Bill Neal’s Southern Cooking marks milestone


Carolina Cornucopia, a Conference on Foodways of the Tar Heel State, will be held May 29-30 at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill. The conference is free (there is an optional $40 dinner event) but registration is required . For details, visit http://ncfoodways.web.unc.edu/.



At right, 1985 jacket design of Bill Neal’s
Southern Cooking.  Moreton Neal says her
ex-husband used he electric stove below
which still works in the house now occupied by
their son, Matt Neal  of Neal’s Deli in Carrboro.
“I tell people, when they are interested in all
these fancy stoves and appliances, that Bill tested
every recipe for all of his books on a cheap

Sears electric stove,” she says.  “The point is,

it’s not the appliance; it’s the cook.”

 

 

If not for an argument, one of the most influential books on Southern regional cooking might never have been written."That book was formulated in his head and he wanted to leave to write it," says Gene Hamer, owner of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill. "We were so busy with the restaurant. Bill was trying to carve out time to write when we went our separate ways."

Hamer is referring to Bill Neal, the self-taught chef who opened Chapel Hill's La Residence in 1976 with his then-wife Moreton Neal. The book, started a year after Hamer and Neal opened Crook's in 1982, was to become the culinary classic Bill Neal's Southern Cooking.

Hamer recalls that Neal wanted to move to New York for a few months, a notion Hamer deemed unreasonable as he had a new business to manage. Assuming they'd never work together again, Hamer bought out Neal's share of Crook's.

Neal actually returned to Crook's the following year, helping to launch a trajectory that led to the James Beard Foundation presenting its American Classic Award to the landmark in 2011.

"Bill needed a place to show off the book, and I needed his face," Hamer recalls. "The fact is, for the business to work, we needed each other. We renewed the bond of our friendship. I still miss him every day."

When the book was published in 1985 by the University of North Carolina Press, Craig Claiborne, influential food editor at The New York Times, wrote a lengthy article. Claiborne credited Neal for bringing deserved attention to Southern foodways, much in the same way that chef Alice Waters and Chez Panisse steered culinary interest toward newly minted "California cuisine."

Which was exactly what Neal wanted to hear.

"He resented that California was getting all the attention," recalls Moreton Neal, who introduced Neal to sophisticated Southern food in her native Mississippi. “Bill had an uncanny knack for getting ahead of a trend. He felt that if people would just go back to before World War II, before everything was processed and corn syrup and margarine got popular, they’d see that the South had an equally rich food heritage.”

Thirty years after its publication, Bill Neal's Southern Cooking will be the topic of a May 30 plenary session of the Carolina Cornucopia conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill. The influential book defied the stereotypical beliefs about Southern food; largely, that all proteins are fried and all vegetables greased with fatback.

Shrimp and Grits at Crook's Corner
(photo courtesy @sally_cooks)

A classic example of Neal's enduring legacy is his recipe for Shrimp and Grits, variations of which have become ubiquitous at Southern restaurants. It remains on the Crook’s menu, where it continues to satisfy locals and dazzle diners who travel there for the express experience.

Fans also make pilgrimages to Neal's Deli in Carrboro, where they seek out Bill and Moreton Neal's son, owner Matt Neal. He recalls a chef from Cambridge, Massachusetts, stopping to visit and talk about how Southern Cooking was a touchstone in his own career.

"I didn't think that much about it, because it happens a lot," Matt Neal says. "But earlier this month I saw that Barry Maiden was named Best Chef Northeast by the James Beard Foundation. It kind of blew my mind. It's gratifying to my family that people are keeping this book alive."



Kim Severson

Bill Neal went on to write two more cookbooks and edited Through the Garden Gate, a compilation of columns by garden writer Elizabeth Lawrence, before his death in 1991 at age 41. Food writer Kim Severson of The New York Times says Southern Cooking remains his most important work.

“The book and Mr. Neal himself built the frame on which this latest Southern food revolution was built,” observes Severson, an ardent advocate of Southern fare who lives in Atlanta. “That book codified an elevation of Southern cooking that was quite true to the food.”

Chef Ben Barker considered the book so essential that it was required reading for new kitchen staff at Durham's now-closed Magnolia Grill.

"We felt that, if you were a native, it was a great way to re-visit the food of your region, or examine regional variations of classic dishes," Barker says. "And if you weren't a native, it is a historically accurate, well-written introduction to the larder and the cuisine. We often used the recipes as jumping off points for inspiration, or foundation, for dishes at the Grill."

Nathalie Dupree is a Charleston-based cookbook writer whose lifetime achievements led to her being inducted this month into the James Beard Foundation Who's Who of Food & Beverage. She says Southern Cooking broke new ground in distinguishing regional cuisines within the South and defining unique characteristics with roots in diverse populations, geography, agricultural potential and economics.


