Durham Hub Farm
by Laura Fieselman April 14, 2015 It’s a balmy Friday afternoon at 2:30. There’s a rooster crowing, a nest of baby bunnies in the strawberry patch, and apple trees and school buses in the distance. The outdoor education students studying orienteering have just left. This is the Hub Farm of Durham Public Schools, a 30-acre […]
Official NC Food Festivals in May 2015
by Deborah Miller It’s not like we don’t have anything good to eat around here. We arise food. We talk about food. We read about food. We drive miles out of the way for a “food” experience. What choice did North Carolina have but to honor and designate some long-existing events as“Official State Food Festivals?” […]
My Life in Pie
by Malinda Fillingim I knew something was wrong when my step-father, Carl, the Marine from Walnut Cove, told me he was taking me to a restaurant in downtown Swansboro looking over the White Oak River. We never went out to eat unless we were out of town, or something bad had happened. I couldn’t think […]
“Chowder Taster”—Touring a Clam Chowder Cook-Off at the Ocracoke Community Center
by Leanne E. Smith “The rainy weather cooperated with us,” Karen Lovejoy joked the Saturday before Easter 2015 during the First Annual Clam Chowder Cook-off on Ocracoke Island that showcased four entries in the Ocracoke-traditional category and seven for non-traditional. The mid-day event was a fundraiser for the Ocracoke Childcare Center, also known as the […]
Stan’s Pimento Cheese
by Evan Hatch Stan’s is one of those North Carolina answers. Like Duke’s. And Sweet. And “Yes I want slaw on that.” The question is, “What is the bestest pimento cheese ever?” It is rich. It is mayonnaisey. It is so creamy. It is from Burlington. I have not always taken a lot of pride […]
Making Mac and Cheese Better with N.C. Mountain Cheese
by Ray Linville What’s the most important ingredient in macaroni and cheese? Except for the love that the preparer personally adds, is one item more important than anything else? The questions may seem frivolous because today the recipe at home can be quite simple – unless you’re Thomas Jefferson, who was so consumed with serving […]
La Cacerola Home Style Honduran
by Deborah Miller If you weren’t paying attention, you’d almost miss La Cacerola Café and Restaurant, tucked as it is between the Latino Super Market and Guess Road Mini Mart. The three of us were celebrating a special date, and no ordinary lunch would do for this occasion. Though rescheduled from the actual anniversary date, […]
North Carolina’s Official State Symbols That Taste Good, Part 2
by Deborah Miller These are the things that keep me up at night. I’m an unashamed “wonderer.” My friends all laugh at me when I’d ask “those” questions. You know, “why are some raindrops big and some little?” and “who ever figured out how to eat an artichoke in the first place?” Yes, they’d even […]
Pepper’s Pizza
by Evan Hatch I always wanted to be a part of Pepper’s Pizza in Chapel Hill. Pepper’s hid in plain sight on Franklin Street, two doors down from the Varsity Theater, a narrow squeeze of a restaurant with checkerboard floors, whacked art hanging and a cast of incredible characters working the kitchen. It was Chapel […]
Lenten Fish Fries in 2015
by Joy Salyers North Carolina historian David Cecelski helped start NC Food, delighting readers for the blog’s first five years with his explorations of state foodways and his musings about food’s connections to place, family, and all that is good in life. In 2011, he noted in a food blog post that “It’s one of […]
Enjoying Barbecue Prepared Like When You Were a Kid
By Ray Linville Have you ever passed a restaurant, wondered how good its food is, but didn’t stop because you were saving money by not eating out? That’s my story about North Carolina barbecue when I was growing up. I grew up in the Piedmont in a stable but modest neighborhood of Winston-Salem. In the […]
Old Havana Sandwich Shop
by Evan Hatch The Old Havana Sandwich Shop faces Main Street in downtown Durham, North Carolina. Business and life partners Elizabeth Turnbull and Roberto Copa Matos surely pinched themselves when they first saw the limestone edifice that became their restaurant. Arched porticoes, vaulted windows and polished wood floors lend this space a warm and historic […]
Cabbage
by Sally Parlier Every few months or so when I was young, my parents would get a craving for some fried cabbage, served with pinto beans, cornbread, and a tall, cold glass of milk. This was the food of their youth in Watauga County – filling, homegrown, and low cost – and still staples of […]
A Food Sisterhood Flourishes in North Carolina, and then some
Just in case you weren’t paying attention, North Carolina got some seriously good props this week from the New York Times. The North Carolina Food Sisterhood, to be exact, and it’s a nice change from all the athletic and political press we’ve grown used to. We’ve always been an agricultural state and women have long […]
North Carolina’s Official State Symbols That Taste Good, Part 1
by Deborah Miller Every state has its official list of chosen symbols. We all know, or should know, that our State Bird is the Cardinal and State Tree is the Dogwood. But why, and how, do such random things like dog, reptile, and even dance become official? In case you just moved to the Tar […]
Recipe for Belonging
by Malinda Fillingim Back in 1972, when I first moved to my step-father’s hometown of Walnut Cove, I was a lonely 13 year old surrounded by people who had grown up together and whose families had lived in the same community for generations. I had to find my own path and create my own sense […]
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 […]
Collards a lo Cubano
by Sarah Bryan Verlie Helsabeck Freeman was a vivid woman. She had a cat named Mr. Cat, a set of dentures that she took out of her mouth and clacked at frightened great-grandchildren, and—as she warned overly curious visitors who might snoop around the house—a booger in her basement. (To readers who aren’t from North […]
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 […]
Happy Thanksgiving!
by Deborah Miller The holidays seem to turn the nostalgia dial up to eleven for many of us, especially when it comes to food. We find comfort in the familiarity of the menu and we want them prepared the exact same way we had them at our table. I certainly wouldn’t put my mother’s green […]
My Turkey Lesson
by Malinda Fillingim Although I was the teacher, I was the one who had a lesson to learn. As the fourth grade teacher at Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School in Hollister, I had an open door policy when it came to parents and tribal leaders who wanted to observe or volunteer in my classroom. Tribal leaders and […]
“A Martin County Thing”—Chicken Mull
by Leanne E. Smith Sixty-five gallons of chicken mull disappeared in less than a couple of hours on Saturday, October 25, 2014, when the town of Bear Grass in Martin County, NC, held its First Annual Chicken Mull Festival. Bear Grass is in the middle of Martin County in Eastern North Carolina, about 20 miles […]
Kitchen Memories
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim One of my favorite past-times is finding old kitchen tools and utensils in thrift stores. A museum of culinary history awaits me each time I hold an old spider pan, French fry cutter, pewter pitcher, or in a recent visit at the Habitat For Humanity Thrift Store in Southport, an old […]
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 […]