Tar Heel Junior Historian

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Food and Foodways

Spring 2007 Produced by the North Carolina Museum of History On the cover: Soldiers from anti-aircraft artillery school get read)' to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at North Carolina's Camp Davis during World War II. Right: Pieces of Russel Wright's American Introduction: Dig in to North Carolina: A Culinary Modem dinnerware used in North Carolina. Made in 1939-1959, the pattern (considered radi¬ North Carolina’s Food 3 Crossroads cal for its time) became a national best seller. History by Amy Rogers Major department stores and ad campaigns featured it. Buyers chose from a rainbow of by Nancie McDermott colors and packaged sets designed for bridge L clubs, barbecues, children, and more. Images Your Food Has 1 courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. 5 Ancestors, Too HTrnnmi State of North Carolina by Kay K. Moss Michael F. Easley, Governor 4^ Menu of North Carolina Food Facts Beverly E. Perdue, Lieutenant Governor When Dinner Wasn’t Discovering What Native Department of Cultural Resources Quick and Easy 9 Lisbeth C. Evans, Secretary 11 North Carolinians Ate Staci T. Meyer, Chief Deputy Secretary by Courtney Hybarger by Dr. Patricia M. Samford Office of Archives and History Jeffrey J. Crow, Deputy Secretary Shortages, Substitutes, and 10 Breakfast with the President Salt: Food during the Civil Division of State History Museums 14 by Shirley Forties Willis North Carolina Museum of History War in North Carolina Kenneth B. Howard, Director by Thomas Vincent Heyward H. McKinney Jr., Chief Operations Officer 17 William J. McCrea, Associate Director History' of Infant Feeding Take Your Pick of by Dr. Ruth M. W. Moskop and Education Section Melissa M. Nasea B. J. Davis, Section Chief 22 North Carolina Apples Michelle L. Carr, Curator of Internal Programs by Sheri Castle Charlotte Sullivan, Curator of 18 Outreach Programs and Media Coordinator by Kay K. Moss

Tar Heel Junior Historian Association Challenging the Chain Suzanne Mewbom, Program Coordinator Stores 20 Paula Creech, Subscription Coordinator 25 by Teriell Finley by Dr. Lisa Tolbert Tar Heel Junior Historian Doris McLean Bates, Editor in Chief Jane S. McKimmon and 27 Lisa Coston Hall, Editor/Designer by EvelynRuth Ragan Nancie McDermott, Conceptual Editor 28 the Greening of North Carolina Tar Heel Junior Historian 31 Association Advisory Board by Louise Benner by Suzanne Mewbom Annette Ayers, Mary Bonnett, Cris Crissman, Elaine Forman, Vince Greene, Lisa Coston Hall, Jim Hartsell, Jackson Marshall, Suzanne Barbecue: Still Smoking 34 Mewbom, Charlotte Sullivan 32 after Three Hundred Years and Civil Rights Do you need to contact the THJH editor? by Debbie Moose by Nancie McDermott Send an e-mail to [email protected].

THE PURPOSE of Tar Heel junior Historian magazine (ISSN 0496-8913) is to present the history of North Carolina to the students of this state through a well- balanced selection of scholarly articles, photographs, and illustrations. It is published two times per year for the Tar Heel Junior Historian Association by the North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-4650. Copies are provided free to association advisers. Members receive other benefits, as well. Indiv idual and library subscriptions may be purchased at the rate of $8.00 per year. © 2007, North Carolina Museum of History. PHOTOGRAPHS: North Carolina Museum of History photography is by Eric N. Blevins and D. Kent Thompson. EDITORIAL POLICY: Tar Heel Junior Historian solicits manuscripts from expert scholars for each issue. Articles are selected for publication by the editor in consultation with the conceptual editor and other experts. The editor reserves the right to make changes in articles accepted for publication but will consult the author should substantive questions arise. Published articles do not necessarily rep¬ resent the views of the North Carolina Museum of History, the Department of Cultural Resources, or any other state agency. The text of this journal is available on magnetic recording tape from the State Library, Services to the Blind and Physically Handicapped Branch. For information, call 1-888-388-2460. NINE THOUSAND copies of this public document were printed at an approximate cost of $5,865.00, or $.65 per copy.

NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF C U LTU RAL PRINTED WITH RESOURCES o SOYINK Introduction 7 to North Carolina's Food History

rowing up in North Carolina a few the docks to fill our coolers with shrimp, oys¬ years ago—okay, make that more ters, flounder, and clams. We loved doing than thirty years ago—I thought business with local fishermen who knew about food a lot. I loved to cook North Carolina's coastal waters well and from the time I was big enough to worked them with skill and care. About help my grandmother make bis- halfway home, we would pull over at a road¬ her Orange County farmhouse side stand to buy cantaloupes and bushels of kitchen. I learned early on that when life's big ripe, fragrant peaches. We ate a few peaches moments came along, food was almost right away, but most of them made the trip always part of the picture. home to be I remember eating fried chicken, deviled transformed into eggs, creamed corn, and coconut cake at our pies, cobblers, family reunions, and hot dogs with chili, slaw, and luscious and onions at the Yum-Yum restaurant when jam for winter¬ we drove from our home in High Point to time biscuit Greensboro for back-to-school shopping. breakfasts. Before I could spell the word kitchen, I knew Nowadays that barbecue came with hush puppies and our drive to that tea was supposed to be iced and sweet. I the beach on knew that favorite sandwiches included Interstate 40 peanut butter and jelly, tomato, baloney, and goes quickly, pimento cheese. and we crank Autumn meant a camping trip to up the air- Doughton State Park or a drive along the Blue conditioning Ridge Parkway to enjoy the against the z™°3> :;:K; changing leaves. Riding heat. But the ^ofA^eZlTuS^ Collection' State NormcZZa home, we always stopped food story is to buy a jug of cider and a much the same. We still love going out for bushel of crisp apples for Calabash shrimp with tartar sauce, and we snacks and pies. still buy glistening, fresh seafood from Tar Summertime meant a vaca¬ Heel boatmen. My friend Fred Thompson— tion on the North Carolina who writes cookbooks and a weekly column coast. Back then, a beach for the News and Observer in Raleigh—consid¬ trip from High Point took ers North Carolina's seafood industry to be This blue metal Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox dates hours in the backseat of a one of its treasures and calls our state's fisher¬ from 1948-1955. Do you hot car with the windows men the last in the long tradition of hunters carry your lunch to school? Image courtesy of the North rolled down to catch the and gatherers. Their equipment and methods Carolina Museum of History. tiniest breeze. The heat did¬ combine old wisdom and tradition with mod¬ n't bother us a bit. We were ern technology and skills. Many follow a path looking forward to eating a picnic on the way learned from their parents and grandpar¬ and to feasting at the Sanitary Fish Market ents—knowledge gained from a lifetime of and Restaurant in Morehead City during our "reading" the waves and harvesting the stay. Before heading home we would stop by bounty from coastal waters.

*Nancie McDermott is a food writer and cooking teacher whose new cookbook is Southern Cakes. Born in Burlington, THJH, Spring 2007 raised in High Point, and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she is a former middle school language arts and social studies teacher. A member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and resident of Chapel Hill, she served as the conceptual editor for this issue ^Tar Heel Junior Historian. Visit zviuw.nanciemcdermott.com. North Carolina's tables engines ready to roll out and help their neigh¬ have gotten bigger and bet¬ bors. On New Year's Day, I can go to Mama ter since I was a fourth- Dip's Kitchen in Chapel Hill to savor Mildred grader eating fish sticks on Council's traditional good luck meal of roast Fridays in the Tomlinson pork, black-eyed peas, and collard greens. She Elementary School cafete¬ cooks this meal in celebration of the ria. Today's Tar Heel Emancipation Proclamation that ended slav¬ kitchens serve up a feast I ery on January 1,1863. Born in Chatham could not have imagined as County, Council has a restaurant, mail-order a child. Thankfully, I still food business, and two best-selling cookbooks find many of the traditional that have made her famous. At Chinese New foods with deep roots in Year in February, I can sample noodles, our first two centuries as a dumplings, and fried rice at a community state. Mixed in is a deli¬ celebration at the State Fairgrounds in cious array of new foods, Raleigh. Friends who are Jewish share honey introduced by people who cake at Rosh Hashanah, the celebration that have come from other calls for eating sweet foods to set the stage for places to make North Carolina their home. a sweet year to come. In October I can eat Back in elementary school, I didn't know bread baked in celebration of Dia de los much about pizza, lasagna, submarine sand¬ Muertos at my local Mexican bakery. At the wiches, or smoothies. I loved spaghetti and end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of macaroni but hadn't heard of their Italian fasting and prayer, I can join my neighbors cousins: fettucine, linguine, or the fresh basil from Pakistan at a joyous feast of Eid al Fitr. sauce called pesto. I had to grow up and This issue of Tar travel far from home to taste tortillas, crois¬ Heel Junior sants, injera, and pita bread for the first time. Historian invites Now I can buy all these breads and more in you to enjoy a the Piedmont, freshly made by people who taste of North moved to the Tar Heel State from Mexico, Carolina's his¬ France, Ethiopia, and Lebanon. tory by looking The state's food story grows more interest¬ closely at an ing every year. I can still drive to Prospect important part Hill in autumn for tasty Brunswick stew, of your every¬ cooked slowly and patiently by members of day life: food! the volunteer fire department. Their faithful Historians cooking raises money to keep their big red examine how people have lived, worked, played, celebrat¬ ed, fought, and survived troubled times. Studying food and foodways can help them understand these stories and bring them to life. When you think about food, you probably focus on things that you like to eat and how to get them, whether that means a family trip to your favorite pizza place or baking choco¬ late chip cookies at home. When historians think about what people ate in the past and how they got it, cooked it, and shared it, they

Cookbooks (like these four published between 1958 and 1962) have long been impor¬ are studying foodways. Examining North tant in North Carolina kitchens. Early ones include many healing "recipes" related to Carolina's foodways opens a window onto food. Others include tips for housekeeping and entertaining. By the late 1800s, com¬ panies began printing cookbooks as advertising, with recipes that used their mass- life in both the recent and distant past. produced food products instead of what people grew for themselves. Groups some¬ Consider food history as a quilt, with differ¬ times use cookbooks as fund-raisers, and many North Carolinians have written popu¬ lar best-selling ones. Take a look at some cookbooks to see how they reflect changing ent pieces of cloth sewn together to make one foodways! Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. big, useful, and beautiful coverlet. Focus in on 2 TH/H, Spring 2007 corn first, knowing that the stalks would grow tall. They then planted beans around the cornstalks, to give the bean plants natural poles to climb. Finally, they planted squash North Carolina resi¬ around the corn and beans, so the big dents buying meat leaves would shade the base of the plants with World War II food ration stamps and discourage weeds. The American might receive this Indians were tending these "three sisters" pasteboard ration token, just over a half-inch in for years before immigrants from Europe diameter, as change. Image courtesy of the stepped off their ships onto the state's North Carolina Museum sandy coastland. While your garden of History.

North Carolina State University football fans tailgate in September 1979 grows, you could look up what different before a game at what is now Carter-Finley Stadium. Events such as Native tribes hunted and grew, or how they pregame meals, festivals, and community fund-raisers like fish fries bring people together over food. Image courtesy of the News and Observer survived harsh winters. Collection, State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History. You also could focus on newer North Carolina food and cooking, exploring the each piece to understand a part of the story. kitchen traditions among immigrant commu¬ Agriculture is one big piece, showing us what nities just settling here. Look closely at what people planted and harvested. Technology is we grow, cook, and eat. Discover how food another piece, focusing on the tools that our helps define who we are. Make a list of the ancestors used in farming, cooking, and pre¬ many annual festivals held across the state serving food to last them through a long, cold that celebrate different foods, ranging from winter. Another piece is economics—the busi¬ collards to strawberries to ramps. ness of food that people sell to make money Here's hoping you find lots of food for or use their money to buy from someone else. thought in this Tar Heel Junior Historian and In this issue we will learn about the crisp, something that whets your appetite to know juicy apples that long have grown in orchards more. Open your mind to the ways that food throughout the state. We'll taste the smoky, matters in your life. Start "cooking up" your delicious world of North Carolina barbecue. own Tar Heel food history. Consider how the These stories show us how a single food can food stories in your world can help you matter to those who prepare it—and how it understand who you are, where you're from, can provide pleasure for all of us who eat the and what matters to you, your family, and "fruits" of this labor. We'll also look at food in your neighbors when you gather at the table. times of conflict or war, when the story of what people ate and how involves hardship and challenges. We'll revisit difficulties and frustrations created by the unjust system of racial segregation that used to be a way of life in our state. The hours that our ancestors spent cooking on their open hearths in the 1700s and 1800s will be something to remem¬ ber the next time you or someone in your family turn a knob to heat up a stove. And an examination of how North Carolina's people kept food on the table year-round before near¬ by grocery stores sold food from around the world offers something to consider as you drop your favorite cereal into a shopping cart. We invite you to be a detective, examining the history of our state to learn who ate what, where, when, and how. You could start by African American tenant farmers and neighbors eat dinner on corn- planting a summer garden this year of corn, shucking day in autumn 1939 at a Granville County farm. The white farmers sharing in the day's work had eaten together first. Image from the beans, and squash. Native people planted Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection.