Nathalie Dupree

"It was an enormous breakthrough for our understanding of Southern food," Dupree says. "I think it is even more important today, in a sense, as so many of us were slow to realize the vast implications."

Moreton Neal, who wrote the 2004 cookbook/memoir Remembering Bill Neal: Favorite Recipes From a Life in Cooking, says he was thoroughly immersed in testing recipes and writing Southern Cooking. The book has since been revised and expanded by UNC Press.

“Before then, the best Southern recipes came from those little Junior League and church cookbooks, and they had very little detail,” Neal says. “I remember reading one of his recipes and thinking that it just went on and on. I didn’t think people would like it. But I was completely wrong. It turned out that it was quite an achievement.”

This first appeared in Indy Week.

April McGreger starts new year with ‘bucket list’ honor

April McGreger, author of Sweet Potatoes, will be the guest speaker of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at 7pm Wednesday, Jan. 21,at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.

April McGreger

By any measure, April McGreger has enjoyed an enviable start to the new year.

Not that 2014 was too shabby, mind you. The popularity of her Farmer’s Daughter’s Brand pickles and preserves allowed her to give up long hours of working at farm stands and convert part of her thriving business to a CSA-style subscription service. And the daughter of Vardaman, Miss., the self-proclaimed Sweet Potato Capital of the World, published her first book – Sweet Potatoes, a volume in the Savor the South series from UNC Press.

But already this year, McGreger has been chosen to receive two Good Food Awards – one for her Strawberry Honeysuckle Jam and one in the pickles category for Sweet Corn and Pepper Relish.

“I've won other Good Food Awards, including their inaugural year in 2011,” McGreger says. “Honestly, I think I’m even happier this time. They get a ton more entries now, so I feel really proud that mine stood out.”

Blackberry Farm photo/Instagram

It’s a feeling McGreger will have to get used to. On Jan. 10, she joined a roster of culinary all-stars to prepare a course in the Southern Foodways Alliance Taste of the South event at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tenn. She made a twist on one of the recipes from Sweet Potatoes, a chestnut and sweet potato pudding with sour orange marmalade and coffee cream.

“I had so much fun. It was definitely one of the greatest honors – and one of the few things I’ve really wanted to do,” McGreger says, adding with a laugh, “I guess it was a ‘bucket list’ item.”

In addition to making dessert for an A-List group of Southern food lovers, McGreger led a preserving class during the three day event. It didn’t occur to her until people started filing in that her students would include some of the people she most admires.

“It was very surreal,” McGreger says, recalling when she saw Birmingham chef Frank Stitt, Susan Spicer of New Orleans, and Ben and Karen Barker of Chapel Hill take seats. “My first thought was, ‘What in the world can I teach them?’ But everyone was very engaged and interested.

“They asked some really great questions so there was a lot of great back and forth. It was amazing to have been in the room at all, but to be leading the conversation left me speechless.”

Back home in Carrboro, McGreger has returned to the routine of making products for Farmer’s Daughter Brand customers. While some people assume winter is her down time, she is busy making sauerkraut and marmalades, the latter using an assortment of regional sour oranges from Louisiana and grapefruit and Meyer lemons from Texas.

“I really love citrus so I’ll be making all kinds of marmalades this year,” she says. “It’s also prime time for krauts and pickles. Jerusalem artichokes will be starting soon, and I’m making a beet-horseradish relish. Things do come to a stop right before strawberries return, but I’m still really busy right now.”

What little time McGreger has left to herself is poured back into her business. Fans can expect to see updates to the website soon, as well as new labels for Farmer’s Daughter products.

The passion and inspiration of local food writer Kelly Alexander

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Kelly Alexander (Justin Cook for Indy Week)

Kelly Alexander would like to take a sentimental journey. It's one she's pondered many times. In fact, Alexander has considered the excursion to the point that she can see around the curves of back roads to the places where farmstands sell just-picked produce and jars of jewel-tone jellies. Vital stops include small-town kitchens where home cooks routinely fix meals that could make city chefs swoon.

Much like Clementine Paddleford, a groundbreaking food writer whom she reintroduced to the culinary landscape in the vivid 2008 biography Hometown Appetites, Alexander wants to visit home kitchens in all 50 states to document contemporary foodways. If she lands one of Amtrak's writer-in-residency grants, the Duke Center for Documentary Studies food-writing instructor would like to be among the first to hitch a ride.

On The Great Amtrack Caper, a Tumblr page created to collect proposals from would-be rail writers, Alexander recalls a rapturous story Paddleford wrote in 1949 about the experience of riding the historic Katy Railroad and eating in its dining car:

"We asked newspaper people, housewives, ministers, butchers, grocers, truck drivers, where to go for a really fine meal. We had luck. The consensus was that about the best dinner one could eat in those parts was a dinner on the Katy Railroad."

