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The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food
At the intersection of food and story, The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food will offer a collection of essays about the best meal, food and memory, the best family tradition, a cherished food ritual, a dreaded food ritual, a favorite recipe, the worst recipe, the worst meal, the funniest meal.
280 pages, Paperback
Published October 31, 2016
16 people are currently reading
620 people want to read
About the author
Randall Kenan
25 books271 followersRandall Kenan's first novel, A Visitation of Spirits was published by Grove Press in 1989; and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, was published in 1992 by Harcourt, Brace. That collection was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was among The New York Times Notable Books of 1992. He was also the author of a young adult biography of James Baldwin (1993), and wrote the text for Norman Mauskoff=s book of photographs, A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta (1997). Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1999, and was nominated for the Southern Book Award.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1963, and spent his childhood in Chinquapin, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a B.A. in English in 1985. From 1985 to 1989 he worked on the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, publishers. In 1989 he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. He was the first William Blackburn Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University in the fall of 1994, and the Edourd Morot-Sir Visiting Professor of Creating Writing at his alma mater in 1995. He was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (1997-98),Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and held the Lehman-Brady Professorship at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He has also taught urban literature at Vassar College.
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and was the 1997 Rome Prize winner from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Kenan passed away in August 2020, just after his short story collection "If I Had Two Wings" was published.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1963, and spent his childhood in Chinquapin, North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a B.A. in English in 1985. From 1985 to 1989 he worked on the editorial staff of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, publishers. In 1989 he began teaching writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. He was the first William Blackburn Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University in the fall of 1994, and the Edourd Morot-Sir Visiting Professor of Creating Writing at his alma mater in 1995. He was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford (1997-98),Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Memphis, and held the Lehman-Brady Professorship at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. He has also taught urban literature at Vassar College.
He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Sherwood Anderson Award, the John Dos Passos Prize, and was the 1997 Rome Prize winner from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Kenan passed away in August 2020, just after his short story collection "If I Had Two Wings" was published.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 20, 2021
As others have written, this is a tour through North Carolina by way of food and culinary traditions. Randall Kenan deserves high praise for putting together a diverse and appealing tour. This book can be nicely complimented by way of Sheri Castle’s The Key Ingredient on North Carolina PBS, which showcases local cuisine from farm to table.
June 24, 2017
The Carolina Table lays out stories about beloved food and community the way aunts and great-aunts in Nancie McDermott’s The Family Reunion laid out their best dishes on clothed tables at the Schley Grange. Be a hungry child, walk beside the long tables crowded nearly at eye-level with best pickles in cut-glass bowls, deviled eggs on proper deviled egg plates, Aunt Julia’s chicken pie, “threes” and “actual vegetables”, then the dessert table with “flights of pies”, fresh coconut cake, black walnut fudge and peach cobbler. It’s how I felt as I read this collection. My plate was over-full, and I kept coming back for more.
Reading The Carolina Table also feels like speaking your blessings out loud, with gratitude. Richard Chess’s Make It Holy about his “Sabbath Tribe” is a heart-full celebration of rituals of food, history, scripture. Bridgette A. Lacy’s Mater Day reminds us that we still yearn to gather together over good, good food at its glorious peak.
I recommend that you sit upright reading, so as not create an unsafe situation when you read Michael Parker’s Let’s Cook, EXCLAMATION POINT, including a remembrance of his father’s Scrambled Hamburger (“apparently his hamburger did not need any help”) or Stephen Petrow’s The Pies That Bind, a cautionary tale about complacency.
In three brief pages, Lenard D. Moore’s An Onslow County Tradition sings a ballad of land and sea, fatherhood, abundance, salty, sweaty work and contentment, memories of which cannot be erased by heartbreak, death, or bulldozers.
