A Spoken Dish: Mini-documentaries capture evocative taste memories

Durham photojournalist and filmmaker Kate Medley will be the featured speaker of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. The event is free and open to the public.

Kate Medley spends a lot of time in her car. As a photographer and filmmaker for Whole Foods, the Durham resident travels to visit stores between New Orleans and New York, pausing along the way to document farmers, cooks and culinary landmarks.

To pass time, she was thinking one day about community cookbooks, those tried and true compendiums that celebrate the best of locally-grown foods and the home cooks who prepare and serve them with love. These cherished volumes were once the cornerstone of church fundraisers and a go-to source for potluck dinner recipes. But in the current context of global online food communities and apps that provide technique tutorials on your smart phone, they seem out of step.

“I was really intrigued by a vision of what a community cookbook could look like today,” recalls Medley, a trained photojournalist, during a drive from Mississippi to North Carolina. “How could I apply the tools of my craft to a tradition that is especially celebrated in the South?”

The outcome was A Spoken Dish, a collection of taste memories and family traditions from diverse voices in Southern food and culture. She stayed close to home to launch the project in June 2013, choosing Chapel Hill teacher and cookbook writer Sheri Castle and Sean Lilly Wilson, owner of Durham’s Fullsteam Brewery, as her first subjects. The short vignettes range from one to two minutes.

In an especially endearing clip, Castle shows her pickling rock, pulled from the ancient New River and used by three generations of family cooks. She knows there are “perhaps more sanitary and conventional ways” of submerging food in brine now, but the treasured stone serves as her “good luck talisman.”

“I believe in my rock. It has history and place,” Castle says, adding it has a natural minerality that may help with the fermentation process. “So many quarts and gallons and crocks of good food have been made with this rock. Who am I to stop it?”

Medley knows how lucky she was to start with Castle, a natural-born storyteller who has shared tales of her Appalachian youth and exhaustive culinary research with major publications and institutions, notable the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA). Wilson manages to draw a giggle from the otherwise silent presence of the filmmaker with a claim that he keeps a potato ricer in his back pocket. Through years of trial and error, he’s found it to be the best tool to extract fruit from paw paws and persimmons used to infuse his craft beers.

“Sheri and Sean both were gung-ho to be my guinea pigs,” Medley says. “They really brought it to the table. They helped me see what this project could become.”

Castle, who calls Medley an “observer of the first order,” says the documentarian was “wisely vague” when she pitched the concept. “With the camera rolling, she offered a few prompts and then turned me loose,” Castle says. ‘”We spent a juicy hour together and she whittled it down to five short cogent pieces, each a sufficient documentary.”

Sponsored by Whole Foods, SFA and Georgia Organics, the project has continued to grow. It features about 55 clips from men, women and even children from across the South. They describe with passion everything from how to make biscuits or cook a pig’s ear to post-Katrina life and horticultural literacy.

“It’s all about how we, by way of these Southern stories, celebrate the diversity of the South and the diversity of what lands on our plate,” says Medley, who films, interviews and lightly edits conversations for the website. “It’s really the same format as the community cookbook: someone’s favorite family recipe or memory with a few sentences about whatever puts it in a context that is meaningful.”

A new set of 35 segments will debut on March 6 with a reception at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; they will be added to the website a few days later.  The new clips will expand the project’s scope to represent speakers from six states in nearly 90 vignettes.

Among them are Lolis Eric Elie, New Orleans native and author of the acclaimed Treme cookbook; Becky Currence, mother of Oxford, Miss., chef John Currence, on classic Louisiana gumbo; and Ray Robinson, owner of the iconic Cozy Corner Bar-B-Q in Memphis.

A Spoken Dish, which may next explore the Lowcountry of South Carolina, is just one way that Medley documents culinary culture. An exhibit of her photos, Southern Food from the Backroads & Byways, was shown in 2012 at the UNC Center for Southern Studies.

“Apart from the bread-and-butter of my job, I always try to have a few personal projects brewing that are exploring different factors of community storytelling,” she says. “There’s so much out there. I just need more time, right?”

Empanadas: A pie by another name

Sandra Gutierrez will be the guest speaker for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina's (CHOP NC) launch of its fall event season at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. Snacks will be provided, including samples from Gutierrez's new book, "Latin American Street Food" (UNC Press).

Empanadas often feature savory ingredients, but this
simple recipe yields tender hand-held pies with
a filling of melted cream cheese and fruit paste.

A confession: I would sooner have pie than nearly any other dessert.

I spent hours, maybe weeks, cumulatively, gazing greedily at sweets featured like sparkling jewels in rotating display cases near the hostess stand in the diners of my New Jersey youth.  I was especially intrigued by the impossibly tall slices of lemon meringue pie and felt respect – no, giddy affection – for servers who managed to extricate slices without losing a single curl of toasty browned goodness.  

Today, I’m more inclined toward seasonal, two-crust concoctions stained with the volcanic eruptions of fresh fruit and sugar – not too much sugar, but just enough to leave a sticky trail on a plate that, if one is at home, one may lick clean without worry that some may tint the tip of one’s nose.

Another confession: I am a pie cheater.

No matter which respected chef or cookbook writer tells me how easy it is to make pie dough, I just don’t see the point. Mrs. Pillsbury has long been one of my dearest friends, followed closely by Mrs. Harris Teeter. With their able assistance, I have baked many pretty pies and rustic galettes that didn’t last long enough to fret over whether or not to refrigerate.

Now that we’re all friends, imagine me comfortably tucked into a stackable white plastic garden chair at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, where I arrived early last week to attend a launch event for my friend Sandra Gutierrez’s second cookbook, Latin American Street Foods: The Best Flavors of Markets, Beaches and Roadside Stands from Mexico to Argentina (UNC Press). Since I couldn’t daydream at the pie case, I pondered what I might write about for today’s #LetsLunch theme of pie. Now imagine my delight when I heard her describe empanadas – for which she’s currently drafting a definitive compilation to be published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang – as hand-held pies.