THJH, Spring 2007 3 of North Carolina Food Facts What's the Status? eleven states under several names. It other chains. Do you has some seventy-three thousand know the stories Did you know that some things you eat employees and claims to serve more behind other North hold special status here? In 2001 the than ten million customers a week. Carolina-born restau¬ General Assembly named the straw¬ rants, such as Golden Abner B. Harrington Jr., berry the official Red Berry of North Corral or Krispy of Sanford, used this Carolina and the blueberry the official backpack when making Kreme? Blue Berry of North Carolina, due to appearances as On an early episode of television's The Hardee's mascot their importance to the agricultural Andy Griffith Show, Andy and Barney Gilbert Giddyup in the economy. Other foods have been hon¬ talk about eating at a real Mount Airy Hot Prospects early 1970s. image cour¬ ored. Chase those berries down with In 1929 Winston- tesy of the North Carolina diner: The Snappy Lunch. Opened in Museum of History. milk—official State Beverage since 1987. 1923 at its current site. The Snappy Salem teen Thad W. North Carolina is the nation's largest Lunch has become famous over the Gamer spent half of the six hundred producer of the sweet potato, which years for its messy pork chop sandwich, dollars that he had saved for college to is—you guessed it—the State Vegetable as well as other menu standards like buy a local barbecue stand—and its (1995) and a food grown here before bologna sandwiches and hot dogs. The unique sauce recipe. The Garner family European colonization. The State Fruit restaurant has been featured many began making and selling the sauce to is the scuppemong grape (2001). times in newspaper and magazine arti¬ restaurants and grocery stores. Soon, cles, television news shows, and so customer demand led them to create a forth. Can you think of any long-run¬ spicier recipe using peppers, vinegar, ning restaurants located in your part of and salt. The Garners named the prod¬ Where in North Carolina can you watch North Carolina? uct Texas Pete, thinking that "Texas" the New Year's Eve Pickle Drop at the sounded spicy yet American, and using comer of Cucumber and Vine? In the nickname of one of Thad's brothers. Mount Olive, home of the Mount Olive Ewwww,Ynck They later created an entire product Pickle Company Inc., which dates to Livermush. What do you think when line. What other North Carolina-born 1926. The company started as a place you read that word? You should think food products can you name? where cucumbers were brined of one of the foods most associated with for sale to other pickling North Carolina. Livermush is made of firms. Soon it was pork liver and other pork meat cooked Taste Born in the Carolinas packing and selling its until it has fallen apart and been Caleb Bradham had no idea what his own products. It's now ground down, mixed with commeal Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola for the largest independent pickle company and seasonings, chilled, and sliced. It the pepsin and cola nuts in the syrup in the United States, packing more than can be eaten as a fried breakfast meat or recipe, would become. The New Bern ninety million jars of pickles, relishes, cold in a sandwich. Some places have a pharmacist created the and peppers every year, using more slightly different version called liver drink for his pharmacy's than 130 million pounds of cucumbers pudding. Livermush is probably soda fountain in 1898, and and pickles from at least ten states. descended from similar foods eaten by by 1909, there were more German settlers who traveled south than 250 Pepsi bottlers in Hear the Roar along the Great Wagon Road. twenty-four states. Bradham would lose the Tom Smith founded what are now Food company in the wake of Lion grocery stores in Salisbury in 1957. Serving Millions World War I after bad The company began as Food Town. Wilber Hardee opened his first restau¬ investments in sugar and a Now a subsidiary of Belgium-based rant in Rocky Mount in 1960. Hardee's bottling method. Pepsi has Delhaize Group, quickly became a franchise chain, with undergone many business Food Lion is more than two hundred restaurants by incarnations. PepsiCo Inc., This soda form- one of the 1969. It was known for "charco-broiled" one of the world's largest tain glass was biggest hamburgers, biscuits, fast service, drive- food and beverage compa¬ used in Mount supermarket Holly during through windows, and character-driven nies, now makes a line of the 1920s. Image chains in the promotions. California-based CKE carbonated Pepsi products courtesy of the United States. It North Carolina Restaurants Inc. now owns Hardee's and owns fifteen brands operates more Museum of Food Systems and more than nineteen such as Frito-Lay, Quaker History. than thirteen hundred Hardee's restaurants across Foods, Gatorade, and thousand stores in the Southeast and Midwest, as well as Tropicana—generating billions of dollars in annual sales.

4 TH]H, Spring 2007 Has Ancestors, Too >ave you ever thought about your America enjoyed their chocolate unsweet¬ [dinner? I mean really thought ened, instead of the sweet chocolate we love. a about where all of the food on Sugarcane took hundreds of years to travel your plate comes from? Just like halfway around the globe before finally get¬ you have grandparents and ting to the New World. great-grandparents, every food has ancestors. Ancestors on Your Plate m Suppose you sit down to a delicious dinner of Ancient History turkey, corn, broccoli, and carrots, with Way back before 1492, before the Old World banana pudding for dessert. What a global met the New World, your human ancestors' dinner plate! Let's trace the genealogies, or dinners would have been different from where the foods came from. a yours. Do you know what happened in 1492 Turkey and corn are native American foods that changed dinner? No matter where in the that the original North Carolinians ate, but world people lived then, they started to expe¬ seeds for the first broccoli and carrots in rience new foods after explorer Christopher North Carolina came here with European set¬ Columbus sailed back to Europe from the tlers. Spanish or Portuguese explorers to New World. Central and South America brought bananas' Before seeds and plants were exchanged ancestors from Africa. Today we eat the between the New World and the Old, there descendants of those bananas. Read the stick¬ were no tomatoes in Italy; no potatoes in ers on your bananas to find out where they Europe; no corn or peanuts in Africa or Asia; were grown. a no chili peppers in India or Thailand; no peaches, carrots, or broccoli in what we call Corn, the “Most Useful Grain” North Carolina; and no rice, bananas, or cane John Lawson—an Englishman who sugar anywhere in the Americas. Imagine explored the interior of the Carolinas in that! For hundreds and hundreds of years, 1701—wrote that "the Indian Corn, or travelers, explorers, and adventurers collected Maiz, proves the most useful Grain in seeds and plants from faraway places. Folks the World; and had it not been for the moving to a new country packed seeds, Fruitfullness of this Species, it would plants, and even farm animals. Transportation have proved very difficult to have set¬ was slow—by foot, boat, or animal power. tled some of the Plantations in Slowly, over many years, food plants and ani¬ America." In most parts of the world, mals spread around the world as people the most ancient and basic dish is a explored and settled new lands. hot cereal made of whatever grain grows best in that place. So, the eating^of corn Prehistoric Snack at the Movies most historic North Carolina food lesy °f the North ca8e,C0Ur~ MuSeu™ofHlsto^mlma When you go to the movies, you may eat pre¬ may be grits, or mush, made of historic American foods: popcorn, peanuts, or ground-up, dried corn. Mush has chocolate. People grew or ate these other names—such as porridge, hasty foods somewhere in the Americas pudding, or loblolly—in other places. before 1492. Peanuts began in Even before the first Europeans and South America, were taken to Africans arrived in present-day North Africa by early European explor¬ Carolina, American Indians were grind¬ ers, and traveled from Africa to ing and cooking dried corn. The new¬ North America many years later. comers soon learned to eat this cornmeal Prehistoric people in tropical mush. During the decades of European

*Kay K. Moss is adjunct curator for eighteenth-century lifeways studies at the Schiele Museum of Natural THJH, Spring 2007 History in Gastonia. She has authored Southern Folk Medicine: 1750-1820, Journey to the Piedmont Past, and Decorative Motifs from the Southern Backcountry, and coauthored The Backcountry Housewife: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Foods. She also wrote the activities for this issue. 11 settlement, mush Carolinas, but they were expensive. The syrup was the usual we now know as molasses is made from gql breakfast and sorghum cane, not sugarcane. Sorghum was supper dish. People grown in America starting in the mid-1800s. often served it with In early America, sweeteners of all sorts butter, milk, or proved scarce. It is hard for us to imagine meat drippings cookies, almonds, or raisins being a rare treat. WCm (grease from cook¬ That was indeed the case on the North ing meat). Mush Carolina frontier. According to the Records of

This cast-iron pan, ca. 1900, was used to cook with drippings W3S the Moravians in North Carolina, on Christmas comsticks. Com long has had many uses in j_l, „ anrPrfnr nf 1760 in the Moravian settlement at Bethania, the traditional North Carolina diet. Image cour¬ tesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. today's grits with "At the close of the service each [child] "red-eye gravy" received a pretty Christmas verse and a gin¬ (country ham drippings) or sausage gravy. ger cake, the first they had ever seen." In Here is a simple recipe for mush: Boil 1 cup 1761—along with goods for the community's of cornmeal and a little salt in 4 cups of water. store—a merchant from Charleston, South Stir often until thickened (about half an hour). Carolina, sent the North Carolina Moravian Since ancient times, cornmeal also has been children "a small keg of almonds and raisins. made into a simple bread with many names: hoecake, johnnycake, journey cake, ash cake, Carious Travels of the Potato griddle cake, or pone. North Carolinians still The "Irish potato" is not Irish at all! Over two like their corn bread! centuries, the potato traveled from South America to Europe and finally to the Sweets and Treats American colonies Sugarcane may have the most amazing including North genealogy of all. It was first domesticated Carolina. Potatoes about 8000 BC in New Guinea. People then originally grew introduced this wonderful plant to Asia, only in South before sharing it from place to place across America, where Asia to the Middle East and on across Africa. Spanish and Sugarcane finally reached Spain about AD Portuguese explorers discovered them in the 900. From there it went to the Caribbean on 1500s. Learning that potatoes could be kept Columbus's second voyage in 1493. What a for a while without spoiling and were good journey! On a map of the world, trace the foods for long voyages, the explorers carried spread of sugarcane across the warm regions them home. Potatoes then were grown for of the Eastern and Western hemispheres. sailors and fishermen, who introduced the American Indians made syrup and sugar handy root vegetable to the lands their ships from the sap of maple and other trees. visited during the 1600s. Since potatoes grew Colonists imitated their methods. well in Europe and produced more calories They also brought the European hon¬ per acre than other crops, they became a eybee to America in the 1630s. favorite, especially in Ireland. By the 1700s, The common sweeteners European settlers had brought potatoes to available in early colonial North America. North Carolina were honey, maple sugar, and Get the Fat Oat In? maple syrup. Neither was Today everyone talks about "good" and plentiful, and cane sugar from "bad" fat. We are cautioned to get the fat out S islands in the Caribbean cost a of our diets—to eat fewer fatty foods and lot. By 1650, tropical America pro¬ avoid serious health problems such as heart duced much of the world's sugar. At that disease, cancer, and diabetes. It is hard not to point, both cane sugar and molasses (sugar eat too much fat, with french fries, dough¬ cane syrup) could be gotten easily in the nuts, pastries, and more tempting us. We need ^

TH/H, Spring 2007 fat to be healthy—-just the "good" kinds, and opossums, caged them, and fed them things not too much. Before the 1900s, most people, like corn and sweet potatoes to try and including those in North Carolina, hungered improve their flavor before cooking them. for more fat. Their diets often were low in this Some people preferred opossum meat instead nutrient needed to furnish fuel for activity of turkey for Thanksgiving dinner! and to keep them warm, a problem that continues in much of the world. Holiday Meat Pie? Does turkey with dressing make you think of "Bears are rather large, more than 300 lbs. in Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner? If you weight. Bear meat is considered very whole¬ lived on North Carolina's frontier in the some, and Bear fat, with salad, is as good as 1700s, you might Olive Oil." have eaten roasted Records of the Moravians turkey, chicken, or in North Carolina, 2:577 goose often. The really special dish American Indians, Europeans, and Africans in for harvest feasts, early North Carolina hunted bears and barn raisings, and enjoyed their fat. People also ate opossum, other celebrations beaver, and groundhog for their fat meat. was a meat pie. A Plump, delicious passenger pigeons were meat pie required Pastry crimpers like this one (ca. 1875-1925) were used to seal together pie crusts and give them a fluted edge. hunted in such large numbers that they more ingredients Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. became extinct. After explorers and settlers and was harder to brought hogs to North Carolina, bacon, ham, cook than a roasted bird. Although often and lard became common sources of fat. called a "sea pie," it did not contain seafood, but meat preserved with salt, which kept well Ketchup even on a sea voyage. A typical meat pie If you could time-travel to the Revolutionary might have included ham, along with chicken War period, you would be very surprised at and onions, potatoes, or apples. the ketchup that might flavor your food. The Have you eaten chicken pie? Modern first ketchups were made of mushrooms or chicken pies are the descendants of those walnuts. They were more like today's early sea pies. A homemade meat pie is still a Worcestershire sauce and other spicy brown delicious treat. Perhaps you might like to add steak sauces. You would not have tasted one to Thanksgiving dinner to remember tomato ketchup until the 1800s. Handwritten your ancestors' feasts. recipes (ca. 1816-1834) left by the Cameron family of central North Carolina included the Spring Tonic newly fashionable tomato ketchup, as well as At the end of winter in colonial times, many the traditional mushroom and walnut versions. people were unhealthy after months of eating dried foods such as corn and beans, and salt- The Thanksgiving ’Possum cured foods like ham, bacon, and pickles. Opossum meat may not show up on your Those first springtime greens acted like a dinner plate, but it has shown up miracle medicine. Folks of every cultural on many others! group harvested early chickweed and Lawson, the 1701 traveler, wild mustard greens, then lamb's- wrote: "At Night we kill'd a quarter and pokeweed, to go Possum, being cloy'd [or "full with greens grown in their gar up" from eating] with Turkeys, dens. Eggs also were plentiful made a Dish of that, which tasted O’- in spring. A dish of greens and much between young Pork and eggs cooked together was a Veal; their Fat being as white as favorite tonic for restoring any I ever saw." Even in the strength and health. 1900s, people commonly caught

THJH, Spring 2007 7 In Season preserved meats like ham, Before your grandparents' day, bacon, and sausage more often. fresh produce was available Small meat animals such as only "in season." chickens might have been eaten Families ate fruits and veg¬ in any season. etables grown in backyard gar¬ Eggs and milk had seasonal dens and on nearby farms. availability as well. Eggs were a They enjoyed salad greens in welcomed part of spring, but spring and early summer. they became scarcer as the sum¬ They got fresh strawberries mer passed and chickens only in May. Folks looked for¬ stopped laying during shorter A crock is a large container often used in the ward to tomatoes, green past to store foodstuffs such as lard, salted daylight hours. Since a cow beans, and com-on-the-cob in meat, milk, or pickled vegetables like beans, gives milk only after she has a cucumbers, and com. Some crocks might have summer. Root vegetables and been weighted down and placed in streams, calf, your great-grandparents pumpkins starred on autumn wells, or later iceboxes to keep things cool. may not have had milk to drink Others stayed in a pantry, kitchen, or cellar. tables. To get through winter, This stoneware crock was made around 1860 year-round. in Chatham County. Image courtesy of the North Today we find almost every¬ people relied on fruits and Carolina Museum of History. vegetables they had dried or thing in our grocery stores all "canned." Tropical fruits like bananas and year, with products from across the country oranges did not grow in North Carolina. They and even around the world. However, many came by ship from the Caribbean to people still like to shop "in season" at farmers Wilmington or other ports, and therefore, markets and produce stands for the freshest, these fruits were expensive and available at most luscious fruits and vegetables. Such limited times. favorites as locally grown tomatoes and Large meat animals such as cattle and hogs peaches are much better than those shipped were usually butchered in colder weather, so from distant farms. Perhaps your family fresh meat was most available during the fall grows vegetables or fruits. If so, you have and winter. The rest of the year, people ate experienced the freshest possible foods! |

ACTIVITY: “Tfefcir Usual and Best Food” by Kay K. Moss they had salad every day for dinner, and meat we use pumpkin or beans." nearly every evening also. When the salad In January 1755 “For lack of vegetables orth Carolina's first Moravian came to an end they had cucumbers for we are now eating meat each day for din¬ settlers kept great journals. three weeks, with three or four meals of ner, which agrees with us well, and makes During their early years in sugar peas, beans several times, occasion¬ us feel strong for work." Bethabara, near present-day Winston- ally cabbage, and squashes twice. Their A few years later the settlers had Salem, they wrote of bounty and of usual and best food is milk and mush and only half enough meat during January scarcity of food in different seasons. whatever can be made from cornmeal.” 1758. They planned a menu to make Until September 25, “mush for break¬ Try drawing a seasonal food calendar the best of their scarce food: (Tuesday) fast and supper, and at noon either green based on the journal notes below. List "meat and carrots," (Wednesday) beans ... or pumpkins . . . out of grease foods that these Moravians of 250 years "sausage and dried pumpkins," for our mush" [During September they killed ago had to eat in each month. In which (Thursday) "dumplings," (Friday) cattle, hogs, and bears.] “After we began months was food scarce? In which "pigs' feet and heads, and turnips," butchering we usually had meat for dinner months did people have a variety of (Saturday and Sunday) "beans and every other day. . . . With the meat we had foods? Which dinner would you have butter," (Monday) "meat and dried potatoes or white turnips, which are very liked to share? pumpkins," (Tuesday) "dumplings and good, or else sequata [a kind of squash]. In I radish," (Wednesday) "meat and Researching primary historical October we could have milk only once a turnips," (Thursday) "dumplings and sources can be frustrating when you day; the first part of November only every radish," (Friday) "meat and carrots," are left with questions, as in this case. other day and now [December] we can have (Saturday) "meat and sauerkraut," Which months can you not learn about it only every third day. Therefore in the (Sunday) "beans and butter." from these journal entries? morning we have mush with milk or drippings; From Records of the Moravians in North In 1754- neir garden has given them at supper mush with drippings, or pumpkins, I Carolina 1:104-, 110-111, 123, 104. good service; from May 6th to July 5th or squashes; and at noon when we have no O THJH, Spring 2007 discove NO HAT NATIVE aroiin A by Dr. Patricia M. Samford*

^ hat did you eat for din- farmers living in small villages. In ; I flu ner last night? That's addition to growing corn, squash, and pretty easy to remem- beans, they hunted, fished, and gath¬ VI M her, right? What about ered wild plants. Animal bones found your dinner a year in cooking pits and trash ago? Stumped you on dumps show they ate that one, I bet! Now think about trying deer, bear, raccoon, to learn what Native peoples in North opossum, rabbit, Carolina ate thousands of years ago. turkey, and turtle. Archaeologists face this challenge when Fish and shellfish- they study the past. such as clams and oysters—formed an Digging to unearth information important part of these American about how people lived in the past is Indians' diets. Archaeologists made one called archaeology. Archaeologists are unusual find in Onslow County in the specialists who do this work. They 1995. While studying the burial site of a dig in places where people have lived woman who lived around six hundred and worked. On these sites, archaeolo¬ years ago, they discovered walnut¬ gists find physical evidence of homes, sized clumps of fish bone. The mullet gardens, cooking pits, and items left and pinfish bones were found where behind by earlier people. her stomach had once been. They were Archaeologists learn about the diet remains from her last meal! of the American Indians who lived first Traces of plants found in cooking in North Carolina in several ways. pits include burned corncobs and ker¬ When Native peoples prepared food nels, acorn shells, and hickory nuts. and ate meals, they threw away animal Archaeologists also find seeds and bones, marine shells, and other inedible pollen from wild plants like maypop food remains like eggshells and crab and garden plants, including pumpkins claws. These items can survive in the and beans. To learn about some ground for thousands of years. Other Other finds can include objects used traditional foods that food evidence includes seeds, corncobs, to get or prepare food. Native peoples American Indians in and microscopic traces of plants such used stones to weigh down fishnets the western part of as pollen. Archaeologists find many of made from woven plant fibers. They the state have these types of food remains. By carved fishhooks from bone and made eaten, including studying them, they draw conclu¬ garden hoes from stone. They ground recipes for corn sions about what the first North /corn and other plants into flour with pones, wild onions (ramps) and eggs, Carolinians ate. milling stones. fried hominy, leather American Indians left behind many As an example, let's look breeches, bean at American Indians kinds of evidence of their eating habits. bread, and grape who lived five to six Using these traces, archaeologists gain dumplings, access hundred years ago a better understanding of North the Web site of the in the eastern part Carolina's Native peoples' meals and Eastern Band of of the state. These tribes included the how they got them. Cherokee Indians at Tuscarora, Meherrin, Waccamaw, www.cherokee- Coree, and Nottoway. They were nc.com/recipes_main.

*Dr. Patricia M. Samford serves as the site manager at Historic Bath State Historic Site. THJH, Spring 2007 She is the coauthor of Intrigue of the Past: North Carolina's First Peoples. 9 by Shirley Fornes Willis*

hat would you do if someone came to the door of your house and told your parents that the president of the United States was outside, wanting to eat breakfast with your family? That is exactly what happened to Mary Allen. On the morning of April 20, 1791, while travel¬ ing from Greenville to New Bern during a tour of the South, President George Washington stopped his white coach at the Cat Tail Plantation. The plantation (near Pitch Kettle in Craven County, about twenty miles from New Bern) was the home Edward Savage painted this portrait of George Washington and his family. It of Colonel and Mrs. John Allen and their family. hangs in the John Wright Stanly House, part of the Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens in New Bern. Washington visited the New Bern area in April 1791 as We are not sure about daughter Mary's age, but we part of his 1,887-mile southern tour. The house was furnished but vacant at the know she was younger than twelve. time of Washington's visit; Stanly and his wife, Ann, had died during a yellow fever epidemic in 1789. Their six children were living nearby with relatives. John Wrongly believing the Allen home to be a public Stanly Jr. later lived in the house with his own family. Image courtesy of Tryon house—a place where a traveler could spend the Palace Historic Sites and Cardens. night and get a meal—the president sent word that he would like a little breakfast. Mrs. Allen, helped Washington recorded in his diary: "[We] went to a by servants and neighbors, rushed to prepare a Colonel Allen's, supposing it to be a public house; meal for her distinguished guest and his company. where we were very kindly & well entertained What would you serve the president—Pop- without knowing it was at his expence, until it was Tarts, toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal, coffee, too late to rectify the mistake." orange juice, milk, or some modern breakfast While visiting New Bern, the president spent drink? What is your typical breakfast? two nights in the private home of the John Wright A typical breakfast in eastern North Carolina in Stanly family. Townspeople entertained him at 1791 could have included ham, sausage, salt fish, many events in his honor. Washington wrote: salt pork, cold roast venison, fried potatoes, eggs "Thursday 21ft of [April] Dined with the citizens (fried, scrambled, poached, and hard-boiled), jams, at a public dinner given by them; and went to a jellies, fresh bread, and butter. Beverages may have dancing Assembly in the evening; both of which included hot tea, cider, coffee, and hot chocolate was at what they call the Palace, formally the gov¬ with cream and sugar. Not all families would have ernment house and a good brick building and now had this many different dishes. Most would have hastening to ruins." The president did not write had three or four—still a hearty breakfast to pre¬ down what was served at the public dinner. The pare for the active day ahead. At that time, people brick building to which he referred is the original cooked on an open hearth, over a fire or through Governor's Palace. Today at Tryon Palace Historic the use of hot coals. Sites and Gardens, you can visit the John Wright A little over an hour after the arrival of the pres¬ Stanly House. In the palace kitchen you can see ident—who may have been touring the property food cooked on the open hearth, just as it was in or resting in his carriage—Mrs. Allen rang the bell Washington's day. announcing that breakfast was ready. The presi¬ Years later, when friends teased Mrs. Allen dent was escorted to the family's dining room, about the president's plain breakfast with her, she where a variety of foods filled the table. After all of reportedly said, "There was glory enough in hav¬ Mrs. Allen's hard work, the president asked for ing General Washington as my guest." just one hard-boiled egg and some coffee!

TH/H, Spring 2007 *Shirley Fornes Willis serves as the domestic skills programs manager at Tryon Palace 10 Historic Sites and Cardens in Near Bern. Access Weh site umrw.tryonpaiace.org to learn more about this state historic site. When Dinner Wasn t Quick and Easi) by Courtney Hybarger*

hat are some of your favorite meals? When was the last time you had a home-cooked dinner? Today's rapidly increasing demands and hec¬ tic schedules make it chal¬ lenging for a family to dine together. Many dinners include fast food or carryout delivery from places like KFC or McDonald's. When families do have time to prepare a meal, it is rarely "from scratch." Technology that we often take for granted—such as microwaves and refrigerators—has greatly affected what we eat and how we eat it. Modern meals are planned around the fam¬ ily's schedule, but this was not the case two hundred years ago. In fact, two hundred years ago, the family planned its schedule Hanging near the typical fireplace in North Carolina homes of the late 1700s and early around meals! 1800s were tools for cooking over the fire. These included trammels (a kind of two-sec¬ tion pothook), heavy kettles and pots, skewers, spits, and trivets. Herbs, peppers, and During the early 1800s, cooking dominated dried foods often hung nearby as well. At the Polk historic site, volunteers from the the time and energy of the average housewife. Cooking Guild of the Catawba Valley re-create period cooking. Image courtesy of President James K. Polk State Historic Site. There were no big grocery stores where fami¬ lies could go to purchase food, and eating out this time, more salt was constantly added. was truly a rare treat, usually possible only When the meat was no longer damp, it was when traveling. Most fruits and vegetables washed, then shelved or bagged and left to were grown on the farmstead, and families age. Families would hang meat preserved processed meats such as poultry, beef, and through a smoke cure in rooms or buildings pork. People had seasonal diets. In the spring with fire pits. For a month, the meat was con¬ and summer months, they ate many more stantly exposed to smoke, which dried it out fruits and vegetables than they did in the fall while adding flavor. Using different kinds of and winter. During those colder seasons, fam¬ wood for the fire, such as hickory or oak, ilies found ways to preserve their food. could produce different tastes. The three main ways of curing (the A typical day on the farm began very process of preserving food) during early. Women rose and built the fire this time included drying, smok¬ based on the meals planned for ing, and salting. Each method that day. Families who could drew moisture out of foods to afford to have detached prevent spoiling. Fruits and veg¬ kitchens—kitchens in buildings etables could be dried by being separate from the house—did so placed out in the sun or near a for several reasons. The kitchen heat source. Meat products could often was hot, smoky, and smelly. be preserved through salting or Most North Carolina families did not smoking. A salt cure involved rubbing have the resources for a separate salt into the meat, which was kitchen, though, and the Families in the late 1700s and early 1800s sur¬ then completely covered in salt rounded Dutch ovens like this one with hot hearth provided the center of and placed in a cool area for at coals. They might use this tool to bake bread, home life and family activity. cakes, and pies. Image courtesy of President James least twenty-eight days. During K. Polk State Historic Site. With no ovens or electricity.

*Courtney Hybarger is a historic site interpreter at President James K. Polk State Historic THJH, Spring 2007 Site in Pmeville. Learn more about the site by accessing www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/ 11 sections/hs/polk/polk.htm. women prepared meals on the hearths of brick fireplaces. They used dif¬ ferent types of fires and flames to prepare differ¬ ent types of food. For example, a controllable fire was used to roast and P. toast, while boiling and stewing required a smaller flame. To use all of the fire's energy, families shoveled coals and ash underneath

and onto the lids of State historic site volunteers from groups such as the Cooking Guild of Dutch ovens. Standing on the Catawba Valley, dressed in period costume, often re-create food preparation techniques of years gone by. Women two hundred years ago three legs and available spent many hours getting food on the table. Much of the work was physically demanding. Image courtesy of President James K. Polk State in a wide array of sizes, Historic Site. the cast-iron Dutch oven was one of the most and boys spent most of their time outdoors. important tools found on Chores included working crops in the fields, the hearth. It was used to feeding larger livestock, and hunting. Diets prepare several types of included wild game, such as deer and food and allowed cook¬ turkeys. Women and girls worked mainly in ing from both the top and the kitchen and fed smaller livestock. the bottom. Dutch ovens When it came time to butcher animals, fam¬ evolved into woodstoves, ilies joined with their neighbors to share the common in homes of the workload and the meat. Pork was the staple later 1800s and early meat in the Southeast until the 1940s. Hogs 1900s before most people proved more manageable than their much got electricity at home. larger counterparts, cows. The taste of pork Preparing meals was also improved with curing. Neighbors often (Above) A pine and oak butter chum made not just a matter of start¬ gathered in the fall, using the time to get their in the 1850s. (Beloiv) A wooden butter mold used around 1900. Children often helped in ing a fire for cooking. work done but also to catch up, sharing news the lengthy process of churning, pressing, Spices, such as nutmeg and gossip. What began as a chore turned molding, and applying printed designs to butter. Images courtesy of the North Carolina and cinnamon, and sea¬ into a social event. This was also the case at Museum of History. sonings, like salt and harvesttime. Neighbors pitched in to bring in pepper, had to be ground crops such as corn and wheat. After the work up with mortars and pes¬ was done, everyone might celebrate with tles. Milk had to be feasts, bonfires, and dancing. brought in from the fami¬ Clearly, meal preparation two hundred ly dairy cow and cream years ago involved several more steps than it and butter made from it. does now. Much like today, families usually After someone brought in ate three daily meals. The main meal in the the milk, it usually sat 1800s, however, was not the large evening out for about an hour. meal that is familiar to us today. Rather, it was The cream rose to the top, separating from the a meal called dinner, enjoyed in the early milk. Women placed this cream into a butter afternoon. Supper was a smaller meal eaten in churn and beat it until it hardened, first into the evening. whipped cream and eventually into butter! A big difference between the way people Every family member contributed to the eat today compared with long ago is the work production and preparation of meals. Men and time needed. For modern families, food

12 THJH, Spring 2007 and meals are merely an afterthought in the schedule. Two hundred years ago, food and j|yj food preparation stood at the center of the fami¬ ly's daily lifestyle. Without the advances in tech¬ nology that help us store, preserve, and prepare ACTMIYt wi*~fc§Si food, men and women would spend much of their time getting meals ready to eat. Instead of Cale HeaHy a Ca&e? calling pizza delivery, imagine spending all day in front of a fire! AW- . ..A ■ ™ J .~

by Kay K. Moss Compare ani! Contrast!

^ £ hen is a pound cake really a pound cake? BfMW When it contains a pound of butter, a pound of W sugar, a pound of flour, and a dozen eggs. In other words, a traditional pound cake requires four

sticks of butter, 1avo cups of sugar, four cups of flour, and twelve small or medium eggs (or nine large eggs). Try mixing a pound cake the old way, as directed in Hannah ©lasses ca. 1700s cookbook: “Beat all together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden spoon." (You may want to invite some friends to take turns with all that beating!) Let the Ingredients warm to room temperature. First, beat together the softened butter and the sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and continue beating. Some cookbooks suggest that when you think the batter Is beaten enough, you should beat It some more! Gradually add flour and mix well. Put into a buttered and floured tube cake pan or two loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour or until done. A family used this metal broiler (top) to toast or broil food over an open flame in the late 1800s. Different kinds of fires could be built for different kinds of cook¬ ing. Think about how long it took to build a fire, tend it, and gather and prepare the food to be cooked. What mm buffer kinds of foods do you think might have been prepared using such a broiler? Have you ever cooked over an open flame?

Compare and contrast that cooking method with this Sears Kenmore brand microwave oven (bottom) used in Raleigh in the 1980s. How might the time required to prepare a meal and the food involved be different? Can you think of any possible similarities? How do the meth¬ ods compare to ways that your family prepares meals?

Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History.

m TaU^ - Gra consuming chore in mosTwor* CMoh^tomes fltei" WM “ ™Portant ”y cf'-"***■ p'«‘ -

THJH, Spring 2007 13 Shortages and Salt: Food by Thomas Vincent*

olonel Frank Parker was hungry. they left behind had to do the farmwork. That Parker, the leader of the Thirtieth meant less food to eat. People did without Regiment North Carolina Troops some things we consider common, or they during the Civil War, wrote to his found substitutes. An April 1863 article in a wife in Weldon in January 1862 that Greensboro newspaper, for example, "I shall await the arrival of your explained that okra seeds could replace coffee potatoes, sausage & c. with patience and shall beans, if "carefully parched and the coffee welcome them with open mouths and good made in the usual way, when we found it appetites." Soldiers who fought in the war almost exactly like coffee in color, very pleas¬ often did not get enough food. When they did antly tasted and entirely agreeable." Mary receive food, it often was not very good. They Grierson, of Cabarrus County, in her memoir sometimes ate the same thing day after day. How We Lived during the Confederate War, listed The soldiers looked forward to packages from wheat, rye, and sweet potatoes as substitutes home, but often their families did not have for coffee. She also wrote that molasses cane enough to eat themselves. "was crushed with wooden rollers by horse North Carolinians suffered many hardships power and the juice boiled in wash pots . . . during the Civil War. About 125,000 men from [and] . . . was used instead of sugar—we the state served in the Confederate army, and called it Tong sweetening.'" others served in the Union army. The war In the early days of the Civil War, people lasted from 1861 to 1865, and soldiers were sent food and clothing to their family mem¬ away from home for months and sometimes bers in the army. As the war went on, and the years. Since many of the men who joined the men were away for longer periods, there was army were farmers, the wives and children less to send. The Union navy blockaded Southern ports to stop ships from bringing in supplies. Agents from the Confederate gov¬ ernment requisitioned food and livestock, tak¬ ing them for the army to use. Union troops came through some areas of North Carolina and stole food and animals. In early 1863 Mary Williams and fifty-nine other desperate women from the western part of the state asked Governor Zebulon Vance not to draft any more men from their farms into military service. The women noted that without the men they could not plant as many crops. The farmwives wrote, "Famine is staring us in the face. There is nothing so heart rending to a Mother as to have her chil¬

(Above) An iron cooking fork, three-legged spider pan, and pepper bottle used in the dren crying round her for bread and she have field by Civil War soldiers. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. (Top none to give them." County sheriffs and local right) This sketch shows the saltworks at Morehead City before Union troops cap¬ tured it in 1862. Image courtesy of the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and governments tried to provide food for History. soldiers' families, but many people still went

TH/H, Spring 2007 *Thomas Vincent is an assistant correspondence archivist at the State Archives, part of 14 the North Carolina Office of Archives and Histoiy. He holds a master's degree in public history. — OS from twelve dollars to one hundred dollars March 3, 1862 for a two-bushel sack. Citizens depended on Camp \hte small private saltworks and on government- “I will send you the sugar as soon as I can get it. run saltworks in Saltville, Virginia, and along It is said to be scarce and high at this time. 1 the coast of North Carolina. Union troops cap¬ hope you have received the rice, and that it is good. . . . Your box of provisions, which you sent tured saltworks at Morehead City and on down, is now doing us great service. We have Currituck Sound in 1862. Throughout the war, sausage and bones yet, and they are very nice. It saltworks near Wilmington produced much of is a little singular that the bones were not spoiled. the state's supply. Workers pumped saltwater I also received a box from Bella with very nice pickles, tomato sauce, catsup (§1> c. These little into shallow ponds, where some of the water rememberances go a great way towards softening evaporated. They then boiled the remaining our lot, as well as filling our stomachs.” water in large pans until only salt remained. In August 1863 the Wilmington saltworks Frank M. Parker [Colonel, Thirtieth Regt. NOT] to his wife in Weldon. PC 42, Frank M. Parker made five thousand bushels of salt. David G. Papers, State Archives Worth, the state's salt commissioner, wrote the next month to Governor Vance that production was below normal because many OS hungry. Sometimes they tried drastic meas¬ of the workers were sick with a "malignant ures to get food. fever" and because of other struggles, includ¬ In the town of Salisbury in March 1863, a ing getting firewood. group of fifty to seventy-five women armed Many people employed at the Wilmington with axes and hatchets descended on the rail¬ saltworks worked there because they objected road depot and several stores looking for to serving in the army for religious or flour. The women thought that the railroad personal reasons. That worried Major General agent and the storekeepers were hoarding William Whiting, the Confederate commander flour, hiding it to sell later at a higher price. of the area. He thought the war objectors When faced with the angry mob, the store¬ would act as keepers gave "presents" of flour, molasses, spies or send sig¬ and salt to the women. According to the nals to Union newspaper Carolina Watchman, the agent at ships off the the railroad depot insisted he had no flour. coast. Whiting The women broke into the depot, took ten also wanted - barrels of flour, and left the agent "sitting on a more workers y~ > log blowing like a March wind." for building '*“• ^ w xiL.- forts to protect Shortages in the western county of z. the city. At one Madison had a more tragic result. A group of * ... zu. ~ > " point, his fears T T' Union sympathizers from Shelton Laurel f ^ *u_-« raided the town of Madison for supplies. In led him to seize retaliation for the looting and for attacks on all of the horses, workers, and Confederate soldiers. Brigadier General -'J '»•* i. Henry Heth dispatched Confederate troops to boats belonging 7 *** ~ ~ —A 3 ^ the area to stop the Unionists' raids. to the salt¬ Lieutenant Colonel James A. Keith rounded works. The up thirteen suspected Union sympathizers governor wrote, "This is y&f. , A’ 5^^- and had his men shoot them. One victim, c/JUffll Wn„ // David Shelton, was thirteen years old. a great calam¬ One of the things that the Unionists had ity to our peo¬ ple, to stop the hoped to get in their raid was salt. Salt was Women from Iredell Willrec a v j. ■ making of 350 to Governor Zebulon Vance 'in Z thjS petition very important because people used it to pre¬ more men from the area from h. • ^ c' skmS111111 to prevent serve meat. There was no readily available bushels of Salt gone off to war, Z ZoZZrotZjZZ “ ^ per day right was very difficult Thev adder! th 'ZZ8 m 3 grain 0r com cr0P substitute. By early 1863, a Raleigh newspa¬ our Husbands Fathers and So^ . r6member last Au^st per reported that the price of salt had risen in the midst of Votes in support of Z B Vance''7 ‘° ^ P°leS 3nd gaw *ef North Carolina Office of Archives and Histo^ ^ ^ TH]H, Spring 2007 15 CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

No. SV til >\ I:!: N’ M I N Ti;.\.VrtPt)KT.\TIO.N. SHIPPER, I'■ " UXOIHIX w* I : . -I . . f Soldiers9 Letters ^ r k, ,n ,. n ■ *'■**1 from the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History *2/4S~~S/d« /it 4y ■?-** A, i.//-..^^/( « '< * * T*- S , April 9, 1862 r l f " . V y Y* * Kinston 2^ 2/? o " w’N « “I want you to bring mee all the eggs you have at " AX T home. . .i want you to bring mee a gallon of whiskey z or more if you can bring it i want you to bring mee \V • H T T • some thing nourishing to eat.”

■: George A. Williams [Company G, Seventh Regiment, North Carolina Troops], to his wife. PC 1504, Williams-Womble \ Papers. /?/$ " J V April 4, 1862 (Above) This receipt details a Confederate States of America food shipment from Weldon to Raleigh in the war's waning days. The Union blockade of Southern Camp Holmes ports added to struggles to feed North Carolinians. (Below) A Confederate soldier. “Well I expect you are busy in your garden this nice Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. warm spring morning. I wish you much success in your gardening. A good garden is a great help to a family, the pork packing season . . . [the salt particularly when provisions are so scarce. You have works] is almost as important to the no idea of the very great scarcity about Wilmington: State, as the safety of the city, as our bacon is selling at 30 cents per lb., beef at 17 to 20 cents: peas at $2.75 a bushel, and other things in pro¬ people cannot live without the Salt." portion, and all very hard to obtain at that.” In spite of the need for the saltworks, Frank M. Parker [Colonel, Thirtieth Regt., NCT] to his wife Whiting closed it for good in late in Weldon. PC 42, Frank M. Parker Papers. 1864 and made the workers labor on a fort. The Union army and navy May 4, 1864 Fort Holmes, Bald Head Island were threatening to attack “Wee has got a nice garden wee has got over and acre Wilmington. The city was very in collards they are very fine they are some of the important for the Confederates. It over a foot a cross the top wee has got too messes to was the last open port where ships eat they is five or six achors hear in greens if wee stay could bring in supplies. hear wee will hav greens aplenty” James A. Bracy [Co. E, Fortieth Regt., NCT] to his father, After the Confederates William Bracy, in Alfordsville, Robeson County. PC 1246, surrendered in April 1865, North Lyman Wilson Sheppard Collection. Carolinians could return to their farms and import some things they October 14, 1864 needed from outside the state. Life “Wee get enough to keep us from suffering if it want for our garden it would be bad getting along wee has was very different when the war greens ever other day wee get lots of rice they are a ended. Formerly enslaved people fishing for the regiment but they don't ketch many they became free to work for are a ketching some very Fine fish hear with a hook J T themselves. More than McGirt caught a fish this morning that weighted twenty six pounds well Mother I has got two bushels of salt and forty thousand of the Arch has got the promis of five more bushels” state's men had been James A. Bracy [Co. E, Fortieth Regt., NCT] to his mother, killed, and many others Mary Bracy, in Alfordsville, Robeson County. PC 1246, had been wounded. A lot Lyman Wilson Sheppard Collection. of property had been Washington Jan 11th 63 destroyed. It took time, “I went down town yesterday and got a few apples and but eventually North coming home three little girles stood in the door of a 1 Carolinians were able to house and as wee pased one of them sed pleas sir will ^row and buy food you give us an apple you better believe I gave it to again, perhaps appreci¬ them quick they were about the size of Lizzie and put mee in mind of her such things affect one here more ating it more after than it would at home at least it did mee how 1 wish 1 suffering wartime could gratify my desire to see Lizzie and all the rest of shortages. you as easily as I did the wish of that little girl but I am afraid it will be a long time before it can be done.” Charles Henry Tubbs [Co. F, Twenty-Seventh Mass. Vols.] to his wife, Minerva. Charles Henry Tubbs Letters, PC 1864. Lizzie was Tubbs's youngest child. She was about three years TH]H, Spring 2007 old at the time that this letter was writtenitten^ WEET AND CLEAN: A Glance at the History of Infant Feeding by Dr. Ruth M. W. Moskop and Melissa M. Nasea’

ntil the 1900s, an infant's health and hard time digesting it. The M survival depended largely on having first fact made physicians its mother's milk to drink. Doctors encourage the use of glass still recommend mother's milk as the feeding bottles designed best food for babies. Modern, scientifi¬ for easy sterilization. The cally produced formulas in clean bot¬ second fact made chemists tles, however, now offer another safe choice for join doctors in trying to babies in North Carolina and elsewhere. modify cows' milk to Few records exist about infant feeding during make it more like human milk. the Middle Ages, but we know that between 1500 By 1918, drugstores sold a variety of prepared and the late 1700s it was not fashionable for infant foods. Although mother's milk was best for wealthier women in the West to nurse their babies. most babies, the sale of artificial foods like Mellin's This trend continued into the 1800s, in spite of and Horlick's increased. Clever advertisements expert advice that infants should showed enchanting pictures of drink mother's milk, if possible. healthy babies and suggested that Often, families hired another MELLIN’S FOOD mother's milk might not be woman, called a wet nurse, to For Infants and Invalids. enough. Doctors offered compli¬

# A Soluble Dry Extract of Barley Malt and Wheat, feed the baby. Many babies in • prepared after the formula of the eminent chemist, cated instructions for homemade North Carolina were brought up A Baron Justus von Liebig, for the artificial feeding formulas well MODIFICATION OF FRESH COWS MILK. MELLIN’S FOOD is entirely free from Starch; the "by the hand," which means they Carbohydrates contained therein are Dextrins and into the 1900s. Maltose. The sugar formed by the action of the Ptyalin of the Saliva and the AmyIop9in were fed artificially—with ani¬ of the Pancreas upon starch is MALTOSE. In the digestive tract MALTOSE is Better choices finally came. absorbed UNCHANGED.” T

*Dr. Ruth M. W. Moskop serves as the assistant director, history programs, at East Carolina THJH, Spring 2007 University's Laupus Health Sciences Library, as well as the director of the Countn/ Doctor Museum. 17 Melissa M. Nasea is the history collections librarian at Laupus Health Sciences Library. ACTtVITfES by Kay K. Moss

pollution, Global Warming,

£upermarKet Scavenger Hunt

A trip to your local super¬

market is like a trip around the world! Check the labels on

fresh fruits and vegetables. hat does my dinner have to do with environ¬ Check the origin of seafood. Wmental problems’^ The farther a food trav¬ Read labels and tags. Make a els from its source to my plate, the greater list of foods that traveled long tne cost in pollution and energy. On long

distances. Try to find at least trips, trucks and ships use more gasoline one food from South America, and create more air pollution. The added Central America, North pollution contributes to global warming.

America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Contrast the costs of a bowl of yummy, fresh blueberries and Australia. In June and In January. In June we buy blueberries from east¬ ern North Carolina. In January we may buy blueberries from South America. Those January blueberries may cost twice as much as June berries since they must "fly" in. The environmen¬ tal cost is also much greater when we consider the pollution resulting from transportation. And, of course, the fresher the Food ^ food, the more tasty and healthful It Is far us. Memories Book' Check a map to estimate the miles that winter blueberries must travel from Chile. Also estimate the mileage from

Try creating a small book about your family’s coastal North Carolina to your home. Divide the mileage from food traditions. Are there recipes that have Chile by the North Carolina mileage to discover how many been passed down through the years? Are times more air pollution results from the longer trip. there foods or meals that you always enjoy at What can you do? certain holidays or special times of year? • Eat locally grown foods when possible. What can older family members tell you about ♦ Visit a farmers market. changes in food and food preparation since • Talk with someone who has a backyard garden to learn what -^ey were your age? Does everyone have grows best where you live. favorte foocs O'* favorite places to eat? • Plant a garden of your own. You may start by growing a salad this spring—try leaf lettuce and radishes. 18 TH/H, Spring 2007 Breaking the Code ^

efore our modern rules suffering for feed” roasting fresh corn that makes B of spelling, punctua¬ In May “on the 4th after one's mouth water: tion, and capitalization Breckfus Mr. McCoy Come and We “When the corn is not completely became standardized, Bought Goarn 5 meet got Bred ripe, but the grains are already writers were creative Baked" formed on the ear, the latter are with grammar. You May 31 “the People in some picked, brought close to the fire and will need to use your imagina¬ Places where I Travel has not any¬ roasted all around. Thus roasted, tion to figure out the following thing to live on But Beakin 5 Greers these ears are taken,- still warm from notes. These passages are taken Coann having got scarce 5 no many the fire, covered with fresh butter, from John Brown's 1795 journal to Purchase; the weather Is warm 5 and eaten, extracting the kernels with of his travels in western North the teeth until they are all gone. The Carolina. Reading historical doc¬ the Sun by times wou’d be oppressive sweet milky juice . . . adds to a pleas¬ uments can be much like break¬ was it not for a Constant Brese of ing a code. Try translating Are” . . . ant and very welcome flavor. This Brown's comments on food. June 11 on the “Cuttaby River and item of food Is found alike on the tables of poor farmers and the In January 1795 “we Rode & fed our hoarses and got some wealthiest gentlemen and Is generally Miles to Som Creek on a Bottom Backen Poan and Greene.” . . . highly appreciated.” between the Mountains 400 Acres June 25 “we wrode four Miles to Can't you imagine how and several famleys living thereon we Mr. Irwins and we dined with him and much you would enjoy fresh Staid at one of the houses all night Drank Tea In the Evening the first corn-on-the-cob after months of the most Durty Place I have ever time for me in Six months he life on eating grits or mush made of the Bank of John’s River his Wife is a seen the Live upon Venison when the dried corn? Brown and Well Bred Lady We ware Treated Kill a Deer the hlng it up and Cuts Castiglioni obviously felt the politely.” . . . away at till used." . . . same way. American Indians On July 15, 1795, near “Rode about half a Mile to Llnville appreciated the fresh green corn Statesville “we had Rosten Ears or Creek and about one Mile to a Mr. so much that they celebrated Wakefields where we staid he use’d Goarn for supper” and the next day “I with green com festivals in late us very well his wife got a Chicken got Ripe Peaches and Peach py which summer. for supper my Comrade Taylor and was soon In the season” Think about what it was like myself Eat very harty and went to John Brown’s journal, 230, 200, to travel around western North bed Mr. Taylor lay about two hours 301, 305, 303, 312 Carolina in the late 1700s, as and got very sick and got up and Brown and Castiglioni did. At We can gather from these Puck'd Very much I was sick also But that time there were few inns, entries that Brown and his com¬ Lay to morning (it snow’d a little in and, of course, no motels. panions may have been a bit night) and was very bad with a Lax Travelers often camped for the tired of the common springtime night but were pleased when [diarrhea] I Vometed after I got on meal of cured pork (bacon or they came to a house. People hoarseback on Teausday morning the country ham), dried corn made who lived along the roads 13th we Rode about a mile to a house into mush or bread (pone), and usually offered travelers a Mr. Taylor Cou’d not ride any further greens. He seemed delighted meal and a place to sleep. we Try’d to get some Tea But in all In when July rolled around and he Write a journal entry of your vane we got a Tinful I of milk scalded was served roasted fresh corn own describing a meal that you with Pepper and Drank it” and peaches! have particularly enjoyed, In mid-April “we got as mutch An Italian adventurer named whether at home or on a trip meal as made a Jonny Cake $. got a Luigi Castiglioni, who traveled small Pice of Venicen 5 make a Kind through the Piedmont region in of a Breckfust our hoarse was 1786, wrote a description of THJH, Spring 2007 19 efore the days of fancy, colorful summer. Some people still use this method on a packages that lure shoppers to gro¬ limited basis, but most buy pork in the grocery cery store shelves and frozen foods store already cured. counters, preserving food—keeping Another way to keep pork was to “salt it it safe to eat later—took ingenuity down." Most families had a shelf in the smoke¬ and creativity. house, a bench or table in another building, or a Meeting basic human needs for food, cloth¬ box that could be used for storing meat. They ing, and shelter has gotten placed the meat on a easier through the centuries. layer of salt and covered Technology has reached the it with more salt, some¬ point that we can store times mixed with pepper enough food to last us for and brown sugar. Salt years. But from the time of draws moisture out of early European settlement in meat and thus stops the North Carolina through the process of rotting. Some early to mid-1900s, people people later stored the used many other methods to meat buried in shelled preserve food. Some are still corn, because the com occasionally used today. The was a good insulator. “old ways" worked fairly well Today removing moisture until the techno revolution of through low heat expo¬ This photo by Margaret Morley shows apples strung up by a the past thirty to fifty years Mountain home's fireplace to dry for the winter, ca. 1900-1910. sure over time, or linage courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. brought us electric refrigera¬ through the use of salt, tion and other conveniences. creates jerky and other The type of food, of course, helped determine dried foods. Over the years, people also have the best preservation method. Corn and pork used salt and water mixtures to preserve many were the most common staple foods, since farms foods, such as fish or vegetables, by pickling. could produce them in large quantities. Corn Earlier North Carolinians often preserved could be stored in several forms—kept in cribs vegetables by stringing them up to hang by the while still on the cob, shelled, or ground into fireplace or in another warm, dry area to remove cornmeal. Pork also could be preserved in differ¬ moisture. To prepare the vegetables for eating, ent ways. Most early settlers used a smoke¬ people would soak them in water for a while. house, hanging hams and other large pieces of Beans prepared in this way were called “leather meat in a small building to cure through several britches" because of their toughness after dry¬ weeks of expo¬ ing. Fruits, pumpkin, squash, and other foods sure to a low could be kept in this way for months at a time. fire with a lot Most homes years ago had a root cellar, where of smoke. The families kept food in a cool, dry environment. process began They stored apples and other foods in piles of around sawdust or in containers filled with sawdust or November. similar loose material. Since the late 1800s, peo¬ The meat ple have canned food and stored it in such would keep all places as the cellar. This blue glass salt cellar (ca. 1880-1900) and silver winter and One method rarely used today for preserving salt spoon (ca. 1820-1840) were used on a table. Salt was an important commodity before refrigeration. most of the root crops such as potatoes and turnips was Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History.

THJH, Spring 2007 *Terrell Finley is the regional museum administrator at the Mountain Gateway Museum 20 and Heritage Center, part of the Division of State History Museums, in Old Fort. By the mid-1800s, a method of refrigeration had taken shape that seems rather crude when compared with today. People would dig ice¬ houses into dirt banks in areas deprived of sun¬ light, line them with sawdust, and fill them with blocks of ice cut from frozen rivers and creeks. With proper care, the ice would last until sum¬ mer. In later years—especially in larger towns and cities—the iceman delivered blocks of ice to residents for use in the home icebox, a sort of early pre-electricity refrigerator. Each section of the state, and even each small community, had its own methods and tech¬ niques for preserving food before refrigeration. Most have slowly died away. Canning is still a common method used to "put up" vegetables Women can foods for home use, ca. 1908-1917. Image courtesy of the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History. and some fruits. It is not common anymore for preserving sausage or other meats, because called "holing in." People would dig a pit that freezing is much faster, cleaner, and safer. was lined with sawdust or straw, place the food¬ Drying is still popular for preserving some stuff in the pit, and cover it with more sawdust fruits, but freezers, refrigerators, and the con¬ or straw. Finally, they would place boards, tin, venient trip to the store have replaced most or a similar material on top. A similar method smokehouses and root cellars. still is used in the Mountains of North Carolina. Food preservation has come a long way. The This method involves digging a furrow beside old tried-and-proven methods were simple and cabbage rows in a garden, pulling up the cab¬ used very few additives or artificial preserva¬ bage, placing each head upside down in the fur¬ tives, compared with some of the methods that row, and covering it over with replaced them. People seem to be returning to loose dirt. The cabbage turns more natural techniques, since we have learned white during the passing that some additives can be harmful. "Faster" is months but retains its flavor. not always "better." Just ask an old-timer about Cabbage can be preserved in the taste difference between "home canned" and this way until time to plant "store-bought"! No doubt the "home" method again. Most of the time it gets will win out every time. CQ eaten well before then! Before refrigerators, the springhouse was a fixture Remembering . . . around most homes, provid¬ Daddy dropped us off for our 1 £>AO summer visit with ing a place to keep milk, but¬ Grandmother Ward in Maysville and headed back to ter, and other perishables Raleigh. Right away, she shared the big news that Mrs. Cannon, who lived two blocks away, was now hooked up from spoiling. Running to electricity and had bought a refrigerator. Mother springwater kept tempera¬ wondered if Mrs. Cannon would sell a tray of ice for tea tures cool enough to preserve at lunch and again at dinner. Indeed, she would, for ten foods even on hot summer cents a tray. Even we children knew this was “highway Greensboro residents could dis¬ days. The "house" was a robbery," but we were on vacation. My sister and I headed mplay this pasteboard sign, ca. 1820-1950, to let the iceman wooden structure with a out with a pail and a dime, as Mother was putting a typical know how much ice to deliver. roof built directly over the meal of chicken, butter beans, corn on the cob, tomatoes, The other side has different cucumbers, and biscuits on the table. We were always numbers. Image courtesy of the spring. It protected the food North Carolina Museum of History. from animals and severe instructed to walk back as quickly as we could—never run, so the ice cubes wouldn't bounce out. A genuine treat for weather. In earlier days, peo¬ my grandmother, and Mary and I never lost an ice cube! ple simply kept foods down in the water itself. Trudy Chappell Conrad, of Raleigh, age seventy-five, Items like butter also might be kept down a well. and a North Carolina Museum of History docent

THJH, Spring 2007 21 e Your M of Norfil) Carolina Apples eri Castle*

ince shortly after European colonists CS S began settling down in present-day “Mr. T.G. Jones, of Culler, absence from the office, by North Carolina in the 1600s and Stokes County . . . Thomas M. Hunter Es

THJH, Spring 2007 *Sheri Castle is a professional culinary instructor and writer who grew up in Boone and now lives in Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance. bushels are sold directly to the public, in places like roadside stands and farmers markets. At one time, more than fifteen hundred kinds of apples grew in the South. Orchards contained a variety of trees, because people used different apples in different ways. Some varieties were best for eating raw, some were more suited for cooking or drying, and others made the most juice. But unlike family orchards and small farms that needed a vari¬ ety of apples for assorted uses, commercial orchards grew only the apples that sold at the highest price. In the past few decades, most commercial orchards have produced four varieties: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, and Stayman. Because of the concentration » Yancey County „„„ ^ on those four types, many of the apples that used to grow in North Carolina have become threatened or extinct, which means that they remained undisturbed for a long time, the old no longer exist. Because extinct plants are as apple trees survived. serious a loss to the environment as extinct Most heirloom apples do not look like the animals, a few concerned people are working shiny, uniform, brightly colored apples we see hard to preserve old varieties. These old vari¬ in grocery stores. Some have odd, uneven eties are called heirloom, or antique, apples. shapes, or rough and spotted skin. People People who study and preserve heirloom prized these apples for their flavor and how apples could be called apple historians. Their they could use them, not how they looked. goal is to find, protect, and preserve the few They used the apples near the orchard where remaining heirloom apple trees still growing they grew, so it did not matter how well the in North Carolina. When an apple historian fruit shipped to other places. Names of heir¬ discovers an heirloom tree, he or she safely loom apples often hint about their appearance collects a small cutting that can be used to or where they grew. Here are a few examples: grow more trees. Because more than one type Limbertwig, Yellow Transparent, Arkansas of apple can be grafted onto the rootstock of a Black, Red Astrechan, Ginger Gold, Crow's single tree, it is possible to grow several vari¬ Egg, Grimes Golden, Hoover, Ben Davis, and eties in a small space. Over time, a tree collec¬ Kinnaird's Choice. tion becomes a "living museum," where Although most heirloom apple collections many types of heirloom apples can grow in a are kept on private land, one is open to the safe, well-maintained orchard. This is very public. Since 1997, Horne Creek Living much like the work done by zoos to protect Historical Farm has endangered animal species. been the home of Although one expert estimates that we the Southern have lost around thirteen hundred varieties of Heritage Apple Old South apples, there is good news. In the Orchard. Its collec¬ past twenty years, people have found more tion will someday than one hundred kinds of apples thought to contain well over be extinct growing in our state. Some of these four hundred kinds apple trees were found on large pieces of land of apples. This state that were once farmed but now sit idle. historic site is North Carolinians working in orchards have used Others were found around old, abandoned located in Pinnacle, tools such as this wooden apple picker, ca. 1850-1900. The handle originally was quite long, for homes. Some were found in cemeteries a small town north reaching up into trees. Image courtesy of the North unused for decades. Because those places had of Winston-Salem. Carolina Museum of History.