Diya Abdo’s On Food and Other Weapons is a sliver of this Syrian mother, now, here, tucked away in a North Carolina community. And, it is also, of course, the oldest story of all: an isolated, shy immigrant cook who knows as she breathes that her food will bring people to the table, to the home, to the heart. “The visiting Afghani boys say to ‘tell her that her food is delicious.’ That it tastes exactly like something they eat in Afghanistan.” Her cooking, like Sophia Woo’s dumplings in Vulnerability or Paul Cuadros’ chicken in Pollo a la Brasa Keeps Turning in North Carolina remind us that we are still a messy, delicious community of people from all over the world, that Southern food will evolve as the cookers and eaters are woven in.
In North Carolina and other places, food traditions were nearly lost by the post-war generation of can-cooks, my mother among them. The writers in this collection are conservators, having saved the stories as well as the well-worn recipes, like Lee Smith’s mother’s in The Recipe Box, “soft, weathered index cards covered with thumbprints and spatters”. And good that they did, for as she says, “our recipes tell us everything about us” and we are handed down treasure. Jaki Shelton-Green in Singing Tables says “the ghosts of other tables, other kitchens, remind me that we are all just ingredients and what matters is the grace with which I cook the meal”.
Zelda Lockhart’s Garden Gate is for everyone who ever thought, “If my ancestors could do it, I certainly can… and should”. She could and did: cheer her triumph. In Zelda’s garden, in Wayne Caldwell’s Ruby’s Kitchen, on the cottage deck in Bill Smith’s Hard Crab Stew, or Jill McCorkle’s grandmother’s kitchen sink in Remembering the Cake we visit the places where love and food and memory meet.
My generation of chefs and cooks show our gratitude in the thriving food scenes from Asheville to Durham to Kinston to Wilmington, and the kids are alright. As Sophia Woo says, despite the intense hardships of building a food business, “What made it worth it was people came to eat.”
In the same way that Nancie McDermott’s family reunion has evolved over years and generations, we may pine and hunger for the meals of those uncomplicated (we imagine) old black and white photographs and supper tables, but we won’t turn down a good takeout chicken leg and biscuit. We still gather and eat, and there is chocolate cake. All is not lost, and these good people remind us of the truest gifts of food, family and communion at our Carolina tables.
Reading The Carolina Table also feels like speaking your blessings out loud, with gratitude. Richard Chess’s Make It Holy about his “Sabbath Tribe” is a heart-full celebration of rituals of food, history, scripture. Bridgette A. Lacy’s Mater Day reminds us that we still yearn to gather together over good, good food at its glorious peak.
I recommend that you sit upright reading, so as not create an unsafe situation when you read Michael Parker’s Let’s Cook, EXCLAMATION POINT, including a remembrance of his father’s Scrambled Hamburger (“apparently his hamburger did not need any help”) or Stephen Petrow’s The Pies That Bind, a cautionary tale about complacency.
In three brief pages, Lenard D. Moore’s An Onslow County Tradition sings a ballad of land and sea, fatherhood, abundance, salty, sweaty work and contentment, memories of which cannot be erased by heartbreak, death, or bulldozers.
Diya Abdo’s On Food and Other Weapons is a sliver of this Syrian mother, now, here, tucked away in a North Carolina community. And, it is also, of course, the oldest story of all: an isolated, shy immigrant cook who knows as she breathes that her food will bring people to the table, to the home, to the heart. “The visiting Afghani boys say to ‘tell her that her food is delicious.’ That it tastes exactly like something they eat in Afghanistan.” Her cooking, like Sophia Woo’s dumplings in Vulnerability or Paul Cuadros’ chicken in Pollo a la Brasa Keeps Turning in North Carolina remind us that we are still a messy, delicious community of people from all over the world, that Southern food will evolve as the cookers and eaters are woven in.
In North Carolina and other places, food traditions were nearly lost by the post-war generation of can-cooks, my mother among them. The writers in this collection are conservators, having saved the stories as well as the well-worn recipes, like Lee Smith’s mother’s in The Recipe Box, “soft, weathered index cards covered with thumbprints and spatters”. And good that they did, for as she says, “our recipes tell us everything about us” and we are handed down treasure. Jaki Shelton-Green in Singing Tables says “the ghosts of other tables, other kitchens, remind me that we are all just ingredients and what matters is the grace with which I cook the meal”.