"Clementine did something that no one else at the time even thought about, which was telling the story behind the food," Alexander says. "She was a trained journalist with an eye for detail that made you feel like you had eaten great food and spent time in someone else's kitchen. How could anyone resist that?"

It's easy to argue that Alexander is a natural heir to Paddleford. She, too, fell into food writing without having a clear sense of where it would take her. As a college junior, she got an assignment to write about something she knew well. Having grown up in a food-loving Jewish household in Atlanta, she knew how to cook. Her descriptive, mouth-watering piece about making an omelet wound up on the desk of Food & Wine editor Pamela Mitchell, who soon after offered her an internship.

Arriving in New York City in the 1990s, Alexander sought out new food experiences and worked an overnight shift at the Hell's Kitchen bakery of Amy's Breads. She didn't know about Paddleford yet— for all her trailblazing, the writer's name all but vanished after her death in 1967—but Alexander's natural writing style celebrated the same sights, smells and illuminating details of place and personality.

Alexander later became a contributing editor at Saveur, a prestige magazine for serious cooks. While globetrotting colleagues explored glamorous culinary hotspots, she specialized in regional American foods and the people who grew and cooked them. Her work there and at other publications, including The New York Times and The New Republic, has earned her considerable acclaim, including a James Beard Award for writing.

Books followed, along with a move to Chapel Hill. In addition to the Paddleford biography, Alexander has co-written two cookbooks with barbecue legend Myron Mixon, edited a collection for Southern Living and penned Peaches, a volume in the Savor the South series published by UNC Press. She contributed an entry on Paddleford to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, which in March earned a 2014 International Association of Culinary Professionals award for best reference book.

Alexander is involved in several major projects, including one with legendary New York City Chef David Burke intended to decode his masterful technique for home cooks. Last month, she joined a prominent roster of culinary professionals as a member of the inaugural The Daily Meal Council, which affords its members flexibility to pursue their food writing passions. Alexander will use the platform to further her exploration of the cultural, social and economic practices that relate to food. It will help her carry on the methods Paddleford used in the years when neighbors shared recipes over picket fences.

"She had a real love of adventure, and a love of food. She was so plain spoken and happy doing what she did," says Alexander, who draws similar satisfaction from her work. "Food writing is what it is today because of her."

As much as Alexander admired Paddleford, however, she is no longer as eager to spend her life living out of suitcases.

"I have something that Clementine didn't have, which is a family," says Alexander, noting that the 12-year-old girl whom Paddleford adopted spent much of her time in boarding schools. "I used to travel a lot more when I was younger and not a mom."

Anticipating that her writing career would taper off when she relocated to Chapel Hill, Alexander toyed with the idea of opening a bakery. "I'm good at following directions and working with constraints, which is part of what made baking so appealing to me," she says. "I liked working at Amy's Breads, where I made muffins and scones, but it was back-breaking work. I messed up all the time. My supervisor was a very tall African-American man who smoked a joint at every break. He would say, 'You're stressing me out.'"

Alexander takes a sip of fragrant chai tea and laughs. "I'm so glad I didn't try opening a bakery here," she says. "Can you imagine competing with [Scratch Baking's] Phoebe Lawless for business?"

Baking for pleasure allows her to keep her professional focus on writing, and specifically on her long term goal of collecting distinctive stories from home cooks in each state.
"I could make things happen faster by doing more on the Internet, but I'm not interested in that," she says. "Going to all 50 states and writing about regional food is a project that will take me 30 years.

"The fact is, I like working on several things at once. I'll probably spend the rest of my professional life working on the Clementine [Paddelford] project, and that's OK. I couldn't let it go it if I wanted to."

Andrea Weigl's 'Pickles & Preserves' gives food its staying power

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Andrea Weigl will launch her book tour with events at 7pm Wednesday at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh and at 7pm March 19 for Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOPNC) at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill. Both are free and open to the public.

As surely as the college basketball’s Final Four leads to the return of Major League Baseball, the reappearance of farmers markets is about to spark the season of canning.

Those seduced by the magical transformation of fruit and sugar, or vegetables and pickling salt, know that early spring is a time of joy in North Carolina. Canning jars emptied over winter stand ready to be filled with long awaited rhubarb and strawberries, followed by peaches and berries and, of course, the cornucopia of all things pickleable.

A wonderful new resource is available for home canners, Pickles & Preserves, a book by Andrea Wiegl, food writer for The News & Observer. Perfect for novices and loaded with recipes that experienced canners will enjoy, it is part of the Savor the South series of single-topic cookbooks published by UNC Press.

While she remembers Grandma Weigl canning all sorts of practical foods, Weigl herself started preserving only about eight years ago. “It’s something I always wanted to do, and I was determined to teach myself,” says Weigl, who spontaneously purchased a canning pot and some basics at a hardware store. “I can’t remember now if I made strawberries first, or maybe peaches, but I was hooked.”

