The Sweeter Side of Carolina
Hello out there to all my fellow cookbook collectors. When I thought about sharing my collection with others I was trying to decide on a method of selection. Well, these two wonderful North Carolina books just tumbled off the shelf into my lap.
The first book NORTH CAROLINA AND OLD SALEM COOKERY BY Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks was published in 1955. The brief history of the three regions of the state give some insight into the food choices that emerged.
The description of the typical home and the cooking methods of the time period certainly made me appreciate all my modern conveniences.
The old recipes offer something for even the hard to please dinner guest such as liver pudding and instructions on how to parboil and roast a woodchuck.
I am a passionate baker and found myself still reading the section on Cakes at 2am. The author shared the old procedure for making the 1,2,3,4, cake. The baker creamed the butter and sugar with her hands which could take up to two hours. The pound cake recipe promised to be the richest with 2 pounds of butter and no less than 10 large eggs.
The second book I want to share is SWEET CAROLINA by Foy Allen Edelman and was published in 2009. The author spent six years crisscrossing the state, gathering recipes and interviewing the friends and families that have guarded these southern culinary traditions. Fifty years later some of the cakes are in this book also. They have not lost their appeal and just seem to get better with time. The stories that accompany the recipes tell us how important family traditions are.
These books should be on your list of great beach reads for the summer. You’ll be delighted with the stories and I know you will want to try the recipes.
I’ll be sharing my baking experiences from these books with you during the week
Always remember It’s okay to have two copies of the same cookbook as long as one is a first edition.