Zelda Lockhart’s Garden Gate is for everyone who ever thought, “If my ancestors could do it, I certainly can… and should”. She could and did: cheer her triumph. In Zelda’s garden, in Wayne Caldwell’s Ruby’s Kitchen, on the cottage deck in Bill Smith’s Hard Crab Stew, or Jill McCorkle’s grandmother’s kitchen sink in Remembering the Cake we visit the places where love and food and memory meet.
My generation of chefs and cooks show our gratitude in the thriving food scenes from Asheville to Durham to Kinston to Wilmington, and the kids are alright. As Sophia Woo says, despite the intense hardships of building a food business, “What made it worth it was people came to eat.”
In the same way that Nancie McDermott’s family reunion has evolved over years and generations, we may pine and hunger for the meals of those uncomplicated (we imagine) old black and white photographs and supper tables, but we won’t turn down a good takeout chicken leg and biscuit. We still gather and eat, and there is chocolate cake. All is not lost, and these good people remind us of the truest gifts of food, family and communion at our Carolina tables.
May 17, 2024
This was an all-college read used by all of us who taught college composition at Guilford Technical Community College. The students (many of them anyway) commented on how much they enjoyed the readings and the writing project that accompanied them. On my part, this was a fun read. I was new to North Carolina, and I truly enjoyed reading about North Carolina's foodways.
February 8, 2021
Useful, entertaining resource, filled with stories of unusual (to me) foods such as oyster stew and recipes begging to be tried such as bourbon pecan pie. Would be even better as an anthology if so much of the writing wasn’t so precious or sentimental.
March 4, 2020
A delightful celebration of food by North Carolina-based writers, this curated book is beautifully edited by Randall Kenan. This is food writing at its best. It is a book of stories just as much about the gastronomy of a particular local culture as it is about memory and emotion. Each story is a poignant memoir in which the writer recalls foods, preparations, and meals in the roads and byways of place and time.
There are few readers - especially those with southern roots, myself included - who would not be able to relate to these stories. They are a treasure. Everyone has food stories. Everyone should read the delicious samplings by these excellent authors.
Here are a few quotes.
"Some folks see the American South as a bug trapped in amber; others see the South as an integral part of the Great American experiment - still aspiring to get it right, to make it better; an ongoing thing - rich with contributions, opportunities, and possibilities." Randall Kenan, Introduction
"My family and extended tribes never needed a copy of Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. It's in our blood...We know what we know about the power fried gizzards, leftover meatloaf, turkey necks, fried croakers, okra gumbo, and moonshine." Jaki Shelton Green, Singing Tables
"She was something of a pessimist, but I'd rather call her outlook Appalachian Fatalism that knows life is hard, you work until you die, and every silver lining has a cloud. Then God, who after all is in charge, rewards and punishes." Wayne Caldwell, Ruby's Kitchen
"Covering that filling with pastry instead of mile-high meringue is a mustache on a culinary Mona Lisa to me." Celia Rivenbark, Grape (Hull Pie) Expectations on Highway 227
"With any luck we're sitting on the deck of a cottage somewhere out on Hatteras island. Late in the afternoon there comes a moment when the sun is still hot, but the wind starts to come in off the sea. Heat radiates up from the sand as the breeze cools you at the same time. When this happens, tension magically leaves my neck and shoulders for a second. I feel like I am where I belong." Bill Smith, Hard Crab Stew
"Her grits ignorance proves the old cliche, Florida really isn't a Southern state at all." Moreton Neal, Putting on the Grits
"We sprinkled vinegar and sugar on our sliced German Johnson tomatoes, and she [my grandmother] made a watermelon rind pickle so luminous and translucent green it could have come from the Emerald City of Oz." Marianne Gingher, Pie Love You, Cake Do Without You
There are few readers - especially those with southern roots, myself included - who would not be able to relate to these stories. They are a treasure. Everyone has food stories. Everyone should read the delicious samplings by these excellent authors.
