South Carolina, Food, and Roots, Part One

I wrote of Christmas 2009 and our family meal and the vegetables and dishes prepared based on family traditions. I continued the effort in Thanksgiving 2010 working further into my plans to enforce some tradition and educate my young nephews. I had Caleb prepare the Crisco cake (egg whites) with yellow icing (yes, use of the yolks). The cake was a bit dry (hard to gauge when such a thing is ready and a second effort results in a fallen cake) and the icing was sticky (but still mighty good). It’s an Agnes Hughes recipe from about 1930 but I guarantee most of your grandmothers made something similar. The Galt cousins come for Thanksgiving and so I pulled out an 1844 letter describing the wedding of a common ancestor generations ago and read the letter and talked food.



I had taken the nephews back to Lancaster, South Carolina this past summer. Agnes Kirk Hughes is the youngest of 11 children; her parents (Elizabeth Harper and Dick Kirk) move to a farm north of Winfield in 1877. Agnes got on the granite kick 50 years ago, replacing tombstones here; and we find her work there with a large monument to her grandmother listing the names of all the sons and the battles (Civil War) where they fell.



I think we really chanced on some of the Scotch heritage. One restaurant offered a breakfast of liver pudding and grits (we did not try it); every restaurant offered collard greens (we tried every offering and found none truly palatable; too many generations here with turnip greens and not the stronger collards); and the fried pork belly (one try – pure “off sweet” grease – how did so many of my ancestors live into their 90’s on those diets?).



To be aware of our roots. To preserve our history. One more resolution for 2011: To do more research; to preserve the memory and find some way to instill an awareness of our heritage in the next generation.

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