by Sarah Bryan It’s a moment that a lot of Southerners have had: when folks from somewhere else single out a characteristic of our speech or behavior that is evidently outlandish to the rest of the world, but that, until that moment, we hadn’t realized was at all weird. “You carried your grandmother to the… Read More →
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… Read More →
New Farmers in North Carolina: Karen Refugees
by Ray Linville More than 14,000 refugees have been resettled in North Carolina in the past decade, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. As these refugee communities grow, they are beginning to transform food traditions of our state and expand the agricultural offerings at farmers’ markets and farm-to-home deliveries provided through community-supported agriculture…. Read More →
Heirloom Seeds and Plants: Preserving State Food Traditions
by Ray Linville Do you wish that you could grow the same vegetables that Grandma grew? The flavors that she tasted and the nutrients that she enjoyed are legendary, and many of us reminisce about how we miss the flavors of yesteryear. Because this desire to appreciate traditional foods is growing, a cultural movement to… Read More →
Finding the Source of Your Food
by Ray Linville When you eat in a restaurant, do you think about the farms that provide your meal? An excellent way to visit the source of your food is the annual farm tours conducted in our state. Earlier this year I explored several farms as part of the Piedmont Farm Tour, held on the… Read More →
June is North Carolina Blueberry Month
By Frances Dowell The civilized blueberry moved to North Carolina in the early half of the 20th century. Wild blueberries have been growing in the piney woods of the eastern shores since the beginning of time (or thereabouts), but it wasn’t until one Harold Huntington of Montclair, NJ, cleared a thousand acres in Pender County… Read More →
Mama’s Tea
by Jefferson Currie My mama, Jerri, doesn’t really like ice tea much (I know that most spell it iced tea, but with that d and t next to each other, that’s not really what it sounds like), and I realize that to some southerners that is a kind of sacrilege, so it always struck me… Read More →
GRITS with BUGS? OBX SHRIMP and GRITS
by Elizabeth Weigand Elizabeth Weigand is one of my favorite food writers. She’s so good at what she does that I can darn near taste whatever she’s writing about as well as exploring the culture and lore behind it. I was so excited when she agreed to let us use a blog post she wrote… Read More →
Carson Varnam’s Shellfish Market
Last Tuesday I went to Carson Varnam’s Shellfish Market to photograph a typical day during oyster season. Around 9:30 the first of the day’s harvest arrives at the market, where they’re placed into cold storage before being sold locally or delivered to restaurants or retail markets. There are opportunities for Mikey Fulford, Carson Varnam’s grandson,… Read More →
Local Seafood: Kitchen on the Roll
Where can you get fresh fish prepared by an award-winning chef? Sometimes the location may not be on the coast or a river but instead from a mobile kitchen. In downtown Wilmington, I found Chef Keith Rhodes hustling to serve customers eagerly standing in line at his food truck parked on North Fourth Street in… Read More →