Weigl regrets disposing of a stash of her late grandmother’s canning jars—the aged contents had spoiled—but says that generous neighbors came to her aid when she was testing recipes for the book. “We have a neighborhood garden club that is more of a social club, and so many of the ladies gave me jars,” says Weigl, who figures she filled hundreds of them as she mastered the featured recipes. “That was so encouraging.”

Weigl felt like she needed the boost. Her daughter was not quite a year old when she started the labor intensive project, and it sometimes was a challenge to make pickles and preserves while balancing the baby’s needs and working a full-time job.

“I look back now and can’t even fathom how I did it,” she says. “I asked for a year to write the book because I need that to work with what was in season.”
Despite constant testing and a weeklong visit from her mother, during which they made more than a dozen different recipes, Weigl discovered at the end that she somehow managed to miss some key produce. That’s when she picked up the phone.

“I asked people for recipes,” Weigl says. “Sheri Castle was nice enough to share her corn and sweet pepper relish recipe.”

Weigl has nice friends. The book includes recipes from several acclaimed canners, chefs and cookbook writers, including Andrea Reusing of Lantern restaurant; April McGreger of Farmer’s Daughter; fellow Savor the South writers Debbie Moose, Kathleen Purvis and Sandra Gutierrez; and Jean Anderson, whose 1976 Green Thumb Preserving Guide was reissued by UNC Press in 2012.

Weigl is especially proud to include Anderson’s summery Yellow Squash Pickles, which she admits she can’t live without. “I absolutely love that recipe and never came across anything like in my research,” she says.

The book includes a useful guide to canning safety, which Weigl presents in accessible terms meant to encourage new canners to take up the practice.

“Canning can be intimidating, which is why I think I waited so long to try it myself,” she says. “If you have a better understand of the why we do certain things, there’s less reason to be afraid.”

Weigl is eager for the return of spring fruits and summer vegetables but admits that the short window in fall when Damson plums arrive is her favorite part of the canning season.

“I also look forward to honeysuckles coming back to make honeysuckle jelly,” she says, referencing the very first recipe in the book. “There’s something about finding your patch of honeysuckle and taking the time to pick four cups’ worth to make jelly that is really satisfying.”

Soft Refrigerator Honeysuckle Jelly

From Pickles & Preserves, a Savor the South cookbook by Andrea Weigl. Copyright 2014 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
Weigel suggests using the leftover honeysuckle infusion to make lemonade.

Makes 2 half-pint jars

4 cups honeysuckle blossoms, packed but not crushed, green parts removed, including leaves and tips
5 1/3 cups cool water
Juice of half a large lemon
2/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons instant pectin (also called no-cook freezer pectin)

Place the honeysuckle blossoms in a large nonreactive bowl and add the water. Use a plate to weigh down the flowers so they’re completely submerged. Let sit out overnight.

The next day, strain the juice from the blossoms and reserve. Measure out 1 2/3 cups honeysuckle infusion and place in a bowl. Add the lemon juice.
Combine the sugar and pectin in a large bowl. Stir to prevent lumps of pectin in the sugar.

Pour the honeysuckle mixture into the bowl with the pectin and sugar. Stir briskly with a whisk for 4 minutes until the mixture is thoroughly combined and starts to thicken.

Lade the jelly into clean plastic freezer jars, seal with lids, and place in the refrigerator. The jelly will be soft set after 24 hours and will keep for one month in the refrigerator.

Atlantic Foodways Conference celebrates the foundations and sustainable resurgence of Lowcountry cuisine

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

A distinguished group of academics, chefs and farmers converged last Friday to both examine the foundations of South Carolina’s Lowcountry cuisine and celebrate its sustainable resurgence during the Atlantic Foodways Conference at UNC Greensboro.

Charleston Chef Sean Brock

This was the first year that the annual conference —which also examined the native foodways and transatlantic impact of Italy, France and Spain—featured high-profile chefs who are influencing contemporary cuisine through their commitment to restore fading traditions. The Lowcountry was ably represented by Sean Brock of Charleston’s acclaimed Husk and McGrady’s restaurants.

“I’ve been lucky enough to watch and be part of the rebirth of one of America’s first cuisines,” said Brock, who grew up in rural Virginia before moving to Charleston during a low point in the city’s now-booming food scene. A decade ago, he added, “People came to this beautiful city from around the world with romantic ideas about great food in their minds, but the rice was Uncle Ben’s and the grits was Quaker instant. They were not satisfied and the cuisine was dismissed.”

As in other historic food communities, Brock and other concerned chefs worked closely with local and national growers, cultural anthropologists and food scientists to identify heirloom plant species that could be restored through seed projects. Some are now thriving, like the Carolina Gold rice, Sea Island red peas and juicy Dancy tangerines used in a four-course dinner curated by Brock.

Keynote speaker David Shields, a prolific author and president of the influential Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, commended Brock on his leadership in sustainable restoration of Lowcountry foodways. “This is not a cuisine of re-enactment,” he said firmly. “What’s been brought back is the ingredients, and those ingredients give permission for creativity.”

Brock's deeply flavored Senegalese Gumbo as prepared by
Chef Jay Pierce of Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen.

The Lowcountry dinner was prepared by Greensboro and Cary chef Jay Pierce of Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen and served at the elegant Proximity Hotel. It started with a benne (sesame seed) oyster stew, a Lowcountry classic that was punched up with glossy bacon from Allan Benton’s legendary Smoky Mountain Country Hams and creamy Old Mill grits from Guilford County. It was followed by Senegalese fish gumbo, whose unexpected spice profile provided a flavorful nod to slaves whose culinary achievements generally were attributed to white plantation hostesses who rarely stepped inside their own kitchens.

Pierce took the lead on a “Roots & Shoots” plate that featured braised pickled turnips and greens alongside the red peas from Anson Mills, which had been simmered in a luscious ham hock broth. Some diners regretted the lack of cornbread while others contentedly slurped the soupy remains. The meal finished with cakelike chocolate and a tangy orange sorbet distinctively drizzled with natural birch syrup.

The Lowcountry sessions featured key voices in the efforts to more fully document the abundance of antebellum Charleston’s farms and kitchen gardens. Shields delivered a powerful discourse that tracked the ways foods migrated and changed – some to the point of extinction through aggressive manipulation meant to adapt to local conditions. He also linked the seemingly “magical” ability of slaves to excel in plantation kitchens to specific marketing of those procured for that very purpose from rice-growing regions of Western Africa.

Marcie Cohen Ferris

Marcie Cohen Ferris of UNC Chapel Hill presented a preview of her new book, The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region, which is scheduled for fall publication by UNC Press. Her remarks focused on the cultural politics of Charleston’s “culinary brand” during the growing tourism economy of the 1930s through the 1950s.

“No city packaged and sold the ‘Old South’ better than Charleston,” said Ferris, noting the port city fashioned itself as the epicenter of all things great and Southern. “Masterminded by white elites, they rewrote the city’s history.”

As represented by an ever-present demure Southern belle, this imagined history ignored slavery by depicting black men in romanticized field labor and women who spoke in vernacular while deploying “culinary wizardry” in well-appointed kitchens. It also dismissed a large Jewish community that established the nation’s second oldest synagogue building, which today is the oldest in continuous use.

By the late 1930s, popular national magazines were printing Lowcountry recipes and touting the appeal of culinary vacations. Some homes near the historic Battery were converted into boarding houses while others attracted Northern socialites like Claire Booth Luce, who became the “invented mistress” of her plantation.

The fascination with the South and its air of high society extended to New York City, where the flagship B. Altman’s department store featured a Charleston garden restaurant complete with a Tara-like courtyard setting.

Recent scholarship has revealed such whitewashed depictions and dumbed-down food as creations of a powerful public relations campaign, but many people still cling to the myths.
"Lowcountry tourism really transformed the flavor and racism of the culinary South in a way that still has resonance and power today," Ferris said.

Miriam Rubin: 50 Shades of Tomatoes

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

For several months, Miriam Rubin lived a life of cruel irony. The author of Tomatoes, a volume in the Savor the South series by UNC Press, had been receiving positive feedback since its March release. As late as June, however, she was suffering tomato envy in her chilly southwestern corner of Pennsylvania while Southern friends were standing over sinks slurping juicy sandwiches.

"I have always been a tomato fiend and really missed ripe ones," says Rubin, longtime food columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and colleague of UNC culinary historian Marcie Cohen Ferris. "There's just nothing like it. It's the taste of summer. Holding a fresh-picked tomato makes me want to carry it off to the kitchen and have my way with it."

Rubin tasted countless varieties in preparation for Tomatoes, which includes nearly 50 ways to enjoy them. Recipes are organized in eight categories, ranging from starters and soups to tomato salads, main dishes (including pies and cobblers) and sides, sauces and gravies, and preserves and juices.

While she ardently urges consumers to choose locally grown tomatoes, the former chef admits a particular passion for those raised under Southern sunshine. The practice of growing tomatoes in the South began in the late 17th century, but the once dubious member of the nightshade family did not commonly appear in regional cookbooks for another 100 years. Rubin's research identified no particular variety that is original to the region but notes that Alex and Betsy Hitt, legendary growers at the Carrboro Farmers Market, favor the sturdy Cherokee Purple.