Here are a few quotes.
"Some folks see the American South as a bug trapped in amber; others see the South as an integral part of the Great American experiment - still aspiring to get it right, to make it better; an ongoing thing - rich with contributions, opportunities, and possibilities." Randall Kenan, Introduction
"My family and extended tribes never needed a copy of Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. It's in our blood...We know what we know about the power fried gizzards, leftover meatloaf, turkey necks, fried croakers, okra gumbo, and moonshine." Jaki Shelton Green, Singing Tables
"She was something of a pessimist, but I'd rather call her outlook Appalachian Fatalism that knows life is hard, you work until you die, and every silver lining has a cloud. Then God, who after all is in charge, rewards and punishes." Wayne Caldwell, Ruby's Kitchen
"Covering that filling with pastry instead of mile-high meringue is a mustache on a culinary Mona Lisa to me." Celia Rivenbark, Grape (Hull Pie) Expectations on Highway 227
"With any luck we're sitting on the deck of a cottage somewhere out on Hatteras island. Late in the afternoon there comes a moment when the sun is still hot, but the wind starts to come in off the sea. Heat radiates up from the sand as the breeze cools you at the same time. When this happens, tension magically leaves my neck and shoulders for a second. I feel like I am where I belong." Bill Smith, Hard Crab Stew
"Her grits ignorance proves the old cliche, Florida really isn't a Southern state at all." Moreton Neal, Putting on the Grits
"We sprinkled vinegar and sugar on our sliced German Johnson tomatoes, and she [my grandmother] made a watermelon rind pickle so luminous and translucent green it could have come from the Emerald City of Oz." Marianne Gingher, Pie Love You, Cake Do Without You
August 9, 2017
I won a copy of The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food in a Goodreads Giveaway. (People really do win!)
I love cooking and have been collecting cookbooks for a number of years. This is not what I call a cookbook though it does have a number recipes in it. What I adore about this book were the stories of North Carolina kitchen tables. Some of them reminded me of my Mamaw's table in Southeast Kentucky. It was the various authors bringing the different flavors that make up North Carolina cuisine and serving them at homes where love ruled the table. Some of the stories will educate you. Some will have you howling with laughter. All will inspire you. These are stories that nourish the soul as well as the stomach.
Your stomach will be nourished, too. Though not a cookbook in the traditional style, there are recipes included. The Annie Collins Pound Cake will delight your taste buds as no box mix for pound cake can. It is divine and not complicated at all to make. I was never one for Butter Beans. I ate my Mamaw's and they were good. My favorites though were Leather Britches. I made the recipe for Better Butter Beans that is in the book and fell in love with Butter Beans. Who knew they could taste so good? If you have never tried cheese grits, I invite you to follow the easy recipe for this southern favorite. If you eat your cornbread on a plate, try it in a cold glass of milk, (a filling supper any night of the week). Sausage biscuits do cure anything that ails you, especially covered in gravy.
I love cooking and have been collecting cookbooks for a number of years. This is not what I call a cookbook though it does have a number recipes in it. What I adore about this book were the stories of North Carolina kitchen tables. Some of them reminded me of my Mamaw's table in Southeast Kentucky. It was the various authors bringing the different flavors that make up North Carolina cuisine and serving them at homes where love ruled the table. Some of the stories will educate you. Some will have you howling with laughter. All will inspire you. These are stories that nourish the soul as well as the stomach.
Your stomach will be nourished, too. Though not a cookbook in the traditional style, there are recipes included. The Annie Collins Pound Cake will delight your taste buds as no box mix for pound cake can. It is divine and not complicated at all to make. I was never one for Butter Beans. I ate my Mamaw's and they were good. My favorites though were Leather Britches. I made the recipe for Better Butter Beans that is in the book and fell in love with Butter Beans. Who knew they could taste so good? If you have never tried cheese grits, I invite you to follow the easy recipe for this southern favorite. If you eat your cornbread on a plate, try it in a cold glass of milk, (a filling supper any night of the week). Sausage biscuits do cure anything that ails you, especially covered in gravy.