THJH, Spring 2007 23 the farm is a great way to learn about the state's past. North Carolina's commercial orchards face stiff competition from apples imported from foreign countries, particularly China. People are realizing the value of heirloom apples, and some small orchards are growing more of the fruit. Growers usually can sell heirloom apples at a higher profit because they are unique. Also, most heirloom apples are sold directly to people as soon as they are picked, ■ brass kettle in the Mountains m so there are few transportation and storage costs. If a variety does very well, the grower can sell grafts or saplings to plant nurseries or Archives and History. to the public. These steps might help smaller orchards stay in business and continue to be Visitors can take part in daily activities and an important part of North Carolina's farm special events of old-time farm life. They can income. The efforts may also make it possible see, smell, touch, and hear things once com¬ for more people to taste and enjoy these deli¬ mon in rural North Carolina. Taking a trip to cious, time-honored apples.mA

The Southern Heritage Apple Orchard at Horne Creek Living Historical Farm in Surry County fea¬ tures about four hundred varieties of trees. (Tap) These semi-dwarf trees— each of which represents a southern apple once near extinction—wiil reach a height of twelve to sixteen feet. (Far right) This heritage apple tree is bearing fruit. (Center) Children play the “snap apple" game, bobbing for apples hung from a clothesline, during a Peel to Pie Apple Festival at Horne Creek. (Bottom, left to right) Aexander's Ice Cream, Buff, and Mary Reid are three of the heritage apples in the orchard. Each is known to have grown in North Carolina in the ISOOs. Images courtesy of Horne Cree< Living Historical Farm, a state historic sre Access www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/horne/horne.htm to learn more. 24 TH)H, Spring 2007 Challenging the Chain Stores by Dr. Lisa Tolbert*

or two months in the spring of businessmen there. These store owners faced 1929, a group of African American new challenges because of important changes grocery store owners in Winston- in the retail trade. Salem organized public lectures, Chain stores—such as Sears, Roebuck and meetings, exhibits, and food tast- Company, F. W. Woolworth, and the Great ings that attracted large audiences Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P)— and national attention. What was all the fuss grew a lot in the early 1900s. A chain is a com¬ about? pany that runs many stores in different The grocers were joining a new cooperative places, operating under the same name and business group called the Colored Merchants selling the same merchandise. Chain stores Association (CMA), which had begun in created new ways to sell groceries—which Alabama. On April 17 they announced in a meant stiff competition for smaller stores. local newspaper an ambitious plan to create Hundreds of small, independent grocery "a movement looking towards the salvation stores dotted downtowns and neighborhoods of the Negro independent grocery stores, throughout southern cities and towns of the through cooperative buying and teaching the early 1900s. Most grocers, white and black, lesson and value of advertising." National owned one store that served the neighbor¬ Negro Business League leaders promoted the hood where they lived. Customers walked grocers' efforts as a national model for daily to their neighborhood store to shop or African American businessmen working in an phoned in orders for delivery. By the 1920s, increasingly competitive marketplace. however, new chain stores began to attract To understand why the Winston-Salem more and more customers with low prices activities got so much attention, it is impor¬ and modern interiors. tant to know about changes in the grocery business in the 1920s and about the impact of OPPORTUNITY July, 1929 segregation on African American store owners The C. M. A. Stores Face the Chains and shoppers. By Albon L. Holsey In the 1920s, segregation laws and customs ON August 10, 1928, a dozen Negro grocers in in the Montgomery Advertiser and the Montgomery Montgomery, Alabama, met and organized the Jpurnai—daily newspapers in Montgomery. In restricted public activities based on race. Colored Merchants’ Association and agreed to addition to the advertising in the daily papers, a operate their stores as C. M. A. Stores. H. C. Ball reproduction of the newspaper copy is distributed Signs marked such spaces as public bath¬ was elected president and David F. Lowe, Jr., sec¬ as hand bills to all the colored homes in the vicin¬ retary. ity of each store. At least a half dozen staple The idea of this cooperative merchandising products, such as: lard, sugar, bacon, etc., are rooms, train station waiting rooms, or sections effort initiated with A. C. featured each week at Brown, who for more special prices, while in movie theaters for "white only" or "colored than twenty years has other bargains, such as: been a successful grocer ANNOUNCING flour, coffee, canned only." (The terms colored and Negro were in Montgomery. Sharing THE C. M. A. STORES goods, etc., are listed as second specials. alike Mr. Brown’s en¬ (Colored Merchant, Aseodmtion) Mr. A. C. Brown, in widely used for nonwhites and for persons of thusiasm was Mr. David An Organization of Progressive Local Grocers F. Lowe (since deceased), tber rtortj will be ttlrac- commenting on the his¬ one of the pioneer mer¬ tory of the organization, African descent, respectively, in the early :o ?aid, “In the face of the chants of Montgomery. QUALITY MERCHANDISE AT LOWEST PRICES The Association was stiffest competition which twentieth century.) Despite the restrictions, organized in Mr. Lowe’s Cash Specials for Saturday May 4th ive have ever known, we decided that such an or¬ store. At the present time £125r.,rtT>. i2ic tr:2.pouDd:.iic African Americans started successful business ‘.here arc fourteen stores Floor (excellent qual¬ ganization was the only 48C jU«,4pcund. 2^C in the organization and ity) 12 pound* for . method by which we communities and created vibrant neighbor¬ ?ach member reports 25C Tom*toe» (No. 2 loll 25C could preserve our busi¬ pxck) 2 from twenty to sixty per California Ydlow Cling FWhe. ness.” Low. Bro>. Bluo Ribbon The Colored Mer¬ hoods in the segregated South. Local grocery cent increases in gross IX-'rT... 24c Brood, loaf. 9C volume as a result of the chants’ Association in stores became the most common small busi¬ new plan of operation. Montgomery affiliates The Association meets with the. Local Negro nesses run by black merchants. That's a big every Tuesday night at a Business League member store at which in Montgomery and Mr. “There is a C. M. A Store in Your Neighborhood” time their purchasing Morns Smith, president MxjnUMPKv; reason why the Winston-Salem grocers made needs are combined and S;.y.l:u^lT.A£ n"Vii^Sr5?n of the Montgo m cry * «S-2W,° on the day following, the League, invited the Sec¬ such an impact. In 1929 the city directory list¬ wholesale grocers in retary of the National League to visit Mont- ed 373 grocery stores. African Americans Montgomery are asked to The National Urban League's Opportunity journal featured the Colored Merchants operated more than 30 percent (128 of them), Association in its July 1929 issue. Image from the Library of Congress Prints and making up by far the largest group of black Photographs Division, American Memory.

*Dr. Lisa Tolbert is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she THJH, Spring 2007 teaches courses in American architecture and cultural history. Her current book project explores how 25 changes in spatial design reshaped social practices in grocery stores of the segregated, urban Nezv South. During the early 1900s the num¬ had already created a merchants' association ber of grocery chains in the United that could help CMA leaders. In the spring of States had doubled. These chains 1929, representatives of the National Negro kept growing and adding stores. Business League—which Booker T. Washington For example, the largest and most had started in 1900 at Tuskegee Institute—trav¬ successful grocery chain, A&P, eled to Winston-Salem to help the African operated a few hundred stores in American grocers organize. Winston-Salem the Northeast during the first Teachers' College (now Winston-Salem State decade of the twentieth century. It University) played a major role in publicizing (Above) A soap display in a North grew to more than eleven thousand the CMA. The college hosted lectures to inform Carolina Big Star supermarket, ca. 1940s. Image courtesy of the State stores nationwide in the 1920s. shoppers, accounting workshops for store own¬ Archives, North Carolina Office of With fifteen locations in Winston- ers, and events such as a public introduction of Archives and History. (Below) Images of new products from sev¬ Salem in 1929, A&P owned more nationally advertised products. To teach buyers eral 1909 women's magazines. Mail-order businesses, chain stores in that city than any grocer. about new kinds of brand-name products, home stores, and brand-name products Because A&P ordered more economics teachers served Welch's grape juice grew quickly in the early 1900s. numbers of an item than a single punch with Nabisco wafers and Best Foods grocer did, wholesalers sold prod¬ mayonnaise with Sunshine crackers. CMA lead¬ ucts to the chain at lower prices. The chain ers remodeled the grocery store of James A. stores passed the savings along to the customer, Ellington, at 723 East Seventh Street, into a selling many brand-name products at a lower model store, based on a display at a national price than the independent grocer could afford. grocers conference. On opening night, 583 shop¬ A&P made sure that Winston-Salem customers pers crowded the small space to get a look. knew about its bargains by advertising regularly Twenty-four merchants joined the CMA in the in the local newspaper. Most independent gro¬ first organizing campaign in Winston-Salem. cers didn't spend money to advertise. They They soon reported record sales. The idea was relied on neighborhood foot traffic. Independent so successful that by the early 1930s, the CMA grocers, white and black, worried more and had spread to larger cities in the North and the more about the chains. South, including Birmingham, Atlanta, New African American grocers in Montgomery, York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Alabama, had decided to work together to com¬ Unfortunately, the Great Depression of the pete. A. C. Brown, a successful grocer in that city 1930s put new pressure on small businessmen, for twenty years, persuaded fourteen grocers to and the merchants of the CMA fell on hard combine their buying power and place orders times. By 1932 Ellington had closed his model with wholesalers together. This way, they got store on Seventh Street, and the Winston-Salem lower prices to stock their stores. This coopera¬ city directory now listed only seventy-nine tive, called the Colored Merchants Association, African American grocers—a little more than operated as a kind of voluntary chain. The idea half of those listed in 1929, when the CMA was to pool money for buying products and expanded to Winston-Salem. By 1936 the CMA advertising, and to educate African American went bankrupt. Chain stores and supermarkets merchants about modern business practices. increasingly replaced the small grocer after Goals included increasing stores' profits by the 1930s. improving accounting methods; modernizing The history of the CMA, though, shows the store interiors to provide a better shopping activism of African American merchants and experience; and creating greater awareness of communities in the segregated business environ¬ the buying power of African Americans. ment of the early 1900s. The cooperative organi¬ Winston-Salem played an important role in zation effort in Winston-Salem was larger than the history of the CMA because the National an effort to compete with chain stores. Together, Negro Business League chose it as the first place merchants, educators, and housewives used to expand the organization outside Alabama. grocery stores as a tool to teach improved busi¬ Winston-Salem's large number of successful ness methods, show consumers new products, black grocers provided strong leadership in the and raise awareness about African American African American business community. They buying power.

26 THJH, Spring 2007 Jo0d Jendi Xmmhend... School Lunch: : he price was twenty- by Evelyn Ruth Ragan’ five cents o day. Later it went up to thirty-five cents, which we thought EvelynRuth Ragan wrote this short essay about her food-related to clean them (dehead, was too much. We gat a balanced memories growing up in the 1950s and 1960s at the home of her scale, and remove the parents, Calvin and Edith Ragan, near New Hill. Can you relate her lunch of meat, two vegetables (one "guts"). The beef from memories to your own, or to those of family members and friends? always green), bread, dessert, and Daddy's cows wasn't the milk. I especially liked the milk. Living pretty bright red color of here have been a lot of changes in the on a dairy farm, It was a treat to beef in the grocery today, 7 Triangle area of North Carolina in recent have homogenized milk. It -tasted but it tasted much years. One of the biggest is actually the better than raw milk. food—the way it's prepared, where it better. He would slaugh¬ comes from, and how it tastes. When I ter a cow and take it to the freezer locker. In down¬ was growing up, most vegetables were town Fuquay Springs (also known as Fuquay- grown on the farm and preserved by canning or Varina), one grocery store called the Food Center, freezing. They were cooked at Main and Academy streets, had a freezer locker adequately, with proper sea¬ in the back. The staff would pre¬ soning. Momma's "snap pare the meat by cutting it into beans" (now called string >11 pieces, wrapping it in special white beans or green beans) always paper, and stamping the name of tasted better than others. My the cut (T-bone, hamburger, roast) aunt Irma Holland, who on the outside front. They put the taught biology at Broughton meat into our family's locked High School in Raleigh, said freezer drawer. When we went to the grocery the beans were better because (Above) The author of the balance in the soil in on her family's dairy store. Momma first went to the farm in winter 1966. freezer locker. She would select the New Hill. The "sweet corn" (Right) The author's from the garden was always parents, Calvin and cuts of meat needed for about a Edith Ragan, in 1953. month and place them in a box to sweet and tender. It was dif¬ Images courtesy of ferent from the com Daddy EvelynRuth Ragan. put in the car. Then we'd go on our raised for silage. He grew other errands and lastly get the rest many acres each year for the cows. Momma made of the groceries. We'd put the perishables next to all the jellies, jams, and pickles. or on top of the frozen meat. The meat was so cold Some things like sweet potatoes, cucumbers, col- that it was as hard as wood—cold enough to keep everything else lards, turnips, and so forth, we would buy at "pick I your own" farms. We bought eggs regularly from a cold until we Special Holiday Foods: Easter—ham with potato neighbor. Peaches were sold by the peck off a got home, a salad; Thanksgiving—turkey, sometimes caught pickup truck from a farmer from South Carolina half-hour trip wild, plus collards and sweet potato pie (instead who came by two or three times a year. (He was a driving on of pumpkin, which we didn’t like); Christmas— preacher and knew my grandpa Harvey Ragan country roads. various cakes ana pies, including Sermon would always buy a peck for each of his children's Now, unfor¬ chocolate, Japanese fruitcake, and Momma's families.) My granddaddy Marvin Ball, who lived tunately, we fruitcake, which came from the Ogburn family of in town (Varina, also known as Fuquay-Varina), settle for food Willow Spring and is the only fruitcake every¬ grew cantaloupe and strawberries in his side yard. that is not as body likes. ... All of the food was homemade, We ate a lot of beef since Daddy owned a good. It's and celebrations included extended family. dairy. I always envied my friends who had pork grown in artifi- 11 ‘ and chicken regularly. I didn't appreciate all those cial conditions. The textures are different. The steaks, roasts, and ribs until I got older and had to flavor is definitely not as good. We didn't realize our ordinary meals would become special events. 1 pay for them myself! Sometimes we would have fish caught from Daddy's pond, but it was messy Things don't always progress with progress!

