She cooks her potatoes and onions un- 

 til soft, and salts and peppers the 

 crabs. The ingredients are layered in 

 the pot, adding the onions and 

 potatoes first and placing the crabs on 

 top, Eloise says. She adds water, 

 seasoned with crab boil, to make the 

 gravy. After cooking the crab stew on 

 high heat for five to ten minutes, 

 Eloise turns the heat to simmer before 

 adding her cornmeal dumplings. 



A stew, chowder or soup just isn't 

 complete in Carteret County unless 

 you add traditional cornmeal dump- 

 lings to the gravy. Eloise says she 

 makes her dumplings out of cornmeal, 

 salt and just enough water to hold the 

 dumpling together. "I shape the dum- 

 plings into patties or cakes with my 

 hands," she says. "Then I drop them 

 into my stew or chowder to simmer for 

 about 15 minutes. 



"We put cornmeal dumplings in 

 clam chowder, conch soup and 

 collards. We put them in everything 

 we boil. They used to say Carteret 

 County cooks put dumplings in the 

 clothes they washed back when clothes 

 were boiled before washing machines 

 were common." 



The Pigotts continue another time- 

 honored coastal practice — corning fish 

 in salt brine for preservation. When 

 the spot start running in the fall, the 

 Pigotts begin their brining process by 

 keeping the fish they catch in an ice- 

 water bath. The spot are cleaned, but 

 not scaled. The fish are first put in a 



light brine solution and stored in the 

 refrigerator for a few days, Eloise says. 

 Then the spot are washed and placed 

 in heavy brine in large containers. 



When her family has a hankering for 

 fish, Eloise removes the salty spot 

 from their storage containers with a 

 wooden spatula. Never use metal in 

 the brine, she says. Eloise soaks the 

 fish in water, changing it often, to 

 remove some of the salt. Then she may 

 boil the spot for breakfast or dinner. If 

 preparing the fish for dinner, Eloise 

 also boils some potatoes and onions. 

 The spot is mashed in with the 

 potatoes and onions on the plate and 

 hot pepper vinegar sprinkled over the 

 fare. 



Eloise says they store the fish from 

 season to season. "We enjoy the fish 

 we brine," she says. "It gives us the 

 advantage of having fish in the winter 

 when you can't get fresh seafood." 



Fish roe, the eggs found in the 

 tubular, saclike ovaries of female fish 

 such as mullet, menhaden, croaker and 

 herring, are coastal Carolina's answer 

 to caviar. The roe can be fried, baked 

 or scrambled with eggs. To preserve the 

 roe for year-round use, it can be dried 

 or frozen. Eloise uses the old-timey 

 method of drying mullet roe in the sun 

 for a few days, turning them 

 periodically. Mullet roe give off a 

 strong, pungent aroma as they dry. 

 The flavor of roe varies from species to 

 species. "Roe are like olives, either you 

 like them or you don't," says Eloise. 



Photo by Neil Caudle 



Eloise Pigott 



When a gathering is called for, 

 coastal families don't hesitate to center 

 the gathering on food, particularly 

 seafood. Oyster roasts, fish fries, 

 shrimparoos and clam bakes make a 

 good excuse for seeing friends, gather- 

 ing the church members or just plain 

 having fun (see clam bake recipe, page 

 2). 



But whether it's a large gathering or 

 just family, coastal cooks like Nellie 

 Myrtle and Eloise continue to use the 

 recipes that they know have been tried 

 and proven for generations. 



— KathyHart 



Before the fish stick and Captain's Platter . . . 



Boiled skate, baked turtle and 

 roasted eel. Not the most popular 

 menu by today's standards. But in the 

 18th century, such dishes were regular 

 fare. Folks then weren't so squeamish 

 about what they ate. While many 

 dishes could just as well turn up on a 

 seafood restaurant's menu today, 

 others, such as the fish muddle, the 

 pine bark stew and the eel stifle, might 

 make some of us turn up our noses. 

 Not because they're not good, mind 

 you. They're just unfamiliar. 



The old dishes had both flavor and 

 variety, says Joyce Taylor, Sea 

 Grant's marine advisory agent at the 

 North Carolina State University 

 Seafood Lab in Morehead City. This 

 summer, Taylor has been researching 

 and testing colonial recipes with her 



team of nutrition leaders from Exten- 

 sion Homemakers Clubs in Carteret 

 County. The dishes they prepared got 

 high marks, and so did their lesson in 

 history. 



Taylor says our colonial ancestors 

 ate a wider variety of seafood and 

 depended on it more than we do today. 

 Seafoods were the one thing they could 

 count on when other food supplies ran 

 low. In 1588, Thomas Harriot wrote in 

 "A briefe and true report of the new 

 found land of Virginia" that the 

 colonists were eating sturgeon, herring, 

 trout, porpoise, ray, menhaden, mullet 

 and flounder as well as many fish that 

 he couldn't name. Crabs, oysters, 

 scallops, periwinkles and turtles also 

 were a part of the settlers' diets, he 

 says. 