"They're especially good for growing in your area," Rubin says. "Because of the heat and humidity, tomatoes crack. There's no scientific evidence, but I believe it's true that the purple skin helps to keep them intact."
Rubin suggests that fresh tomatoes of nearly any pedigree gain instant Southern provenance, however, when tucked between soft white bread and coated with a slather of mayonnaise. The same goes for tomatoes stewed with okra and onions or, if still green, pressed into cornmeal and fried to a golden crisp in an old iron skillet.

Rubin is keen on the Zebra, which is green when ripe, and she is among the many devotees of the Sungold, the tiny orange orbs some consider tomato candy. "My newspaper editor's son loves them. He'll eat the whole plant's worth, like he's a deer," she says.

As that child has already figured out, tomatoes are best, and should be enjoyed in abundance, at peak season. Minimize handling picked tomatoes until they are ready to use to avoid bruising, which hastens rot. And for the love of all things Southern, do not refrigerate them or expose their innards to the elements unless you are ready to dine.

"They are are very sensitive—or maybe I am," Rubin says. "A chilled tomato, or one sliced hours before, is just not worth eating."

Rubin has about 30 tomato plants in her garden of 21 varieties. She is one of those people likely to leave a box of tomatoes on your doorstep without a note or clue. "But not in my own neighborhood," she says. "Everyone grows them here. I have a hard time with the idea of 'too many tomatoes,' but it does happen."

When fresh varieties are unavailable, Rubin suggests options for using those canned at peak flavor. Avoid the "bad old cardboard supermarket tomato, shipped green, gassed with ethylene so it 'pinks up.'"

While reluctant to pick a favorite among Tomatoes' recipes, Rubin says she often makes the Open-Face Tomato Pie as soon as she can harvest juicy orbs from her own garden.

"I'm always grateful to have leftovers for lunch," she says. "Problem is, it's usually gone in one sitting."

---

Open-Face Tomato Pie

Makes 4 main-dish servings
Pastry for a 9-inch single-crust pie (can be store-bought)
4-5 medium, firm-but-ripe tomatoes (1 1/2 pounds)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 1/4 cups shredded sharp white cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup plain panko crumbs
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup chopped basil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced chives
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Fit the pastry into a 9-inch pie plate and form a high, fluted edge. Prick all over with a fork. Pit a sheet of foil inside the pastry and fill the foil with dried beans or rice. Bake until the pastry is set and white at the edges, 10-12 minutes. Remove the foil and beans or rice, return the pastry to the oven, and bake until it's brown in spots, 8-10 more minutes. If it starts to slip down, press it back in place with a spoon. Cool on a wire rack.

Halve and core the tomatoes and cut them crosswise into 1/4-inch thick half-moon slices, discarding the ends. (You should have a heaping 3 cups.) Place the tomatoes lives on a double layer of paper towels and sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Let stand for about 5 minutes.

Toss 1/2 cup of the cheddar with the panko crumbs in a small bowl. Sprinkle half of this evenly over the bottom of the cooled crust. Arrange half of the tomato in an overlapping circle on top of the crumbs, filling the center with more slices. Sprinkle with half of the red onion and 1/4 cup of the cheddar. Arrange the remaining tomatoes in the same manner of top; sprinkle with the remaining red onion.

Mix the mayonnaise, basil, chives, remaining 1/2 cup cheddar, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Spread of tomatoes with a rubber spatula, cover them completely, using your fingers to help since the mixture is thick. Sprinkle with the remaining crumb-cheese mixture.

Bake the pie until the top is browned and the filling has started to bubble at the edges, 45-50 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let stand for at least 30 minutes for easiest cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into wedges.

Reprinted with permission of Miriam Rubin from Tomatoes, UNC Press (© 2013).

Spring brings soft-shell crabs back to Crook’s Corner – but never to the menu

Bill Smith, chef at Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, will be the guest of Culinary Historians of Piedmont North Carolina (CHOP NC) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, at Flyleaf Books.  

The combination of UNC graduation and Mother’s Day weekend always means big business for Crook’s Corner. Add to that the long awaited arrival of soft-shell crabs and you’ll see lines of eager customers wrapping around the block.

“I cleaned 39 dozen soft-shells, which took me from 9 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon,” Smith says just before the doors open for business on Thursday afternoon. “I think this should hold us through the weekend, but you never know.”

Standard blue crabs become soft-shells when they molt and shed their hard exoskeleton. They are among a select group of seasonal delights Smith prepares that cause regulars to go wild; others include honeysuckle sorbet, which will follow soon, and persimmon pudding, a delicacy of fall.

“I’ve seen fights break out over our soft-shell crabs,” he says, doffing his ball cap and smoothing his unruly hair. “I can’t list it on the menu because it sells out so fast. If we have soft-shells and honeysuckle sorbet at the same time, people will break down the door.”