August 22, 2017
As Randall Kenan says in the introduction to The Carolina Table, "This is the story of the Tar Heel state through food." (p.7) A collection of essays centering around Southern food, food memories, and how food continues to shape the cultural experience of the South today. As with any collection of essays by different authors, there are some I liked more than others and some I could more personally relate to, but overall it is a great collection of stories about Southern food. It's a pretty quick read and I liked that the editor divided the stories into sections - Someone's in the Kitchen, Carolina Flavor, Adventures in Eating, and Traditions. Definitely a must-read for any NC foodies.
A quote I really liked:
"One time when we all went out for bagels in Chapel Hill, she [Lee Smith's mother] said, 'This may taste good to someone who has never eaten a biscuit.' Another thing she used to say is, 'No matter what is wrong with you, a sausage biscuit will make you feel a whole lot better.' I agree..." (p.47)
A quote I really liked:
"One time when we all went out for bagels in Chapel Hill, she [Lee Smith's mother] said, 'This may taste good to someone who has never eaten a biscuit.' Another thing she used to say is, 'No matter what is wrong with you, a sausage biscuit will make you feel a whole lot better.' I agree..." (p.47)
February 5, 2022
This book is easily the best book I’ve read in months and months. A collection of essays, reportage, poetry, recipes, humor and more from editor Randall Kenan, this book sang to me. I slowed down my reading in order to savor and think about the words, people, culture, traditions, flavors, memories, soil, sea and rivers it described. I’m from North Carolina, and this book made me love my home state even more.
John T Edge said in his review that this book is “smart, inclusive, generous.” Absolutely right. If you live in or love or are curious about the state, foodways, community tradition and culture, the environment, or great writing, grab a copy and let’s chat about what you read!
John T Edge said in his review that this book is “smart, inclusive, generous.” Absolutely right. If you live in or love or are curious about the state, foodways, community tradition and culture, the environment, or great writing, grab a copy and let’s chat about what you read!
June 13, 2025
I had to read this book for an English class and it was surprisingly entertaining. I normally don’t like reading about food but these short stories were really interesting and unique, and felt like food tales were just a small part of each chapter. It was nice to hear local places mentioned too.
December 12, 2020
Enjoyable book! I liked reading the chapters by different writers from (or settled in) North Carolina. It brought back fond memories of visiting my grandparents and sitting around.the dinner table.
November 18, 2023
I loved this book. It is charming, I loved the different voices, talking about the food that was important to them in the past as well as the present.
March 17, 2024
Read this for book club. Enjoyed the essays & grape hull pie in particular (though cannot imagine such a thing!) 😂
May 24, 2017
Like the saying, "you are what you eat" this book describes the treasured food culture that is called Southern food. I read this in one sitting-all at once it was funny, inspiring and educative. I even marked the pages with recipes, so I can come back and try them.
January 8, 2021
Enjoyed reading real stories about people and their love for good food in NC. Been here for over 5 years but feel like it’s longer with how I could connect to the writers.
September 26, 2017
This collection of essays by North Carolina writers on NC foodways highlights the diversity and richness of the state's culinary and literary cultures. Each essay is a jewel, and reading them made me appreciate and left me hungry to explore more Carolina food cultures. They also evoked memories of my own family's southern food traditions and left me longing for a visit with my mother.
November 12, 2023
I read this for school. Neat and interesting book. Great to learn about southern and North Carolinian culture and food. Some stories were intriguing and emotional. Some stories I just couldn't bother to read.
April 18, 2017
"Nabs were, and still are, the king of a road trip, the salve on a workday."
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May 22, 2019Great!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews