Enjoying Barbecue Prepared Like When You Were a Kid

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.]

Have you ever passed a restaurant, wondered how good its food is, but didn’t stop because you were saving money by not eating out? That’s my story about North Carolina barbecue when I was growing up.

I grew up in the Piedmont in a stable but modest neighborhood of Winston-Salem. In the heart of
“Lexington-style” barbecue, the closest restaurant was less than a mile from my house. Although it was a place that I walked nearby when I carried daily newspapers, I never ate there because I didn’t have the extra coins to buy a sandwich.

The desire to taste barbecue in my hometown went unsatisfied for years because after college I lived out of state. Many years later when I visited Winston-Salem, I was disappointed that Simos Barbecue, the neighborhood diner which had opened in 1939, was no longer in business. It closed after the owner’s health had declined. Its closing disappointed not only me and others in the city but legions of former students at nearby Wake Forest University who went online to lament their sorrow.

Continue reading at the NCFood blog ...

Time for Persimmon Pudding

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.] 

Cool temperatures mean fall fruits and vegetables. When the summer temperatures drop, one tree becomes more noticeable as its round fruit ripens and takes on an orange-brown hue. Is it time to pick persimmons and make pudding?

Many of us remember days from childhood when we asked if the persimmons could be picked. Impatiently we had to wait until the fruit was ready. Picked too early, persimmons can leave a sharp or bitter taste. As many children learn, being patient and giving persimmons a long period to ripen (sometimes as long as until the first frost occurs) can improve the flavor. The extended time increases the sugars and decreases the acids that cause the bitterness.


Continue reading at the NCFood blog... 

Note: The family recipe of persimmon pudding at the end of the article will be reprinted with permission in Eating Appalachia by Darrin Nordahl that is scheduled for publication in early 2015 by Chicago Review Press.