Neuse River Fish Stew – a guest post by NC barbecue expert Bob Garner
by Bob Garner [Editor’s note: We were so excited to receive an email from Winston-Salem’s John F. Blair Publishing asking if we’d be interested in having Bob Garner write a guest post for NCFood. Bob Garner? THE North Carolina barbecue expert? You bet your prized hog, we were interested! Especially since his new book Foods […]
Chicken and Pastry, or What Have You
We are so excited that this week’s NC Food Blog installment also introduces you to our new online exhibits feature! This exhibition introduces the history and process of Chicken and Pastry making through both written and visual documentation. From our fieldwork archives, Edith Green of Columbus County, North Carolina, is pictured teaching NC Folk fieldworker […]
The Zack Attack
by Evan Hatch Many mistakes are made by those individuals not initiated to the Zack’s Hotdogs Experience. Those individuals refer to a menu before they order. They try to pay with a debit card. They try to explain what they want to their waiter instead of using accepted jargon. They misunderstand the double line, first […]
Plum Granny Farm: Old Land, New Passion
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim When Cheryl Ferguson graduated from South Stokes High School back in the mid 1970’s, chances are she wasn’t planning on returning to her family’s King homestead farm to live as an adult and become a USDA Certified Organic small family farmer. But that’s exactly what she did. The land, now called […]
Would You Order Livermush at a Classic Family Diner?
by Ray Linville Want to step back in time and explore early food traditions of our state? Then stop at a family-owned diner that has been in business for more than 50 years. When you do, expect to find items on the menu that link back to days long ago. The menu boards immediately caught […]
Van Loi II. Heaven.
by Evan Hatch My parents used to live in Graham, North Carolina. The burgs of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Durham were cultural destinations. Only 20 minutes down the road were concerts, exotic food, funky places to drop money, a better selection of cheeses. In July, 2014, my parents moved to Whitsett, North Carolina. Only 20 […]
Mobile Food for the Literati
By Ray Linville Where do you go for food when you’re at a literary festival on a weekend and the places open on weekdays are closed? When the N.C. Literary Festival was held this year in Raleigh, the answers to feed the hungry public were food trucks. The festival drew thousands to author readings and […]
Learning About Cheese Making (and Feeding a Baby Goat)
by Ray Linville To watch cheese being made, taste some artisan cheese samples, and take home a package or two, I headed to the Blue Ridge area of our state to travel part of the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail. Little did I expect to be bottle-feeding a day-old baby goat. Within minutes after arriving […]
Halgo
by Deborah Miller (with tasty comments from Joy Salyers) Joy surely wasn’t looking for a European Deli and Grocery while Googling (it’s a word now, right?) for something else. It was one of those happy accidents. From the corner came “Deborah! We’ve got to go here!” and I knew there was another adventure in our […]
Mountain Trout Is N.C. Good
by Ray Linville Imagine fishing in a fast-flowing, rocky mountain stream and reeling in trout for dinner. Such experiences have always been part of the food culture in the Blue Ridge region, whether for the Cherokee with prehistoric ties to its hills and streams or the families who settled there after the Trail of Tears […]
The Queen of Clean Goes Sanitary
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim In my 1941 first edition of Jonathan Daniels’ book, Tar Heels: A Portrait of North Carolina, I read with delight his sentence in the ‘Frying Pan and Jug’ chapter, “North Carolinians don’t eat out unless they have to.” This was the case in my house while growing up. We never ate […]
Snak Shak
by Evan Hatch How much do we love collard sandwiches here in North Carolina? So much so that we’ve featured several posts over the years from Jefferson Currie II and Ray Linville, each singing their juicy, fat-back laced praises. In this case, more is more. ~Deborah Miller, Editor, NC FOOD At the intersection of NC […]
J&G Bar-B-Que
by Evan Hatch Just one more addition to our month-long celebration of North Carolina Barbecue! We couldn’t resist Evan’s eulogy to his favorite barbecue memory. ~Deborah Miller, Editor, NCFood. This love letter is long late. J & G Barbecue, formerly of Haw River, North Carolina has left this earth. On December 22nd, 2012, after two […]
Foods Made in N.C. Often Continue Family Traditions
by Ray Linville Have you ever wandered through a festival that showcases the best flavors and tastes of North Carolina? Imagine attending an event that highlights the best of N.C. agriculture and celebrates specialty foods made in our state. The three-day, family-friendly Got to Be NC Festival held each May at the State Fairgrounds in […]
THE Perfect Plate of Barbecue, Round II
by Deborah Miller Two weeks ago, Elijah Gaddis fired up a plate for debate in celebration of National BBQ Month! We asked you what would make up YOUR perfect plate of barbecue, including sides — and from where? To all of you who responded, thank you. Here’s what you all had to say: Joe S: […]
THE Perfect Plate of Barbecue
by Elijah Gaddis Somewhere high on my list of favorite conversations is the one about a favorite plate of barbecue. It’s kind of like picking a fantasy team, I imagine. You dream up some alternative world where somehow your favorite meat, fried corn product, slaw, and those all too rare sides could somehow coexist on […]
Doug’s Café – the “neatest” little restaurant serving the best BBQ in Andrews, NC
by Ronda Birtha And not, “neat” as in tidy – although it certainly is the cleanest “grease” truck I’ve ever seen (co-owner Doug Lawhon boasts about the café’s 99.5 sanitation rating). But “neat” as in “good food, and trendy,” as in, “the BEST barbecue I have ever had,” according to my friend Alice who asked […]
Priddy’s General Store
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim Sometimes a girl just wants a simple sandwich with nothing fancy on it, just bites of goodness. That’s what I wanted one summer day after hiking at Hanging Rock. My old legs were telling me to rest and my stomach was telling me to eat. I listened to both and headed […]
Simmering Stew Brings a Community Together
by Ray Linville The center of small town is not always a town hall, courthouse, or church. Sometimes it’s a pot of bubbling stew as it is each fall in Mount Gilead, a community of slightly more than 1,000 residents in Montgomery County. Although the community is small, just about everyone knows about the Brunswick […]
Lumbee Fish Market: As Fresh as Being on the Coast
by Ray Linville Drive to the beach along U.S. Highway 74 and tune in a local radio station. If you do, you might hear an ad for Lumbee Fish Market in Pembroke that is so intriguing that you want to visit. It’s a market with fish that you might not expect in a location about […]
Time for Persimmon Pudding
by Ray Linville Cool temperatures mean fall fruits and vegetables. When the summer temperatures drop, one tree becomes more noticeable as its round fruit ripens and takes on an orange-brown hue. Is it time to pick persimmons and make pudding? Many of us remember days from childhood when we asked if the persimmons could be […]
Food, Service, and Prices from Yesterday at the Chicken Coop
by Ray Linville A few places serving food in our state are caught in a time warp and remain unchanged since the days that they opened. Price’s Chicken Coop, established in 1962, in the South End of Charlotte is definitely one. Seeing the name of Chicken Coop, you know exactly what to order. The classic […]
Boiled Peanuts, A Southern Tradition
by Elena Rosemond-Hoerr The dog days of summer, as the hot and humid late summer days are often called, inspire in me a deep seated desire to swampify myself. For as long as I can remember my family migrated to the coastal town of Morehead City in the late summer to camp out in the […]
A Honey of a Diner
By Deborah Miller I hadn’t been to Honey’s in years until last week when I heard that they were on the verge of closing. Now I feel kinda bad about that, especially considering the childhood history I had with the 24-hour diner. Not to mention those middle of the night breakfasts when I was in […]