Smith quietly announces their arrival to loyal followers of his @Chulegre Twitter account and the Crook’s Corner’s Facebook page. No matter how much someone pleased or begs, they will not reserve orders. “Oh, Lord no,” he says. “If you want some, be here at 5:30.”

His reputation as an expert on soft-shells, and seafood in general, has earned Smith a volume in the Savor the South series of cookbooks being produced by UNC Press. His entry will focus on crab and oysters and should arrive in 2014.

Smith grew up catching crabs with a chicken neck and string when he was a boy in New Bern. He keenly recalls his first taste of soft-shells with his aunt and uncle, who often took him for Sunday drives.

“We would go down to the town of Sea Level in Carteret County,” he recalls. “There was a restaurant there right on the water with a wall that was all windows. It took forever to get there and it always seemed like the end of the world to me.”

On one visit, Smith figures he was around 8 years old, he looked at the menu and told the server he’d have the soft-shell crabs. “My aunt said, ‘No, you mean deviled crabs.’ I wouldn't admit I didn't know what they were,” he says some 56 years later, “but I loved them."

Unless ordered in a restaurant, crabs were largely viewed as “free food” at the time by coastal residents, who found and ate them in abundance. “I learned how to catch and clean them when we’d visit my grandmother in the summer. She would make a crab stew that was very good,” he says. “Now, of course, crabs are very expensive.”

Soft-shells are even more costly because of the extra effort involved in catching them just after they molt. While usually available locally by now, Smith had to import his current order from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, which has been warmer that the North Carolina coast.

While he’s glad that customers rush to Crook’s Corner to enjoy them, Smith says home cooks should give them a try. If squeamish about dispatching them to crab heaven – for safe consumption, it is essential for soft-shells to be alive when purchased – most bona fide fishmongers will do the deed for you.

Smith recommends seeking out medium size soft-shell crabs. While jumbo specimens may look tempting, they are more difficult to prepare without overcooking. And don’t panic if a claw or leg falls off before the finished dish makes it to the table. “No matter how careful you are, it happens,” he says with a shrug. “Sometimes we save the loose claws in a bowl and enjoy them at the end of the night.”

Smith is collecting a variety of soft-shell recipes for the Savor the South book, which is likely to include a grilled version tossed with fettuccini that he enjoyed in Venice. Of all the possible variations, there are just two methods he refuses to consider.

“Don't fry them,” he says protectively. “The ones we do here are sautéed in browned butter with lemon juice, garlic and basil.”

The other unspeakable practice is to steam them, which a health-conscious customer requested a few years ago.

“Browned and crispy is the way to go, but she thought it wasn’t healthy cooked in butter,” he says, laughing and shaking his head. “I told her I thought they would taste like crickets. It's important to me for customers to be happy, but I wouldn't do it.”

Crooks’ Corner Soft-Shelled Crabs

Reprinted with permission of Bill Smith from Seasoned in the South: Recipes From Crook’s Corner and From Home (Algonquin Books, 2006).

Serves 4

8 fresh soft-shelled crabs
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup Maseca instant corn masa mix
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup clarified unsalted butter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons chopped garlic
Juice of 1 lemon (about ¼ cup)
¼ cup thin basil chiffonade

Clean the crabs (if you seafood market won’t do it for you) by first snipping off the face with kitchen shears. They should be soft and squishy all over. Then lift up each side of the carapace and snip out the gills. (These are four or five white, curved, pointed “devil’s fingers” extending from the center of the crab to the end of the shell on both sides.) Flip the crab over and cut off the tail flap – on males it is narrow; on females it is fat. Hold the crab under cool running water and gently squeeze out the yellow guts that are inside and just under the top of the shell. You don’t need to squeeze the main part of the body beneath this shell. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry. Very appetizing so far, yes?

Mix the flour and Maseca together and season with the salt and pepper. It is very important to use enough salt, so taste the flour before you begin.

Dip the crabs in buttermilk and then dredge in the flour. Shake off any excess flour and sauté them in very hot clarified butter – a quarter inch deep – until pretty and brown, turning once. The crabs should be crispy and very hot at the center. Remove them to a warm platter. Be careful, because they pop and spit a great deal, especially when very fresh. My staff refers to this as frying fire crackers.

Pour off the butter, but try to keep as much of the crumbs and browned flour in the pan as possible. Put the pan back on high heat and add the 3 tablespoons of whole butter. Begin swirling the pan at once. The butter will begin to melt and smell toasty. When the butter is pretty and brown, quickly add the garlic, swirl to spread it around, and immediately add the lemon juice to prevent the garlic from browning. Remove from heat, add the basil, and pour over the crabs. Serve at once. (They are not good cold.)

This process sounds tricky, but once you have done it correctly it will always be easy because the smell is so divine it will guide you ever after.

‘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.”

Jean Anderson’s ‘Preserving Guide’ reissued by UNC Press

Jean Anderson will participate in Fearrington Village's "Cooks and Books" series at 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15. For information or to purchase tickets, call 919-542-3030.

Jean Anderson is one of the Triangle’s most prolific cookbook writers. She’s earned several prestigious James Beard and International Association of Culinary Professionals awards for her wide-ranging work. And when she leaves her Chapel Hill home to sign books or oversee a feast featuring her recipes, she attracts crowds of breathless devotees.

Anderson greets fans warmly, but she is as famously reticent to talk about her own books as she is to have her photo taken. Of the handsome new reissue of her 1976 Preserving Guide by UNC Press, she shared only that “a particular fave of mine” in the 100-recipe collection is Yellow Squash Pickles, which she termed a “Raleigh recipe.”

UNC Press hails the work, a groundbreaking volume for its time, as a classic of the “back-to-the-land movement.” The original edition was named by New York Times food writer Craig Claiborne to his list of books for the well-chosen cookbook library.

Still beloved by seasoned canners, it finds a welcome place today in the abundance of preserving titles on bookstore shelves. It’s even revered by nouveau leaders such as Sean Timberlake, founder of the online canning community Punk Domestics.

“In recent years, the topic of canning and preserving has enjoyed a huge renaissance, as new generations discover the joy of learning the nearly forgotten craft of putting food by,” said Sean Timberlake said. “A wealth of books has bubbled up in the wake of this trend, many quite beautiful and interesting. But Jean Anderson's Preserving Guide stands among a canon of never-fail go-to volumes that canners of all ages and skill levels turn to for clear, no-nonsense information. It truly is a foundational work, one without which today's trend-forging books could never be.”

Jean Anderson (undated)

Virginia Willis, author of Basic to Brilliant, Y’All, agreed. She said the reissue will find a welcome place on her bookshelf.

“I love to conserve and preserve and have sought out past issues of canning guides, but I’ve yet to find the much-praised original edition,” Willis said. “Jean Anderson’s Preserving Guide is a thorough guide to old-fashioned canning and preserving recipes. It's straightforward and clear with no-nonsense instruction. It's like your favorite Southern aunt is in the kitchen - admittedly teaching her favorites.”

One word of caution: With the exception of a new introduction by the author, the text is unchanged from its 1976 debut, when it was first published as the Green Thumb Preserving Guide. Anderson maintains her confidence in the paraffin-sealed canning method she learned from her mother and aunt – it “has never failed me,” she writes, adding later that she “recommends only what I consider to be the best ways of conserving” fruits and vegetables.

As such, Preserving Guide is not entirely consistent with contemporary USDA standards. Home canners with process questions, especially novices, can check USDA recommendations posted online and make simple tweaks if needed.

Anderson’s enduring influence is keenly felt by cutting-edge chef Paul Virant, whose book The Preservation Kitchen was released early this year. He credits Anderson with helping to “launch my career to can, with confidence and enthusiasm.

“The Preserving Guide continues to influence my style of cooking, which has made preservation the main focus of my restaurants, Vie and Perennial Virant,” said the Chicago-based chef.

Anderson writes that her tart and crunchy Cranberry and Almond Conserve “is especially good with roast turkey, chicken, duck and goose, venison, pork ham and lamb” – making it a welcome addition to virtually any holiday table.

Cranberry and Almond Conserve

Reprinted from Preserving Guide by Jean Anderson, © UNC Press (2012).

2 medium-sized oranges, halved, seeded and chopped fine (rind, pulp and all)

Grated rind of 1 lemon

1 quart water

3 cups granulated sugar

3 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

2 quarts cranberry, stemmed

½ cup seedless raisins

½ cup dried currants

1¼ cups chopped blanched almonds

Places oranges, lemon rind and water in a large, heavy enameled or stainless steel kettle, set over moderately high heat and boil uncovered for 25 minutes or until run in tender.

Meanwhile, was and sterilize 8 half-pint preserving jars and their closures; keep closures and jars immersed in separate kettles of simmering water until you are ready to use them.

When rind is tender, add granulated and brown sugars to kettle and as soon as they are dissolved, stir in cranberries, raisins and currants. Let the mixture come slowly to the boil, then boil hard, uncovered, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, 5 minutes. Mix in almonds. Continue boiling rapidly and stirring 5 to 10 minutes longer until mixture is thick and jelly-like (about 220 degrees F on a candy thermometer).

Ladle boiling hot into hot jars, filling to within 1/8” of the tops. Wipe jar rims and seal jars. Process for 10 minutes in a simmering water batch (185 degrees F).   Remove from water bath … and cool to room temperature. Check seals, then label and store on a cook, dark, dry shelf.