Anew book is devoted to the sweet life of North Carolina bakers.
Sweet Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, $25) has more than 220 recipes from home cooks.
The book chronicles a six-year adventure for author Foy Allen Edelman, who traveled all over the state to collect recipes and stories.
The adventure started in 2001, after Edelman was laid off from her job as a systems analyst and was looking for something different and fulfilling to do with her life.
"I had been to a zillion covered-dish suppers, had listened to so many people's stories. I was thinking how wonderful it would be to collect recipes," Edelman said in a recent phone interview.
Edelman, who lives in Wake County with her husband, didn't just send out a call for people to mail her recipes. "What kind of adventure would that be?" she said. Instead, Edelman went to them -- in all 100 counties of the state -- with tape recorder in hand. She got tips on good cooks from local extension agents, librarians, hairdressers, anyone she could.
"All those kitchens I sat in, all those stories I heard told --when I listen to them, I go back to Carteret County or wherever it was, to the season I was there and I remember everything," she said. "I'm hoping to share that with people."
One of the stories is about the late Nolie Ridenhour Zimmerman of Rowan County. Edelman met her in 2004, when Zimmerman was 104 years old. Zimmerman told how she stole a "chest" pie recipe off the party-phone line by eavesdropping. "She remembered every ingredient, and she remembered who she stole it from," Edelman said.
Edelman got a kick out of a story by Kay Baker of Lenoir County, whose lemon meringue pie is in the book. "In college, she had to pass this chemistry class to get a degree in art. A fellow in her class said if you make me a lemon pie, I'll show you how to pass this class. And she passed," Edelman said.
Some of the stories are on video. They can be seen at Edelman's Web site, www.talkingcookbook.com.
Edelman collected so many recipes and stories that she is planning a series of books on main dishes, vegetables, breads and more.
The chapters in Sweet Carolina cover cakes, pies, cookies, puddings and candies, as well as icings, sauces and fillings.
They include hot milk sponge cake, icebox fruitcake, old-fashioned teacakes, Moravian molasses cookies and banana pudding. Candies include pecan divinity and old-fashioned butter mints.
The pie chapter includes apple pie from Tom Brown, an expert on heritage apples in Clemmons, and "lazy day" sonker, a Piedmont specialty similar to cobbler, contributed by Lisa Turney in Surry County.
One of the more unusual recipes is kanuchi, an American Indian pudding of hominy, pinto beans and walnuts.
Some recipes date to the 19th century. If the recipes have something in common, Edelman said, it's that they are not gourmet desserts, but humble dishes made with everyday ingredients by people of limited means. "These people would take whatever they had and make something good out of it," she said.
mhastings@wsjournal.com
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