See where this is going? Follow me. As soon as I returned home I flipped through my copy of the book, which is beautifully photographed by Fred Thompson. I found what I was craving on page 234: Guava and Cream Cheese Empanadas. Si, mi amiga. Muy bien.

This is my kind of pie. It requires just four ingredients, two of which you likely have in your fridge. Instead of refrigerated pie dough, this calls for a visit to the freezer case for frozen pastry dough; ie, Mrs. Pepperidge Farm. Do not be confused or tempted by the phyllo dough, unless you want to repeat my crazed attempt to corral all those papery sheets and roll them into a 12-inch square. La gringa es loca.

While this no doubt would be heresy in Cuba (and most of Latin America), I substituted fancy packages of fig and plum paste I had hoarded in my cupboard for the guava. Be sure to crimp the triangular packets well to ensure that the fruit paste and cream cheese stays inside the pastry while baking. Mine leaked prodigiously, creating a surprisingly tasty mess that could be lifted in ribbons to top the meltingly delicious empanadas. Not the prettiest result, but hey – it’s all good when you’re eating pie.

Guava and Cream Cheese Empanadas (Empanadas de Queso y Guayaba)

Reprinted with permission of the University of North Carolina Press from LATIN AMERICAN STREET FOOD: THE BEST FLAVORS OF MARKETS, BEACHES, AND ROADSIDE STANDS FROM MEXICO TO ARGENTINA by Sandra A. Gutierrez. Copyright © 2013 by Sandra A. Gutierrez. 

In this classic Cuban turnover, nectarous guava paste meets tangy cream cheese and flaky puff pastry. Guava paste has a consistency similar to softened gumdrops—a bit pasty, very thick, and truly luscious when it melts. In a pinch, use the more readily available guava jelly. Make these pastries ahead of time and freeze them before you bake them; there is no need to thaw them. If in the middle of the afternoon you’re secretly craving one (or two or three!) of these decadent empanadas, simply throw them in a toaster oven, bake, and eat them to your heart’s content. It will be our little secret.

Makes 18 empanadas.

2 ready-to-bake puff pastry sheets (1.1-pound package), thawed according to package directions
10–12 ounces guava paste, sliced into 2-inch-long by ¼-inch-thick rectangles (see note)
10 ounces cream cheese, sliced into 2-inch-long by ¼-inch-thick rectangles
Egg wash made of 1 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 400°F. On a clean, lightly floured surface, roll out one puff pastry sheet to form a 12-inch square; using a sharp knife or pastry wheel, cut it into 9 (4×4-inch) squares.

Brush a pastry square with egg wash. Place one piece of the cream cheese on top of a guava paste rectangle and place the stack on the diagonal in the center of the pastry square. Bring the two opposite corners of the pastry together to form a triangle; seal the edges with your fingers and then crimp the edges decoratively using the tines of a fork. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.

Place the filled empanadas on the prepared sheets and brush the tops with egg wash. Bake until golden, about 15–20 minutes. Serve them warm or at room temperature.

Note: If you’re using guava jelly, you’ll need 1 tablespoon for each empanada.

Baker Karen Barker prefers savory crunch over sugary sweets for dessert

Karen and Ben Barker will be the guest speakers for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) from 7:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. A meet and greet will precede the reading from 6:45-7:15 p.m. next door at Foster’s Market.


Karen Barker's Olive Oil Biscotti with Orange and Rosemary

There are many home bakers and professional chefs who aspire to be as creative Karen Barker. But now and then, the James Beard Award-winning pastry chef – who used to dazzle customers at the much-missed Magnolia Grill – finds herself in the position of a fan who just has to know how a certain treat was made.

“There is a great coffee place in the East Village of New York City that Ben and I really like called Abraco,” Barker says from the kitchen of the couple’s Chapel Hill home. “They make a sweet-savory black olive biscotti that is just delicious.”

Barker has made her share of biscotti; the twice-baked cookie can be made from a wide variety of ingredients (different flours and fats, with or without eggs) and endless flavor profiles. But there was something about this one that was especially memorable.  


Karen and Ben Barker prepare for dinner with friends.

“I’m not a big sugar person, so sweets don’t often excite me,” Barker says as she gathered ingredients on the heavy butcher block counter. “Once in Provence I saw someone make a dessert with black olive and tomatoes and herbs. But this was the first time I’d ever tasted a biscotti anything like that. I loved it.”

Barker was making a batch to bring to a meeting the next day of their dinner party club. Ben was prepping an appetizer of brined lamb tongue to be simmered with shallot in a red wine sauce. Karen was making the biscotti to provide a crunchy counterpoint to the final course, a dairy-free chocolate mousse served with a red Italian dessert wine.

“A savory cookie is not for everyone,” she concedes while giving the fragrant, purplish olives a quick mince and grinding a generous amount of black pepper into her mixer’s work bowl. “But dunk this into some wine, or scoop up some chocolate mousse … it’s just perfect.”

Barker says the recipe could be easily tweaked to substitute other ingredients: use lemon zest instead of orange, leave out the olives and add walnuts. “I wouldn’t try green olive, though,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I just don’t think that would work.” 

Barker leaves the end slices on the counter after she returns the cookies to the oven for their final toasting. “Baker’s privilege,” she says, nibbling a slice deemed not pretty enough to serve. She closes her eyes for a moment to let the flavors fill her mouth.

“I have to say, I find these pretty addictive,” she sighs. “I have a hard time just having one of them."

