North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery

Book excerpt: Acknowledged as the classic work on North Carolina cuisine, North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery was first published in 1955. This new edition, marking the book's first appearance in paperback, has been revised and updated by the author and includes several dozen new dishes. The book is already a standard reference in many kitchens, both for the wealth of good recipes it presents and for the accompanying information on the distinctive heritage of the state's cooking. Beth Tartan provides recipes for such North Carolina classics as Persimmon Pudding and Sweet Potato Pie. A chapter on Old Salem highlights the cuisine of the Moravian settlement there and offers recipes, including Moravian Sugar Cake, from their famous celebrations. Tartan evokes the time when people ate three meals a day and sat down to a magical Sunday dinner each week. With the advent of boxed mixes and supermarkets, she says, old favorites began to disappear from menus. And in time, so have the cooks whose storehouse of knowledge and skills represent an important link to our past.