News
No honey needed to lure hungry beekeepers
Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman
"If you go away hungry, you don’t know how to eat," member Jo Ann Wilhelm said.
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Published: May 7, 2008
Members of the Forsyth County Beekeepers Association were busy as, well, bees Saturday night.
It was their monthly group meeting and potluck -- so members had spent the day cooking up something good to share.
The potluck is a long-standing tradition of the group, a chapter of the N.C. State Beekeepers Association.
"Hey, we like to eat," said Christopher Petree, a member. "That's what everyone says who visits our club. We have the most and best food of any organization."
Quantity is part of the equation. This is an active club, with 183 members, so a lot of food comes through the door of the Forsyth County Agricultural Building when members assemble for a meeting.
The group has lots to talk about when it meets. It runs a bee school to train and certify new beekeepers. It sends members to remove unwanted swarms and hives. Members also go around giving talks to educate the public about bees, especially about their ecological necessity in the pollination of plants and flowers.
Oh, and there's a meeting, too
On Saturday, Scott and Monica Jewell of the Alamance County chapter, came to talk to members about how they organize presentations for schools and other groups.
Although the fellowship and sharing of information are reasons enough to attend the meetings, attendance gets a boost from the food. As one member whispered to me during the meeting, a few people come for the food and then skip out before the meeting starts.
I know of one person who doesn't keep bees but pays membership dues and comes to meetings, bearing food, partly because he thinks bees are fascinating and partly because the group puts out such a spread. "To die for," in the words of another member, Roger Harris.
I counted almost 100 people at Saturday's meeting. A long table was packed with about 55 dishes -- and that didn't include the 22 desserts displayed on a separate table.
At 5:30 p.m. a member gave a blessing over a loudspeaker. Then the food line, which stretched out the door, started to move.
Folks could choose from fried chicken, chicken pie, chicken and dumplings, country ham, pot roast, barbecue, ground-beef-and-bean stew and more.
People brought multiple containers of pasta salad, green beans, potato salad and deviled eggs. There were homemade pickles, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, stewed corn, celery with pimento cheese, fresh radishes, broccoli salad, yeast rolls -- and that's not the half of it.
Ruth Grigg brought a large mound of marinated asparagus grown in her garden. Martha Shutt brought tequila chicken wings and lima beans. Elaine Styers made ham, pinto beans, corn bread and pineapple cake.
Desserts included strawberry pie, strawberry cake, pound cake, brownies, egg-custard pie, chocolate cake and fruit salad.
Betty Isley made persimmon pudding, from fruit she had frozen in the fall, just for Robert Friddle, a fellow member and friend. "He says I can't come if I don't bring it," she said with a smile.
Sure, a few prepared dishes were picked up at the store. And curiously, I did not find any dishes obviously made with honey. But that didn't matter when faced with such a delightful display of country cooking.
No one seemed to be able to answer the question as to why beekeepers, or in some cases their spouses, make such good cooks. I suspect it has to do with a respect for ingredients. Anyone who makes the effort to produce their own food understands that it deserves loving attention in getting it to the table.
It doesn't make any difference if it's keeping a hive of bees to make honey or growing tomatoes in the backyard. Seeing such work come to fruition is a guaranteed jump-start to becoming a good cook.
Debbie Moody, the group's treasurer, said that the meetings inspire her to cook. "I don't do that much cooking, but I always try to do something good for this because I know everyone else is," she said.
"The only thing I can compare it to is a church homecoming, except this is every month. It's the flavors you don't get anywhere else," Moody said.
Another member, Jo Ann Wilhelm, put it another way. "If you go away hungry, you don't know how to eat."
The Forsyth County Beekeepers Association collected many of its favorite recipes, including some with honey, in a cookbook that it put out last year. The book, Cooking with Beekeepers, costs $12. To get a copy or to find out more about the local beekeepers association, visit www.forsythbeekeepers.org.
■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.
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