Karen Barker’s Olive Oil Biscotti with Rosemary and Orange

Makes 1 loaf (about 18-22 slices)

2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 eggs
1½ cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup semolina or yellow corn meal
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 tsbp. minced rosemary
zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup fine chopped black olives (such as kalamata)
a few grinds of black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine first three ingredients in the work bowl of mixer; combine well with paddle attachment. Add remaining ingredients, mix again. Ensure that all ingredients are thoroughly blended but avoid overworking the dough, which will be sticky.

Transfer dough with floured hands to a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Lightly press into the shape of a 12x3-inch log, adding pinches of flour if needed. Chill for at least 40 minutes but preferably for several hours.

Bake for 30 minutes or until loaf is lightly browned. Remove from oven. When cool enough to handle, use a serrated knife and cut half-inch slices on the diagonal; should yield about 18-22 pieces. Arrange flat on the baking pan - it's OK if they are crowded - and return to oven until just lightly golden around the edges, about 5-6 minutes. Turn slices over and toast again, about 3-4 minutes, until just golden on the edges.

Cool biscotti completely. Wrap in parchment paper or keep in airtight container.

‘Hardcore hillbilly’ finds nexus of Southern food and storytelling

Sheri Castle will be the guest of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, at Flyleaf Books. She will talk about the strong link between Southern foods and storytelling and sign copies of The New Southern Garden Cookbook.

A natural-born storyteller and instinctive cook, Sheri Castle poses a classic chicken-and-the-egg conundrum: Which came first, the pencil or the whisk?

Chapel Hill food writer and teacher Sheri Castle

The award-winning food writer and teacher grew up on the fringe of Appalachia in the western mountains of North Carolina, where she tended her grandmother’s garden and learned to cook the seasonal foods it produced in her kitchen. A precocious child, she entered her first recipe in a national contest at age 4. She didn’t win, but it was the start of a journey that led to an appreciation of the strong bond between Southern food and storytelling.

“Because Southern food is so evocative, particularly for a Southerner, it is practically impossible for us to tell you about a food without telling about its context,” she says. “When we tell about a recipe, it’s almost never about the ingredients. It’s about how you found the ingredients, how it works and doesn’t, and who it reminds you of.”

Not surprisingly, many of Castle’s fondest cooking memories track straight up steep mountain roads to her grandmother’s home.

“I am a hardcore hillbilly, and I use the term with the deepest affection,” says Castle, who arrived in Chapel Hill 34 years ago as the first in her family to attend college. “Even as a very, very small child, I understood that there was a connection between who people were and what they ate. I knew I was part of something special.”

As a “mountain kid” eager for adventure, Castle wrote stories and devoured books that fueled her imagination. She also spent quality time sitting on the front porch stringing beans and apples while talking and sharing stories.

“There is a very defined sense of place deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” she says, drawing comparisons to distinct rituals of the South Carolina Low Country or New Orleans. “Place defines what you eat, and who you are. I am very thankful today that I grew up with those traditions.”

Her appreciation of the links between Southern food and storytelling was well expressed in her 2011 The New Southern Garden Cookbook (UNC Press)  An in-demand cooking teacher known as much for her wit as her carefully tested recipes, she was featured this month at the prestigious Hilton Head Food and Wine Festival.

Like O. Henry, another North Carolina native, Castle deploys quirky, well-drawn characters to pull you in for an unexpected twist; in her case, a dollop of culinary anthropology.  Her smart humor and astounding baking skills were on full display last summer when she preached to the choir at a decadent breakfast gathering of the Southern Foodways Alliance’s (SFA) “field trip” to New Bern. SFA director and culinary legend John T. Edge watched Castle from the edge of a church community center, where he tried to balance a plate of pie on his knees while laughing with the audience.

John T. Edge

“I admire the heck out of Sheri,” says Edge, who offered a ringing endorsement last week. “She tells honest stories about her people and her place with humility and humor. She's smart, but she's no show off.”

Edge says Castle “reveals truths” with her takes on classics like leather britches, Appalachian-style beans dried on string, and biscuits with chocolate gravy, the latter of which was posted on the upscale Gilt Taste blog. Her contributions to Gilt Taste’s “Eats Shoots and Leaves” column earned her a writing award last year from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Growing up in a remote place with brutal winters gave Castle enough indoor time to imagine herself elsewhere, like the stylish city homes of characters in soap operas that her grandmother enjoyed.

“That’s how I discovered there were people who ate dinner as opposed to supper,” she says. “Even though I knew it wasn’t very accurate, I could see a big difference between what those fancy rich people were eating for dinner and what I saw on my plate.”

Castle’s comment is no reflection of poverty. Rather it was one of a series of incremental discoveries that both beckoned experimentation – as an increasingly worldly eighth grader, she begged for and received The Joy of Cooking for Christmas – and reinforced her appreciation of the plenty at her grandmother’s farm.

When she was old enough to drive down the mountain, she often returned with food stuffs her curious teacher had never seen:  tofu and duck, and broccoli, asparagus and okra. “None of that was agreeable to our growing season, which was more like New England,” she says. “It made me feel good to share things with the woman who taught me to cook.”

Castle trained as a journalist but worked writing technical manuals and advertising. While on maternity leave with her daughter Lily, who will leave the nest for college in the fall, she decided against going back. Her generous employer offered a career transition package that allowed her to attend the Culinary Institute of America.

“I talked them into letting me take cooking classes for a couple of years without doing the whole program,” she laughs. “I cannot image what sort of yarn I spun for them to let me get away with that.”

After taking additional classes in San Francisco, Castle returned home determined to teach people to cook. True to form, she marched into the Raleigh Williams-Sonoma and stated that she wanted to teach there. That was on a Tuesday; four days later, she led the first of countless Saturday classes.

She loved instructing home cooks but the itch to write returned. A satisfied student was an editor at The Spectator, a now-defunct local weekly where Castle was invited to write a food column. She soon was published nationally and carved a career as a recipe tester and ghost writer for big names in the food world.

Recipe testing is more complex than simply trying one and saying whether it’s good or bad, Castle explains. “If you are developing recipes for someone, you have to cook like them, not me. And if the recipe doesn’t work, you fix it.”

While taught to be polite at home, Castle has mastered unimagined levels of tact working with clients – none of whom she can identify due to contractual obligations. She has worked on about 20 book projects, including 13 complete works published under other people’s names.

“I’ve learned how to write not only in the style of my client but in the voice and style of their publishers,” she says. “However, if I knew then what I know now, I’d be a with-er, not a ghoster.  It’s hard because I can’t use any of that experience to market myself.”

Castle says writing her own book was the most taxing of all her projects. She has accumulated enough stories and recipes to fill another collection, but she’s not sure when she’ll start.

“I have never been more proud of anything or done something that utterly sucked my brain out of my nose,” she says. “It really is exhausting. I have some ideas, but it’s the one thing I just can’t talk about.”

Long journey brings chef back to Winston-Salem for greatest success

Stephanie Tyson and Vivián Joiner of Sweet Potatoes restaurant in Winston-Salem will be the special guests of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. The event is free and open to the public. Tyson will sign copies of her book, “Well, Shut My Mouth!

Vivián Joiner and Stephanie Tyson at Sweet Potatoes.

There was a time when Stephanie Tyson felt like her hometown of Winston-Salem was too small for her big vision.  The civil rights movement provoked national headlines at a now-famous lunch counter in nearby Greensboro when she was a baby, but change was coming too slowly for a black female entrepreneur with an evolving dream.

“I just had to get out,” Tyson recalls during a recent phone call from Sweet Potatoes, the popular arts district restaurant she opened in 2003 with partner Vivián Joiner. “At the time, I never imagined being here today, having this place with such a great vibe and so many regulars.”

Convinced her destiny was waiting on a stage in New York City, Tyson left home in the late 1970s for theater school and the Great White Way – which at the time was not entirely hospitable to dark-skinned, starry-eyed Southerners. Particularly a full-figured woman with a lisp.

Frustrated after years of playing mostly mammy roles, she decided to start over in Washington, D.C. It was there that she met Joiner, another seeker who had a knack for corporate management. Tyson enrolled in culinary school to learn how to maximize the kitchen secrets she learned from her beloved grandmother and four older sisters. Then, together, they worked in restaurants around the country – Virginia and South Carolina, and later Florida, Arizona and Maryland – mastering diverse cuisines and learning what it takes to own and operate your own business.

“We talked about coming back to Winston-Salem quite a bit, but we also talked about how the timing wasn’t right,” Tyson says. “At some point, I just said I was tired and wanted to come home. My parents were getting older.”

They set about converting a former rooming house in the arts district into what became Sweet Potatoes. Though civic leaders initially discouraged their efforts, they quickly found a grateful audience of satisfied customers. The grand opening provided bittersweet, however, when Tyson’s father died only days before.

“The people of Winston-Salem surprised me,” Tyson says of the instant and enduring support. “It had been so staid. It was like a lot of large cities that went downhill with the malls opening in the suburbs, but they were embracing change. It worked.”

A good location with a hip décor was one thing. Convincing diners to have a night on the town and pay for food their grandma used to fix was another.

“There weren’t a lot of restaurants that did real Southern food at the time,” Tyson says. “You could get Chinese food here, and plenty of Mexican food. In the last few years, Southern has become more legit.”

Tyson’s award-winning cooking and Joiner’s deft management combine to feed both the bellies and souls of loyal customers. The place offered them a fresh start, along with some hard-luck employees who were given the structured support to overcome bad habits. Word of mouth and solid online reviews have made the 55-seat Sweet Potatoes a destination dining spot.

“I just can’t believe how fortunate we are that we get to do what we like, where we’re at, and be successful at it,” Tyson says. “I’m very proud of the food we do and the atmosphere. It’s the music, the feel of the restaurant, the diversity of our customer base. It’s reflective of everything we’ve always wanted in a restaurant.

“It’s kind of an extension of our home. Even if it wasn’t my place, I would go there,” she adds with a laugh. “It really does have a good vibe.”

And it remains busy even though Tyson shared recipes for many of the most-requested dishes in her cookbook, Well, Shut My Mouth! (Blair Publishing) in 2011. The title is taken from a message on a folk portrait painted by a customer that hangs in the restaurant.

Playing off the motto, “Life is short; eat dessert first,” the book amusingly addresses desserts in its first chapter. “I’m not much of a baker but I like banana pudding,” Tyson admits of the recipe shared below, which opens the book. “I make the cookies, too, so it takes a little longer, but I enjoy that. I can focus on that and it gives me a moment to settle down and think.”

Not all menu items have Southern roots, but regional influences do season many of the dishes.  “It’s not fusion cuisine, but I can’t ignore the things I learned before I got here,” says Tyson, noting the Gullah and Creole specialties she learned while cooking in Charleston and Joiner’s paternal Geechee roots.

Among the recipes included in the book is V. V.’s Mamma’s Meatloaf with Wild Mushroom Gravy, Credited to Joiner’s mother, it is described as a budget-friendly, crowd-feeding meal. “We sell a lot of meatloaf, which is really great,” Tyson says. “It doesn’t have the cornflakes anymore, but Vivián’s sister says it still tastes good.”

Cost is important to Tyson, who features local products when feasible but makes no pretense of being a locavore.

“I like to keep the meals consistent, and that’s either very expensive or impossible if you only use local ingredients,” she says. “To keep it reasonable, I may get strawberries from California. And I don’t buy local grass-fed beef because nobody who comes here wants to pay $30 for a steak.”

There is one thing that Tyson always sources locally, and that’s their namesake starch.

“North Carolina has the best sweet potatoes in the country,” she says with pride. “The food we serve is prepared well, with a great deal of love. It’s not organic – but it’s from me organically.”

Tyson enjoys sharing her passion about food and is grateful to have such a strong operation that she and Joiner can step away from the restaurant now and then to promote their book or just take a break.

“Every day it’s like mounting a show,” she says, drawing an analogy to her theater days. “We’re always behind the scenes getting things set. And we’re not done until the curtain falls.

“Everyone has to be ‘on’ all the time. It’s a production every day,” she says with a sigh. “Fortunately, we enjoy the production.”

Banana Pudding
This recipe is reprinted by permission of Blair Publishing from “Well, Shut My Mouth” by Stephanie Tyson (© 2011).

In the restaurant, we make these in individual serving cups. My grandmother would make one individual serving in a big ole bowl (which explains my hips)!
Serves 8 to 10
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Approximately 1 pound ripe bananas, peeled and sliced
Vanilla cookies (see recipe below)
Whipped cream

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs and yolks well and add the sugar and flour. Pour in the milk and place over a pan of boiling water; the pan should be just wide enough to hold the bowl without it being submerged in the water. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring constantly, until the pudding starts to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla extract.

In a 9x13-inch casserole (or your favorite bowl), layer sliced bananas. Top with vanilla cookies. Repeat for an additional two layers, ending with a layer of bananas. Pour the pudding over the bananas and wafers, then top with a final layer of cookies. Chill and top with whipped cream.

Vanilla Cookies

1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, beaten
¼ cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar. Stir in the beaten egg and milk. Stir in the vanilla and almond extracts and the salt. In a separate bowl, sift the flour and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth. Refrigerate for ½ hour.

Roll the dough into small balls (1 teaspoon) and place about 2 inches apart on a greased sheet tray. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool.

Audra Ang’s long journey to digest the cultural power of food

Like Dorothy on her journey to Oz, Audra Ang had an opportunity to travel far from her comfort zone to experience a world in which she had connections but felt like a stranger. The environment she experienced was just as bizarre in its extremes of hospitality and threat, and it took a long journey home to fully understand it.

Audra Ang

Ang chronicles the seven years she spent in China as an Associated Press reporter in her compelling new memoir, To the People, Food Is Heaven: Stories of Food and Life in a Changing China (Lyons Press, 2012). She will talk about her experiences - which vary from savoring home cooked meals and reporting about dissidents to spending weeks amid the heartbreaking rubble of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake - at Wednesday’s meeting of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC). The free talk gets under way at 7 p.m. at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, where she will sign copies of the book.

For one of her last assignments in China, before she returned to accept a prestigious Neiman Fellowship at Harvard, Ang was asked to write a story that would reflect the span of her tenure. “I came up with a few ideas that were all shot down,” recalls Ang, who recently located to Durham and works at Duke University. “I decided to just write what I wanted to write about, which was food.”

Ang realized that having food, and especially not having food, played a role in most of the reports she filed while abroad. It may have started with the novelty of a foodstuff not often consumed in America, but she quickly came to appreciate the satisfying burn of sweat-inducing spice and, later, the calming aroma of a hot meal amid sickening decay.

“I wrote four vignettes involving food, but I always felt there was so much more to the story,” Ang says. “The article always felt unfinished to me. It was the one thing I felt strongly enough to commit to the need to turn it into a book.”

Ang traveled from Boston to Berkeley to focus on the yearlong project. “It was the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever done,” she says, explaining that she retreated to a cottage where she would write all night, sleep from morning to afternoon, then start again.

She did not return to China during this period and instead relied on her reporter’s notebooks and thousands of collected photographs. They were especially valuable in drafting the difficult final chapter about the catastrophic earthquake. The 7.9 temblor provoked global outrage when reporters revealed that thousands of children needlessly died in the wreckage of poorly-built schools.

“The last chapter is my favorite, but I sometimes worry that it’s too intense,” says Ang, who details unfathomable horrors in a restrained tone that nonetheless makes a reader’s heart race. Woven throughout is the importance of food as more than mere nutrient.

“Food is a very central part of life in China. Indirectly, I think cooking and receiving food did help people to heal,” she says. She tells the story of a mother and her critically injured son, who at first refused to eat but eventually asked for his favorite meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken. “She knew it meant that he was getting better. It fills a bit of the emptiness you feel after so much loss.”

Ang’s own initial connection to the earthquake has a link to food. She and a photographer were having lunch hundreds of miles away when they felt the restaurant suddenly rock. They had been reporting about babies who died from ingesting counterfeit formula, but it turned out they were closer to the epicenter than other colleagues. Ang manages to condense their harrowing journey, and the extraordinary weeks that follow, in 46 mesmerizing pages.

Ang is taking a break from such intense writing and is unsure if she wants to return journalism, though friends predict she will.

“Right now, I’m pretty happy to have a relaxed, stable, boring life,” she says with a laugh. “I have a good job in a wonderful city. I am excited and grateful that’s there is so much great food in one area.”

While glad to have found delicious Chinese and Vietnamese fare close by, Ang says she is especially enjoying her exploration of Southern cuisine. She finds contentment in a place that celebrates both traditional foods and cutting-edge cooks.

“Food is a big part of living in the South, too,” she says. “I’ve found that it usually it takes a year to settle into a place, but I’ve met great such people, including people who are very involved in the local food scene. I can see myself being happy here for a long time.”

TerraVITA event offers CHOP NC discount

In three years, the TerraVITA Food & Wine Event has grown from a modest one-day celebration of sustainable food practices to a three-day event that features top chefs and growers, cookbook writers and tastings that raise funds for like-minded local organizations.

Colleen Minton

Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) was among the recipients of a grant last year, and TerraVITA organizer Colleen Minton has extended a special offer to members for discounted tickets. Some events are close to selling out, so be sure to order yours right away.

Discounted tickets are available for two events:

• An all-inclusive ticket (beer & wine pairings included) for The Carolina Table: East Meets West dinner on Nov. 2 for $68 (full price, $78)
• An all-inclusive pass for the Grand Tasting on Nov. 3 for $55 (full price, $65)

To get the discount, visit TerraVITA's tickets link at http://www.terravitaevent.com/TerraVITA/BuyTKTS.html. Look for the you will see a blue link below the published price that reads "Enter a Password or Discount Code." The CHOP NC passcode is: CHOP12NC

For more information about TerraVITA, read Andrea Weigl's story in the News & Observer.

Finding a sense of place in a forgotten cuisine

John Martin Taylor will be the guest speaker for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7pm Wednesday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. He also will be singing copies of the 20^th anniversary edition of his book, Hoppin’ John’s Lowcounty Cookbook: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain (UNC Press) from 12-2pm Tuesday at Southern Season in Chapel Hill.

Much has been made of the rise in popularity of Southern cooking in recent years. There is endless speculation about the best way to make fried chicken and pimento cheese. And let us not, especially on a Sunday, debate whether sugar bowl is permitted to dance with the cornbread, or what constitutes real barbecue.

The commercial homogenization of modern Southern fare may lead some to believe that butter-laden sweets and bacon-wrapped, deep-fried everything formed the primary sustenance of our forebears, no matter when or in what part of the South they called home. In fact, many who lived below the Mason Dixon – and particularly those who survived the lean years after the Civil War – counted themselves lucky to have a plate of beans and rice for dinner.

The contrast between pre-war plenty and the deprivation that followed – including due tribute to the culinary contributions of freed slaves – is eloquently defined in Hoppin’ John’s Lowcounty Cooking: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain. Released to critical acclaim 20 years ago, the out-of-print classic has been reissued by UNC Press with a new introduction by author John Martin Taylor.

“It was important to me for the book to be published by an accomplished university press,” said Taylor during a recent call from his home in Bulgaria, where his husband is the country’s director for the Peace Corps. “It has a great home now and will help to preserve the food traditions of the Lowcountry.”

While Charleston is now a celebrated restaurant Mecca, Taylor said Lowcountry Cooking was written long before its status as a foodie’s dream destination. His research began unexpectedly in 1984 when he noticed a hand-sewn plantation cookbook from 1919 in a trash heap on a Newport, R.I., sidewalk. The discovery pretty much blew his mind.

“I grew up there but I didn’t even recognize this food,” Taylor said, recalling his astonishment. “When I was first writing about Charleston’s food history in the late 1980s, it was pretty much falling on deaf ears.  When I moved back to South Carolina in 1986, you couldn’t find stone-ground grits anywhere. With the exception of hunters, fisherman and farmers, people pretty much lost touch with the land.”

Lowcountry Cooking speaks to the essential question of what is local food and how it defines the lives of those who consume it. His engaging writing recalls the vivid sense of place established by Diana Kennedy and Paula Wolfert. In the manner of a rapturous nonfiction novel, you feel the pride of Mary Clare for her caramel cake as deeply as the humility of former slaves who made belly-filling, soul satisfying meals from the bounty of the land and scraps discarded by wealthy landowners.

“People were insanely wealthy,” Taylor said. “They were shipping 60 million pounds of rice every year and never dreamed it would end. They were not prepared for what hit them.”

In a sense, the cookbook addresses Reconstruction through the lens of rebuilding the ravaged foodways of the South. Food became a social equalizer, with rich and poor eating the same basic items that remained after the combined impacts of war and a hurricane that swept choking salt water into once thriving rice and cotton fields. Indeed, Taylor’s moniker of Hoppin’ John comes from the hearty rice and cow pea dish that became a favorite of both master and slave.

The book also draws clear distinctions between the traditions of Charleston and the humid, subtropical Lowcountry to other Southern cuisines.

“You won’t find any barbecue, the way you do in the Piedmont,” Taylor said. “Because of the climate, things grow there that do not grow elsewhere in the Carolinas. And because of the port, Charleston always had access to things like great olive oil and sherry and pineapples from Cuba.”

Taylor writes that his goal was to “present the sumptuous fare of antebellum Charleston for the modern cook” – a task that included denuding “authentic” recipes offered to him of such modern ingredients as canned soup and margarine.

While the book has been hailed as definitive – the New York Times raved that it “should be on the National Registry of Great American Food” – Taylor demurs that “this is not ‘Mastering the Art of Lowcountry Cooking.’

“It’s my version of the cooking of the time based on the records that remain,” he said. “The food reflected a great fusion of international flavors – especially those of Africa.”

Ports in the Lowcountry are believed to have been the entry point for between 40-60 percent of all Africans in the North American slave trade. In a more hospitable vein, it also was the landing point for immigrants of many faiths, who likewise contributed their diverse food traditions to what remained one of America’s 10 largest cities though 1840.

Before the Civil War, immense tables in Charleston’s fashionable plantation homes groaned with a gracious plenty raised and cooked by slave labor. Rich landowners regularly held grand soirees to ensure their position in society. This sort of conspicuous consumption is evident in menus that survived from the era – vast food orgies that featured not only the Lowcountry’s abundant natural resources but also imported delicacies that regularly flowed through the city’s bustling port.

Post-war poverty brought down the aristocracy, but such advances as the railroad and refrigeration – chilled butter! ice cream! – introduced new prosperity. Later, air conditioning and the highway system beckoned travelers, and corporate money helped to rebuild Charleston as a tourist destination with a renowned reputation for the arts and fine dining.

While Lowcountry Cooking contains about 250 recipes, Taylor said there is one simple dish that truly provides a taste of antebellum Charleston.

“The whole cuisine at once would have to be Chicken Country Captain, but it takes two days to make it right,” he said with a laugh. “But the composed rice dishes, the pilaus, really give you a sense of what defined Lowcountry cooking.”

Carolina Pilau

Published with permission of John Martin Taylor from Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking: Recipes and Ruminations from Charleston & the Carolina Coastal Plain (© UNC Press, 2012).

Dishes like this one appear in various cultures as pilaf, jambalaya, and just plain chicken and rice. In Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry, they started as pilau, but they’re often spelled perloo (though I’ve seen purloo, perlo and perlau as well). The word is pronounced “PER-lo,” “per-lo,” and “pee-LO,” but that o is a distinctive Charleston sound – and make--people not from here think we are saying “oo.” Some people say, “oo, la, la”; others say “oh, la, la.”

Serves 8

1 3½-to-4-pound chicken
2 quarts water
¼ pound (I stick) unsalted butter
1 large onion, chopped (about 1½ cups)
2 cups chopped celery
2 or 3 large tomatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cups long-grain white rice

Cover the chicken with the water and boil in a large pot, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken from the broth and reserve the broth. Skin the chicken and remove the bones, pulling the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into uniformly sized pieces. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven on the top of the stove, then add the onions and the celery and cook over medium heat until the onions start to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice and the seasonings, adding a little more salt than you might think is necessary. Add the chicken meat, the rice, and 1 quart of the reserved broth. Cover, bring to a simmer, and cook slowly, without lifting the lid, for 30 minutes. Serve with a green salad and corn bread.

Buttermilk: Try it again for the first time

Debbie Moose will talk about her new book, Buttermilk, as the guest of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7pm Wednesday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.



Raleigh cookbook author Debbie Moose

Debbie Moose has never been one to cry over spilled milk, but she did spend about five frantic months last year obsessing over buttermilk. The resulting cookbook not only helped launch the new Savor the South imprint for UNC Press on Sept. 10, but two days later was featured in what the New York Times hailed as the resurgence of the oft-maligned byproduct of butter making.

“That was nice timing,” said the author of Buttermilk, whose gift for dry understatement is as legendary as her culinary creativity. She connected with Times food writer Julia Moskin through John T. Edge of the Southern Foodways Alliance, which has played a crucial role in the growing national interest in Southern cooking.

Moose, president of the Association of Food Journalists, which earlier this month held its annual conference in DC, nearly missed the opportunity to talk with Moskin due to poor internet connectivity.

“I literally had to lean out the window of the hotel to check email, but I’m glad I did,” said Moose, who reckons she owes Edge a “bouquet of bacon” for the introduction. “(Julia) thought it would run last Wednesday, but I had no idea it was going to be such a big story.”

Along with the general enthusiasm in food press for all things Southern, Moose credits the resurgence of small dairies for the specific resurgence of buttermilk. Locally, she’s impressed with Maple View Farm.

“There’s a much better quality of buttermilk around than what a lot of people remember,” Moose said, adding that those who haven’t tasted fresh buttermilk in a long time are in for a pleasantly tangy surprise. “Even among commercial brands, what’s sold is really very good. And it’s so versatile.”



Buttermilk Pie (with Peaches in St. Germain Syrup)

 If you think of buttermilk as a sour sip favored by sleepy spinsters, or guiltily empty forgotten bottles down the drain, Buttermilk will be a true revelation.  A good place to start is the elegantly understated Buttermilk Pie with Riesling-Marinated Peaches, a recipe shared by Chef Jason Smith of 18 Seaboard in Raleigh.

“I was willing to beg for it, but fortunately he was happy to oblige,” Moose said. “Buttermilk helps to balance the sweet in pies and cake and even ice cream. It’s a real contrast to something like chess pie, which to me is almost overwhelmingly sweet.”

Moose contributes her own variation on the classic dessert. “I thought to myself, ‘What could be more Southern than sweet tea?’” she mused, explaining how she infused buttermilk with loose black tea leaves to create Sweet Tea Buttermilk Pie. “You want to be careful to not let it get hot or it may curdle. You’ve got to just dip your little finger in there to test that it’s barely warm.”

Likewise, buttermilk soups are served chilled. Her Cool Cucumber Soup, which tastes like a spoonful of summer, can be served in shot glasses for easy entertaining.



Cool Cucumber Soup

“You want to use the best buttermilk you can find for recipes like that, where the flavor of the buttermilk really stands out,” said Moose, who also provides directions for Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Bell Pepper soups. “These really are luscious, and much nicer that eating a cold cream-based soup – which feels heavy to me. With buttermilk, you wind up with something very refreshing and much lighter.”

Buttermilk begins with an accessible take on the science behind how this magical ingredient works with leavening to increase the rise and tenderness of baked goods. “It does amazing things, especially with biscuits, quick breads and cakes,” she said. “Even using your basic supermarket buttermilk, you’ll detect an appealing tang that you just don’t get from anything else.”

Moose was hard-pressed to pick a favorite among the 50 recipes featured in the slim volume but conceded that Bananaville Bread – spiked with a splash of dark rum – is something she makes all the time.

“It wasn’t intentional, but I seem to have created something of a niche for myself in single-topic books,” chuckled Moose, whose previous work includes comprehensive takes on other Southern themes, including deviled eggs, potato salad and wings. “It’s a great mental challenge because you have this one ingredient and you strive to so see how many things you can make.”

Moose succeeds on several counts here, notably with Tex-Mex Corn Pudding, Lavender Ice Cream and BBB Scones (buttermilk, buckwheat flour and bacon). She’s quick to give credit for “most unusual” to the Vanderbilt Fugitive, a cocktail served at the Anvil Bar &Refuge in Houston.

“It’s fun to see if you can come up with something no one else thought of, but my hat’s off to these guys,” she said. “To me, this really exemplifies how creative you can be with buttermilk – and why people ought to give it another chance.”

Recipes reprinted with
permission from Buttermilk,
a Savor the South Cookbook
by Debbie Moose; © 2012 UNC Press.

The Vanderbilt Fugitive

Makes 1 serving

1¾ ounce El Dorado 5 Year Old Demerara Rum
1 ounce buttermilk
½ ounce Chartreuse
½ ounce Averna Amaro liquer
½ ounce maple syrup
Freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker and shake for at least 2-3 minutes, allowing the cocktail to expand in volume. Strain into a collins glass containing more ice cubes. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

Lavender Ice Cream

Makes about 1 pint

½ cup heavy cream
1½ cups buttermilk
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons dried lavender buds

In a large bowl, whisk together the cream, buttermilk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the lavender. Cover and refrigerator for 12 hours (or longer if you want a stronger lavender flavor).

Strain out the lavender and discard it. Freeze the cream mixture according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

‘Foodsteps’ from slavery to the rise of Southern cuisine

This blog first appeared on Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina.

There are those who say that talk of politics and equality have no place at the table. But for culinary historian Michael Twitty, that’s where the conversation begins.

Culinary historian Michael Twitty will present
"Them Old Slavery Foods: Liberating a Cuisine in
Chains in Antebellum North Carolina" at
6:30 p.m. Thursday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

“The table definitely is the starting point to be more honest with each other and express how we feel about our location and our past,” said Twitty, who will launch his Southern Discomfort Tour with a free talk at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. His topic, Them Old Slavery Foods: Liberating a Cuisine in Chains in Antebellum North Carolina, is co-presented by Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) and the Southern Historical Collection at UNC Chapel Hill.

“Whether we like it or not, those of us who study African American foodways face a social-political landscape every day,” he said. “Food helps us define our identity and sense of direction. It preserves a shared timelessness. “

An outcome of slavery, he added, “is that Africans and African Americans, who were marginalized groups, made important and often overlooked contributions to Southern and American cuisine. These are important economic and cultural facts.”

Twitty will document his travels to places where his ancestors were enslaved, “as well as places of cultural memory related to slavery and the development and history of Southern cuisine,” on his blog, The Cooking Gene.  He also tweets at @koshersoul.

As stated on The Cooking Gene website: “We are attempting to dialogue with the white families who owned my family - some of whom I am related to by blood - using food as the medium of communication and discourse. We are looking at the development of African American foodways from Africa to America and from the colonial South to the antebellum and postbellum South using my family tree and family geography if you will as a guide. We’re calling that connection ‘foodsteps’ instead of footsteps to describe those edible connections to the landscape and time.”

Twitty will experience that landscape in a very personal way later this week when he ventures east to walk the Halifax County fields that once were the property of his great-great-great-grandfather Richard Henry Bellamy, a slave owner.

Twitty's great-great-great-grandfather,
Capt. Richard Henry Bellamy,
was born in 1829 in Halifax County.

Born in 1829 as the son of European immigrants, Bellamy was raised to enjoy privileges unfamiliar to the mixed-race offspring he and other well-to-do landowners sired and left behind to be raised, often malnourished, in surrounding communities. Here and in other places where the rambling roots of his family tree survive, Twitty believes he will find living blood relatives.

“I’ve reached out to people who say I can walk the land to see what he saw,” Twitty said. “He led a remarkable life, especially for the time. He was a decorated Confederate captain. He was a graduate of law school from the University of Georgia. He got to be a legislator in Texas.”

Bellamy’s biracial children, by contrast, never travelled further than they could walk. “They didn’t go to school. They weren’t special,” Twitty said. “It wasn’t until they had grandchildren that anyone thought to leave the blinding poverty of the South to go north. It’s a reality that’s part of so many stories.”

Twitty is eager to track kin and find clues to their lives through culinary records, but not all of his living relations and friends entirely understand his quest.

“Some people think this whole project is very strange,” he admitted with a laugh. “People expect me to go to the slave quarters and eat what they ate to learn who I am. By studying Southern-African foodways, my goal is to better understand where I come from. It brings a whole new meaning to ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’.”

Twitty’s travels will take him on a circuitous route from his base in Washington, D.C., to big and small Southern towns that cousins many times removed once called home. To make that possible, a diverse group of sponsors from across the country, but especially in the South, united to support his online fundraising effort. It came down to the wire, but Twitty eventually surpassed his $8,000 goal.

“I am emotionally and spiritually moved by the fact that so many people who do not know me personally gave their money and their time to get the word out,” he said. “It was awkward for me to ask, but it’s all about goodwill and love and vision.”

While Twitty, a devout Jew, is not likely to indulge in all that Eastern North Carolina may heap on a dinner plate, he is eager to experience foods and traditions that with were known to his forebears or are common to his surviving relatives.

“One of my fantasies is to find as receipt book, a sort of recipe collection, from my great-great-great grandfather’s line – maybe a cousin who had a copy of The Virginia House-Wife,” he said, referring to the 1825 guide that became the most influential cookbook of its time. “It would be a sort of Who Do You Think You Are moment, a connection I do not have to any of my black ancestors.”

Twitty has discussed DNA testing with a few family contacts and hopes to broach the subject with others.

“It is a lot to ask, but with their help I hope to peel back the layers to reveal truth,” he said. “For a lot of African Americans, knowing if you came from West or Central Africa, or the Caribbean, is powerful. When they realize that we can help each other by doing this, and that so many supporters have donated money to make it happen, they see how important it is.”

Speaking just hours from the start of his great odyssey, Twitty expressed deep appreciation for his advocates and excitement about how the next few weeks will change his life.

“I have extreme roller coaster emotions,” he said. “There’s one thing in particular that comes to me. One of my grandmother’s brothers died when he was very young. The only thing I know about this young man is that his favorite breakfast was fried baloney, cinnamon toast and orange juice.

“I guarantee you I am the only person who ever thinks about this particular person, but that is part of his immortality,” he said. “By writing down what I learn about my family and our foodways, I hope to preserve it in my own small way.”