*EvelynRuth Ragan, an employee of the North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development, THJH, Spring 2007 is a longtime docent and former employee of the North Carolina Museum of History. Her family has lived in 27 the Triangle area since the early 1800s. Her father, Calvin Ragan, a U.S. Army veteran of World War FI and former dairyman, also has worked at the museum. Her mother, Edith Ragan, is a Iwmemaker. Jane S. McKimmon and the Greening of North C by Louise Benner*

t's not easy being green! If you are the lives of farm families, became a speaker for J "green," you try to do things that the Farmers' Institute, a group that shared agri¬ promote and protect clean air, healthy cultural research with the public. She traveled plants, fresh water, and good health. the state talking to women about preparing Associating the food. Her specialty was color green with bread making. McKimmon good food and healthful liv¬ not only talked about baking ing is not a new idea. bread; she showed audi¬ In 1945 Jane Simpson ences how to do it and McKimmon wrote a book helped them better use their called When We're Green We equipment. For instance, at Grow. The book told the story that time, wood usually of McKimmon's career as heated the ovens in farm leader of North Carolina's households. To check the home demonstration agents, temperature, agents told who traveled the state teach¬ women to place a piece of ing homemaking skills to Eighty-two-year-old Jane S. McKimmon (center) chats white paper in the oven for farm women. When with Academy Award-winning actress Jane DarweJl and one minute. If the paper A another admirer during a 1949 trip to New York City for McKimmon began her work the Cavalcade of America radio program about her life. burned or turned Image courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, in 1911, she was one of only North Carolina State University Libraries. (Top right) really brown, the oven was five agents in the entire McKimmon in earlier days. Image courtesy of the State too hot. Audience members Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History. United States. She was a pio¬ could see and taste breads neer in a new career for women: home eco¬ made using McKimmon's methods. They nomics. Home economists use science to remembered these demonstrations better than improve home and family life. words alone. Jane Simpson was born in Raleigh in 1867. When the federal government began to set She graduated from Peace Institute (now Peace up programs to help farmers grow larger and College) at age sixteen. At age eighteen she better crops, some efforts targeted young peo¬ married Charles McKimmon. The McKimmons ple. In Ahoskie in 1909,1. O. Schaub—the first lived in Raleigh, but even through the mid- appointed farm extension agent for any state— 1940s, most North Carolinians lived on farms. started Corn Clubs for boys. Members received Farm families usually occupied drafty houses one-acre plots of land, learned new farming with no electricity, no indoor bathrooms, no methods, and kept the profits from their crop. running water, no heat except from a fireplace Many Corn Club boys doubled, tripled, and or woodstove, and no evening light other than even quadrupled plot yield. Girls who saw what kerosene lamps might provide. Endless their brothers making money and enjoying the chores for children included chopping wood, process wanted to participate. A few girls were getting water from the well, pulling weeds, allowed into Corn Clubs, but growing corn taking care of livestock, and preparing and was not considered suitable for girls. cooking food. Other than a few things like Schaub was a neighbor of the McKimmons sugar, coffee, and salt, a family's food came in Raleigh and knew about Jane McKimmon's from the farm. Rural areas had no supermar¬ work with the Farmers' Institute. He recom¬ kets, only small neighborhood stores. mended that she head North Carolina's pro¬ Jane McKimmon, interested in improving gram for girls, and she became the state's first

THIH, Spring 2007 *Louise Benner works as a curator of costume and textiles at the North Carolina Museum of History. To learn more about the history of Home Demonstration and 4-H, access a major online project developed by the North Carolina State University Libraries' Special Collections Research Center at wunv.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/greenngmwing. woman home demonstration agent. The pro¬ gram was based within the Agricultural Extension Service at North Carolina State College, now the Cooperative Extension Service at North Carolina State University. Leaders decided that tomato growing and canning were suitable for schoolgirls. In 1911 canning—preserving food in sterilized jars or cans—was new on many farms. Girls got the chance to grow tomatoes on one-tenth-acre plots. Tomato Clubs grew tomatoes and then canned them, using safe and sanitary methods learned from home demonstration agents. Club members could sell their canned toma¬ toes at local curb markets. Tomato Clubs nationwide adopted the name Many early cooking demonstrations took place outside. This Burgaw 4-H club of the 1920s is attending a program on canning beans, linage 4-H. Each H marked in the 4-H clover symbol courtesy of the Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State stood for an ideal of the organization: head, University Libraries. heart, hands, and health. The 4-H clubs expanded their interests to anything that made kitchen. A lot of canned food spoiled before farm life more productive and pleasant. Except being eaten. Cooking was seasonal and relied on the state level, boys and girls had separate too much on a "ham and hominy" diet. Milk activities until after 1945. Before racial segrega¬ was often given to calves rather than children, tion in all clubs ended in 1964, separate clubs and vegetables were cooked for a long time, existed for black and white members. destroying vitamins. No one knew much about When McKimmon started her work, the cash vitamins anyway. Many children suffered from crops of cotton and tobacco made up the decayed teeth and a bone-softening disease biggest part of most farmers' incomes. After called rickets because of poor diets. expenses, money proved scarce. The standard Food shortages during World War I brought for a good year was having enough to eat so requests for more gardening and canning infor¬ that no family member mation. People wanted to know how to pre¬ went hungry. In theory, serve the food they grew. Community canner¬ men did the fieldwork, ies were a new idea, and 132 operated in the and women managed the state during 1917-1918. McKimmon was household. Few farms, appointed to the State Food Administration to though, could survive help increase food production and conserve for without women and the war effort. children working in the In the 1920s home demonstration agents fields. Married women organized women's Saturday markets to sell had no time to help by home-produced food. McKimmon said, "It was getting paying jobs, and an unheard-of thing before the market was most Americans at the organized to see a farm woman paid for hours time believed that the spent in work, no matter how long they were business world should nor what they involved." Agents taught safe be left to men. canning methods and frozen food preparation Girls learned to before many people had home freezers. The Agricultural Extension Service pro- cook when they were Families could rent drawer space for foods izsssz^***** young, to free their prepared at home in freezer locker plants in Carolina Museum of History. mothers for other county seats. work. But few mothers or daughters The Great Depression of the 1930s brought understood nutritional needs, food conserva¬ lean years to North Carolina. People lost jobs, tion, or ways to best use their time in the and prices for cotton and tobacco fell. Farmers landscaping. McKimmon—greatly respected as the "queen" of Home Demonstration— would speak. Although McKimmon resigned her position as state home demonstration agent in 1937, she continued to work throughout World War II and was a member of the State Council of National Defense. She led the extension ser¬ vice's work with families and 4-H clubs to increase food production for the war effort. McKimmon, who died in 1957, received an Promoting good nutrition was a primary goal of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the early 1900s. Home demonstration agents, such as the honorary doctorate from the University of ones leading this program in Mecklenburg County in about 1935, North Carolina. In 1949, when few people had explained how important nutritious food was for good health. Image courtesy of the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History. television, NBC dramatized her life in a coast- to-coast radio broadcast. Officials at North had depended on making money from the Carolina State University named the cash crops, and those who had trouble selling McKimmon Center for Extension and their crops could not afford to buy supplies or Continuing Education for her, in recognition food. Leaders set up a state Office of Relief. of her support for continuing McKimmon worked with its director to get education. She insisted food, fuel, and clothing to farm families in that her agents attend need. Families short of money tried to barter college and earned two what they had for what they needed. Some advanced degrees after started home industries based on what was she was fifty years old. available, such as growing cucumbers and McKimmon and Ruth selling pickles made from them. More people Current—who joined home demonstration classes and 4-H succeeded her as state hoping to learn ways to earn money at home. home demonstration Despite the Depression, 4-H members in agent—remain two of the 1930s enjoyed special opportunities. three women among the Members nominated by their county agent thirty-one people elected "-srssJ’.ss'Anne Benson based might go to Raleigh for a week of classes to the North Carolina homedemonstra^agen^s in Raleigb, )ome cooking and fun, staying in college dorms. Classes Agricultural Hall of Fame. Army Corps and‘augn included the latest food preservation During McKimmon's ^ the U.S. Army sJort methods, the newest sewing techniques, first year of promoting bet modern home decorating, and even ter living conditions, 416 Museum of History. farm girls from fourteen North Carolina counties enrolled in 4-H Remembering clubs. After thirty years under her leader¬ DaWa Pozza joined 4-H in the ^ ship, there were 75,000 girls enrolled from all Cary resident /taa Anson County. She remained a mem- as a fifth-grader in one hundred counties. McKimmon said she , school and college, became a demon- ber throughout high worked with "people who were green and is still a 4-H member. When stration agent herself, and ready to grow; and I have seen the sap rise, she noticed Dalla Pozza was an active agent, she the leaves put forth, and a multitude of -s. Poor improved general health among club n blossoms bring fruit in its season." North habits changed, too. When she start Carolina has changed from a rural to an pie the remains of most families larg urban economy, but in 2007 there are still usually were left out on the table, co 208,000 4-H members who inherit i doth, until the family came in after si McKimmon's legacy. ' The family could be gone up to eight Agents knew some of the food was all that time. They stressed safe st,

TH/H, Spring 2007 Food and Faith by Suzanne Mewborn*

°°d *s imPortarit—everyone eats. Food the lovefeast, plays some role in religious life for which is held in most faith communities, whether that connection with Christmas, New Year's, means a church social hour, a covered- and Easter. This ritual also is held on other days dish supper, or the worship of a corn of significance, such as church anniversaries. At deity. In the southern region of the the lovefeast, each person receives a large, flat United States, you might hear about "dinner on yeast bun or a piece of cake, and a mug of coffee the grounds." Earlier genera¬ containing cream and sugar. tions spent entire days at This simple meal is symbolic of church. People might travel the fellowship of the church. It nineteen to twenty miles by suggests that those who break horse and buggy to get there. bread together become much When the worship service or like a family. Catholics cele¬ meeting ended, there was no brate the Feast of the time to get home to eat. Assumption on August 15. The Church members made a big feast includes foods made with meal to share and brought it wheat, special breads, fresh with them to eat outside. herbs, and vegetables and (People in the past often fruits such as eggplant, mel¬ called the midday meal din¬ ons, or grapes. ner. Supper was a lighter Some faiths place restric¬ evening meal.) tions on certain foods for reli¬ (Above) Members of the Grace Episcopal Mission in Several Protestant denomi¬ Edgecombe County enjoy dinner on the grounds in 1920. gious purposes, and these nations are particularly associ¬ Image courtesy of the State Archives, North Carolina Office of restrictions shape their mem¬ Archives and History. (Top right) Women chat during a mid¬ ated with having dinner on the day covered-dish picnic held as part of an all-day area min¬ bers' foodways. In Judaism, grounds: Pentecostal, Baptist, isters and deacons meeting near Yanceyville, in Caswell pork and shellfish should not County, in 1940. Image from the Libra n/ of Congress, Prints and Methodist, Primitive Baptist, Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection. be eaten, and meat and dairy and Church of God. Even in products should not be mixed. the early 1900s, many rural congregations held Wherever they are in the world, Jews who dinner on the grounds every Sunday. First came observe these practices adapt their local foods to the preaching service, followed by dinner outside, the limitations. Muslims celebrate the Islamic and the day often ended with singing, games, vis¬ New Year on March 15. They celebrate with eggs, iting, and more eating. Today churches may cele¬ sugared almonds, other nuts, and candy. brate homecoming, revivals, or rituals and special Religious beliefs also instruct Muslims to avoid occasions, such as baby baptisms or weddings, alcohol, pork, meat-eating animals and birds, with food. Sadder events like funerals may donkeys, monkeys, and elephants. Members of include a meal shared after the service. Some the Hindu faith do not eat beef or pork, and many churches still include meals in a day of worship, observe a totally vegetarian lifestyle. but it is rare to see people eating outside. Many Different faith communities may have other churches have built fellowship halls. These halls food traditions—ranging from special foods eaten allow an indoor version of dinner on the grounds. in celebration to fasting or giving up certain Members can eat in air-conditioning, and rain foods—that are tied to certain times of the year, never cancels the meal! such as Passover, Lent, Ramadan, or Diwali. Can Some religions and religious denominations in you name any of these traditions? How have you North Carolina celebrate their beliefs with food seen food play a role in religious life? 00 and fellowship. Moravians, for example, celebrate

*Suzanne Mewborn serves as the program coordinator for the Tar Heel Junior Historian THJH, Spring 2007 Association at the North Carolina Museum of History. 31 Barbecue: Still Smoking after Three Hundred Years by Debbie Moose*

he word barbecue has many meanings. practice as he surveyed the border 7 Some people use it as a verb to between the two states. describe cooking food outdoors on a In the 1800s barbecue was prepared grill. In North Carolina, barbecue is a at home or by traveling men cooking noun that describes pork meat that is at fairs or festivals. Some of those smoked, chopped or sliced, and cooks eventually opened restaurants. sauced. When North Carolina was a poor, farm¬ The first sit-down barbecue restaurant ing state, especially around the time of the Civil in North Carolina was Melton's in War, hogs were popular. People could raise hogs Rocky Mount, which opened in 1924. faster and more easily than cattle. Hogs could Melton's recently closed, but many forage (graze or search for food) and eat just barbecue restaurants in the state have about anything. They didn't require large pas¬ been in business for a long time. tures, like cattle, and grew quickly. In the 1930s and 1940s, barbecue Some pork would be put away for the winter entered politics. Candidates would go as smoked hams. But for celebrations and other to a town and make campaign speeches. A bar¬ big events, people cooked barbecue. Farmers becue dinner would be offered to lure voters to might cook a hog to celebrate a successful these "political caravans." A lot of political talk tobacco harvest or to feed folks gathered for a still happens over plates of smoked pig. church revival. Barbecue is prepared differently in different Historians believe that American Indians parts of the state. In eastern North Carolina, taught early settlers the art of smoking meat people use the meat from the whole hog. The over wood or charcoal. Preparing barbecue was pork is chopped after it's cooked and is served so common in North Carolina by the early 1700s with a spicy vinegar sauce. In the Piedmont, that William Byrd, of Virginia, wrote about the people use only certain parts of the pig, mainly the shoulder. They serve their barbecue chopped or sliced, with a thicker, sweeter sauce that contains tomatoes. Barbecue fans can get in big arguments over which kind of pork and sauce is better. People cook both kinds of barbecue the same way. Traditionally, they place the pork over a pit of slowly burn¬ ing hickory or oak wood. The wood smoke gives the meat a distinctive flavor. Some cooks prefer to put sauce on the meat while it cooks. Others serve the sauce on the side at the table. But the sauce is so important About twelve thousand people attended this barbecue held in Yanceyville and sponsored by the Good Roads that most people keep their Association, ca. 1920. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. recipes a secret. And barbecue

TH/H, Spring 2007 * Award-winning freelance food writer Debbie Moose is the author of Deviled Eggs: Fifty Recipes from Simple to Sassy and the upcoming Fan Fare: A Playbook of Great Recipes for Tailgating or Enjoying the Game at Home. She is a former food editor for the News and Observer and lives in Raleigh. Visit umnv.debbiemoose.com. Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the White House. The restaurant is open limited hours now, but supermarkets sell Scott's patented barbecue sauce. Because traditional smoking takes so much work, many restaurants now use gas or electric smokers that do not need wood or constant tending. A lot of the elder pit masters are dying, taking their experience with them. Many of them say that younger people don't want to spend the time needed to make traditional bar¬ becue. The wood is also becoming more expen¬ sive. Some people believe that pork not smoked over wood isn't really barbecue. The newly formed North Carolina Barbecue Society in Winston-Salem (www.ncbbqsociety.com) is dedicated to promoting and preserving the tra¬ ditional way. It features a Historic Barbecue Trail of restaurants that still use the old-time method for cooking real 'cue. Despite the changes, barbecue is still a food for fun and celebration. There are barbecue con¬ A pit master cooks barbecue in the early 1900s. Cooking pork this traditional way, over a fire, requires hours of attention. Image courtesy of the State Archives, North tests, where teams of cooks have a great time Carolina Office of Archives and History. trying for prizes. Trained judges taste the barbe¬ cue and evaluate teams on costumes and deco¬ takes a long time to prepare—eight to twelve rations, too. Barbecue festivals take place all hours. Good pit masters—what the people who over the state. The largest is the Lexington cook barbecue are called—have learned from Barbecue Festival, held in October each year. experience how to prepare the wood and handle Lexington has become famous nationwide as a the smoking process. Someone must tend the pit center for barbecue. The festival, which started all night and add wood during the cooking. in 1984, draws more than one hundred thousand Making barbecue by the old-fashioned smoking people to a variety of events, all of which center method takes a lot of work. around barbecue. A "pig pickin'" is different. Instead of serving So the next time you sit down to a big plate of meat already chopped, the cook leaves the pig barbecue—eastern or Piedmont style—enjoy a whole, and guests pick meat directly from it. tasty bit of our state's history. Sauce is offered on the side. Pig pickin's often take place at home or at a tailgate before a foot¬ ball game or other sports event, where fans pull large cooker grills into parking lots. Before the Civil War, enslaved people did the cooking on plantations, so they usually made the barbecue. After the war, former slaves used their cooking skills to make money, passing down knowledge to their children. That may be why many pit masters and barbecue restaurant owners today are African American. One exam¬ ple is the African American minister who started Scott's Famous Barbecue restaurant in Goldsboro. The Reverend Adam Scott began cooking pigs at his home in the 1930s. He was Walter Perry (far left) and his wife, Anne (third from left) get help preparing to host a family barbecue in Hertford County in the 1930s. Image courtesy of invited to serve barbecue to President and Mrs. the State Archives, North Carolina Office of Archives and History.

THJH. Spring 2007 33 Sitting Down for a Cop of Coffee and Civil * by Nancie McDermott

hot dog got it all started—the hot bought tubes of tooth¬ dog that Joe McNeil did not get to paste and kept the eat one day in January 1960. receipts, to show that Nineteen years old and a graduate they were customers of of Williston High School in the store. They then Wilmington, McNeil was a student walked to the afTvhat is now North Carolina A&T State Woolworth's lunch University, a historically black college in counter and took seats. Greensboro. All four requested cups The young man had spent Christmas vaca¬ of coffee. The waitress tion visiting family in New York, and he had refused to serve them, returned to Greensboro via a Greyhound bus. and the store manager Feeling hungry after the long ride, McNeil asked them to leave. stopped by the bus station cafe to order a hot They politely and qui¬ A scene from a lunch counter sit-in in Raleigh in 1960. Image courtesy of the dog. Refused sendee because he was black, he etly stayed put. North Carolina Museum of History. arrived at his dormitory still hungry and angry The store closed over the injustice that African American citi¬ early that day, and the four young men hurried zens faced daily. Black people could work in back to campus to tell friends what they had restaurants preparing food but could not sit done and to ask for help. The next day they down and be served at most of them. They returned to the lunch counter, with several fel¬ could spend money in stores but couldn't low students. The peaceful campaign for the drink from water fountains or use restrooms right to eat in a public restaurant became front¬ set aside for white customers. Racial segrega¬ page news. Community leaders, including tion had been legal and enforced throughout ministers from African American churches, the American South for more than fifty years. members of the local chapter of the National Segregation meant that businesses, govern¬ Association for the Advancement of Colored ment offices, schools, and other public places People (NAACP), and college administrators could turn away people simply based on race. and professors, met with the students. They The system of segregation denied nonwhite encouraged them to keep up their quiet protest. Americans basic rights to eat, travel, work, and By Wednesday, February 3, more than sixty live freely. young people had joined the sit-ins, including McNeil went to his dormitory room on the students from two more historically black edu¬ second floor of Scott Hall and told his room¬ cational institutions in Greensboro: Dudley mate Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jabreel Khazan) what High School and Bennett College for Women. had happened. They talked things over with On Thursday three white students from David Richmond and Frank McCain, two Woman's College (now the University of North friends who lived down the hall. The four Carolina at Greensboro) joined the group. young men had often discussed segregation Students began taking turns sitting at the lunch and what they might do to change the system. counter. Meanwhile, sit-ins had begun down the That night, they decided to take action on street at the S. H. Kress store's lunch counter. behalf of civil rights. Television coverage carried the news The next afternoon, February 1, 1960, the around the country. Within a few days, lunch four met in front of Bluford Library on the col¬ counter sit-ins took place in towns across lege campus. They walked two miles to the North Carolina, including High Point, F. W. Woolworth store on Elm Street in down¬ Salisbury, Shelby, New Bern, Elizabeth City, town Greensboro. As planned, the students Concord, Monroe, Rutherfordton, Henderson,

TH)H, Spring 2007 Raleigh. Young American customers to eat at the Greensboro eople soon carried Woolworth's lunch counter. One was twenty- the peaceful demand eight-year-old Geneva Tisdale. She had or restaurant service been cooking in the store's kitchen for beyond North several years. Tisdale ordered a sand¬ Carolina's borders to wich made with the egg salad she cities throughout the herself had mixed together earlier South, including that morning. Richmond, Baltimore, McNeil, Blair, Richmond, and Nashville, and McCain returned to A&T in the fall. Montgomery. When They felt proud of having inspired a the college semester movement that awakened many peo¬ ended in May, the ple to the cause of civil rights. Racial Dudley High students segregation in restaurants soon ended continued the in North Carolina. The right to buy a Greensboro sit-ins. hot dog, drink from a water fountain, After six months or sit down for a cup of coffee and a This salt shaker came from the F. W. Woolworth store in of lunch counter piece of pie was becoming part of Salisbury, one of the first after the Greensboro store to experi¬ protests throughout everyday life for African Americans ence lunch counter sit-ins. the South, the Woolworth chain's management throughout the South. > Image courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. in New York City decided its stores would begin serving food to everyone. In July three store employees became the first African

wmammumm 4 A potato masher made of ’ oak, ca. 1900-1920.

0 A sausage grinder, ca. * 1890-1930.

g A com mill used in Polk 3 County, ca. 1925-1930. Designed mainly to crack and grind shelled com into grits or commeal, such a mill could be used on the farm for grinding material like rock salt, bark, or ani¬ mal feed.

ti A dough trough, handmade ' from a hollowed poplar log and used with a wooden spoon or paddle to mix bread ingredients. This trough was believed to have been made by enslaved Africans in Orange County, ca. 1820-1860.

A fish trap made in Mecklenburg County in 1978 of split oak. It could be placed horizontally in a small waterway, funneling in fish, then trapping them with sharp splints.

Acme brand tin and steel 6 hand-cranked ice cream freezer, ca. 1915-1920.

Images courtesy of the North Carolina Museum of History. The museum has more than 150,000 artifacts in its collection. THJH, Spring 2007 35 36

North Carolina: . CulinaryCrossroads but alsothewaysthat people not onlyfoodsthemselves, we talkaboutNorthCarolina culinary traditionsandcus¬ used todescribethewaythat choose foodsaccording to toms evolve:foodways.When tory Thereisamodernterm learn thateventhesecommon ple arequitesurprisedto None ofthesefoodsarenative brought herefromanothercountryor foodways, wearediscussing foods haveacomplicatedhis¬ the UnitedStates!Mostpeo¬ to NorthCarolina—oreven region? Didyouguessthreeorfour?One? continent: See ifyoucanidentifywhichofthesefoods black-eyed peas are nativetoNorthCarolinaandwhichwere complex cuisine.Lookatthefollowinglist. much moretoknowaboutoursurprisingly parts oftraditionalCarolinacooking,thereis somewhere else. of thefoodsweeateverydaystartedout individual andcollective cul¬ Piedmont totheMountains.However,many almost everywhere,fromthecoastto tures, religions,habits, and Did youguessthatallsixarenativetoour okra sweet icedtea peaches rice chicken their by AmyRogers Although wethinkofthesefoodsaskey THjH, Spring2007 Okra andtomatoesareabundant Grits aremadefromthecornthat poultry farmsaroundthestate. chicken comesfromthemany your foodcomesfrom?Yes, ave youeverwonderedwhere North Carolinafarmersgrowin History. Image courtesyoftheNorthCarolina Museumof print topresent-dayNorthCarolina, ca.1770-1820 A Scottishimmigrantbroughtthis woodenbutter anti Red Pepper Fudgeand BlueRibbon Biscuits: Favorite RecipesandStories from North Carolina StateFair Winners.Sheis afounderandpublisher ofNoz’ello FestivalPress in Charlotte and afrequent food commentator for National PublicRadio station WFAE. *Amy Rogersisthe authorofHungryforHome:Stories ofFoodfromAcrosstheCarolinas brought thefirstchickensto brought themhere,theywerecrucialinhelp¬ wild fowlnativetoAsia.Early Tea cameherefromAsia.Sugarwastraded efficiently. Despitethecircumstancesthat southern colonies.Thesemenandwomen countries inwesternAfrica,arrivedthe enslaved people,capturedfromrice-growing did notgrowwellatfirst.Thatchangedwhen from Asiatothecolonies,butricecrops times. Tradershadbroughtrice during colonialandantebellum opment oftheSouth'seconomy played acrucialroleinthedevel¬ modern chickensdescendedfrom chicken. Historiansbelievethat preferences. Forexample,consider native toAsia.Likerice,thesecropsflour¬ States, aswellblack-eyedpeas,whichare Enslaved AfricansbroughtokratotheUnited making itswaytotheCaribbeanislands. we seegrowinginorchardsalongruralroads. knew howtoplant,harvest,andstorerice the Americas. European tradersandcolonists around theglobeforhundredsofyearsbefore ing theSouth'seconomythrive. Rice mayseemordinary,butit We cantracebacktoSpainthepeachesthat poisonous. Thepotatoes we usually associatewith Ireland When wethinkoftomatoes, own. Theanswerisyes. Americans canclaimasour dering ifthereareanyfoods African growers. ished underthecareofexpert they thoughttomatoes were refused toeatthembecause Europe, butmostpeople took tomatoeshometo America. Spanishexplorers to America,specificallySouth mind, buttomatoesarenative Italian foodoftencomesto By nowyoumaybewon¬ With the ease and speed of modern trans¬ portation and communication, our foodways are affected directly more than ever before. That's why we can buy tomatoes and straw¬ berries in wintertime; we don't have to wait until summer because fresh produce from a warm cli¬ mate is a truck trip away. With a few computer com¬ mands, we can search and find recipes for anything from achiote seeds to zuc¬ chini. Even small towns now boast restaurants that offer us a world tour of tastes from Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, and island XeNonhCmlf3 C"P “>d *™cer from beyond. When you bite Farmers markets offer a range of foods with origins that you might not tea drinking in their , and other food-: new romeTs^f^ ^ realize! People from around the world have brought their foodways tra¬ into an apple dumpling, ditions to the Tar Heel State. Today interest in products grown organi¬ you taste the shared her¬ cally offers one example of a shift in modem foodways. Image courtesy of the North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development. itage of an Italian ravioli, Indian samosa, Polish pierogi, and began in the Americas, too. Many Europeans Chinese wonton. also rejected the starchy tubers, believing they History, geography, economics, and poli¬ were toxic. tics—and even weather patterns—are the Corn is also native to the Americas and an forces behind what we find on our plates. important part of our regional cuisine. With Each of us contributes to changing foodways its many varieties and uses, corn is endlessly with the culinary choices we make. Despite its versatile. Cornmeal, corn syrup, corn oil, pop¬ complicated origins. North Carolina cuisine corn, and grits are just some of the ways we always will remain a source of pride for the utilize this crop. This humble grain appears in growers, chefs, and home cooks who keep popular Italian cuisine in a dish called alive the best of our regional traditions. polenta. Polenta is made from cooked corn- Understanding food helps us understand meal that is chilled, sliced, and fried. Carolina each another—and the changing world peach farmer and author Dori Sanders likes to around us. talk about the differences and similarities between now-popular foods and those she remembers from her youth. "Nowadays, you can find polenta in fine Italian restaurants," she says, "but I remember eating our version of polenta when I was growing up on the family farm. Back then, we just called it Tried cornmeal mush'!" North Carolina's population continues to grow as thousands of people move here every year. These new Tar Heels—whether from neighboring states or faraway countries— bring with them the rich and diverse cultures of their homelands. The study of foodways will become more important as we interact Visitors sample African American food traditions during the annual African American more frequently with people from other back¬ Cultural Celebration at the North Carolina Museum of History. Many ethnic, cultural, and religious groups have influenced the state's foodways. Image courtesy of the North grounds and beliefs. Carolina Museum of History.

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