Mine” as performed by Doug Orr (co-author of UNC Press’s THE NORTH CAROLINA ATLAS), Darcy Orr, Marc Rudow, and David Brown.  The band entertained guests throughout the afternoon with favorite tunes of the North Carolina mountains.

For some heirloom recipes for pickling and canning, look to the legendary Marion Brown, whose 1955 classic, Pickles and Preserves, we reissued in 2002. The book contains 408 recipes for jellies/jams/marmalades/preserves, pickles, relishes, syrups, fruit butter, and more. A new foreword for this edition, written by Damon Lee Fowler, explains Brown’s mid-century techniques and offers updated methods for modern canners–both the novices and the experienced.

Here is an excerpt from Fowler’s foreword:

Like so many art forms, preserving in salt, sugar, and vinegar was born out of necessity, but it was transformed by imagination into a means of self-expression and pride for housewives who had few creative outlets.

Consequently, the image of an old-fashioned Mason jar, filled with homemade pickles or preserves and sealed with a shiny new brass lid, has taken on almost mythic proportions. The image glosses over the hard work and tedium of necessity, and evokes a romantic image that most housewives of the past would no doubt find amusing. since it is no longer necessary for us to preserve food in the way in order to eat, pickling and preserving at home has today become little more than a hobby–if not a vanishing art. For those who are rediscovering this satisfying art, this foreword provides an update on modern methods, which should be consulted as you prepare pickles and preserves from the recipes that follow. With all that in mind, it is a pleasure to introduce a new generation of cooks and readers–whether novices or seasoned pros–to Marion Brown’s charming Pickles and Preserves, and to the remarkable woman who wrote it.

You can read the rest of Fowler’s foreword at the UNC Press book page.

My grandmother used to can so many quarts of Blue Lakes every year, I hardly knew what any other green bean tasted like as a child–and I did love them. Or did I? Maybe it’s just that I love them now, partly out of nostalgia.

–ellen

The call of carnies. The largest pig you’ve ever seen. The cotton candy. The midway. The chocolate-dipped bacon. The rides that click up, up, up, then, suddenly—drop—and the shrieks of the riders as they fall. And up they go again. All the many-colored lights—the fried food—the livestock clucking, hopping, mooing. And the crowds, crowds, crowds on these crisp October nights.

That’s right—it’s that time of year again: The North Carolina State Fair. And this year was only my second time round, though I’m a native North Carolinian. I’ve got to say, it wowed me. I went, on the first, rainy, cold night—preview night—to help Our Very Own UNCP author Foy Allen Edelman display a beautiful set of cookbooks from and about North Carolina, including her own book Sweet Carolina: Favorite Desserts and Candies from the Old North State. At “Carolina Cooks,” in the Gov. Kerr Scott Building–you’ll find the booth right between the handpainted parasols and the Wake County Sheriff’s department, just a few doors down from peanuts and steam mops and slushies and award-winning artwork from the children and adults of our state.

What to say about this, besides, of course, if you haven’t been. . . . Go!

There are so many enticements, from deep-fried ho-hos to the midway rides, the age-guessers, the gigantic sweet potatoes, baby donkeys, and festive chickens. Not to mention actual award-winning desserts from cooks and bakers across our fine land. Pies. Cakes. Fudge.

This last category is exactly what Foy captures in Sweet Carolina—recipes and stories from all 100 counties! Of course, if you ask Foy who wrote the book, she won’t claim full ownership. Instead, she’ll tell you about all the cooks she visited over the course of the last few years, and she’ll give full credit to her coauthors.

They are cooks of all stripes. And Foy and her friends are at the booth, from now till the end of the fair. She’s selling books, of course, and signing them, and handing out recipes for peanut brittle. And she’s there to chat—about what foods you grew up with, about the foods that still fill your dreams, if not your belly. For me, it’s my grandmother’s fried apple pies. I remember how she’d pick the apples in late summer, how she’d sit on the glider on the front porch and slice them against her thumb. Then, how she’d climb on top of the house. On a sunny day, she’d lay out a bed-sheet up there, and spread them on the tin roof to dry. And later, the sizzle in the skillet, and if I was lucky, they’d still be warm when the bus dropped me at the end of the lane.

Foy is a collector of these stories, these recipes, and our shared culinary history, as she is a collector of cookbooks from across the state and across the years. So, come and drop by, take a look at her book, and maybe take a copy home with you.

In addition to Foy’s lovely book, she’s selling others—fancy a new devilled egg recipe? Or tailgating ideas? Also take a look at Holy Smoke, a book in celebration of our unique past and present relationship with BBQ, as well as the time-tested recipes of Chapel Hill’s very own Mama Dip.

So won’t you stop by? You’ll be glad you did.

–Beth Lassiter, Editorial Assistant

p.s. At the fair, Foy will be at the booth where you see this banner: