Mousse, it’s not just for chocolate.

November 30th is National Mousse Day.  You may be surprised what all you can turn into a mousse.

“Asparagus Mousse” from Peace Cookbook.

“Blue Cheese Mousse”

“Spam Mousse” from Dixie Classic Fair for Northwest North Carolina: Favorite Recipes from Friends of the Fair.

“Malay Mousse” from High Hampton Hospitality.

“Cucumber Mousse” from Home Cookin’.

“Maple Mousse” from Favorite Recipes.

“Chicken Mousse” from Soup to Nuts: A Cook Book of Recipes Contributed by Housewives and Husbands of Alamance County and Other Sections of State and Country.

“Pumpkin Mousse” from Classic Cookbook.

“Chocolate Mousse a la Graymont” from Favorite Recipes of the Lower Cape Fear.

In barber’s chair, whites weren’t in driver’s seat

“With a flick of the wrist, 19th century black barbers could have slit the throats of the white men they shaved….

“While no record exists of a black barber behaving like Sweeney Todd, stories circulated that reminded white customers of the threat. In one such account, from New Bern, North Carolina, physician Hugh Jones  entered a barbershop, sat in the barber’s chair, placed his revolver on the counter and told Brister, the slave barber, that if Brister were to cut him he would be shot. Brister calmly shaved the man without a nick. Afterward, asked if his hand had trembled while he shaved Dr. Jones, the barber replied that, quite the opposite, he had remained calm because ‘he had made up his mind to save his own life by cutting the throat of Dr. Jones if it became necessary.’ ”

— From “Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom” by Douglas W. Bristol Jr. (2009)

 

Local North Carolina cookbooks get a nod in the News & Observer.

In her 11/28/12 article, My house is home to a bid bug, Andrea Weigl tells of how her affinity for community and church cookbooks all started with a hunt for southern recipes.  Some recipes mentioned include pickles, preserves, cheese biscuits, tuna casserole, spoon bread, and lemon chess pie.  So we scoured our cookbook collection to see if we could locate these treasures too.

“Crisp Pickles” from Historic Moores Creek Cook Book: A Collection of Old and New Recipes.

“Easy, Quick Peach Preserves” from Columbus County Cookbook II.

“Cheese Biscuits”

“Sweet Pear Relish”

“Coconut Candy” from Favorite Recipes of the Lower Cape Fear.

“Tuna Casserole” from Hyde County Cook Book.

“Deep South Spoon Bread” from Good Eatin’ from Duke Memorial United Methodist Church, Durham, North Carolina.

“Lemon Chess Pie” from Peace Cookbook.

“Pound Cake” from Favorite Recipes.

“Blackberry Jam Cake” from The Charlotte Cookbook.

 

Senior Superlatives from North Carolina High Schools

There’s great material throughout the yearbooks in the North Carolina High School Yearbooks collection on DigitalNC. We’ve pulled out a few of our favorite senior superlatives for a Flickr slideshow.

The superlatives range from Most Studious to Most Vivacious and include great photos from high schools in Fayetteville, Burlington, Mocksville, and a handful of other towns around the state.

Not quite a golden spike, but a milestone nonetheless

On this day in 1927: Gov. Angus McLean of North Carolina and Gov. Harry Byrd of Virginia unlock a ceremonial gate across the section of U.S. 1 now linking their states.

The nation’s first major border-to-border highway will eventually cover 2,467 miles from Canada to Key West. In North Carolina it enters in Warren County, runs through Henderson, Raleigh, Sanford and Rockingham and exits from Richmond County.

Addendum: Several decades ago in an antique mall near Elkin I saw a photo of this ceremony, but I couldn’t deduce what I was looking at. Google doesn’t yield up an image, but surely one survives.

 

Lumber industry enlisted tree farmer Andy Griffith

“Throughout the postwar years the [National Lumber Manufacturers Association] and its lobbying arms…  even recruited celebrity endorsements. In the 1960s, Andy Griffith, perhaps the most recognized television personality of the age, served as an official spokesman for tree farms. In one of his recorded messages, he explained

” ‘See I’m a tree farmer myself. My tree farm in Dare County, North Carolina is growing strong. We have 135 acres….So I know what the American tree farm system is all about and I believe in it. …There are about 4 million of us private landowners in the United States, and altogether we own nearly 60 percent of this country’s commercial land…. Without your volunteer effort and help the tree farm program wouldn’t be where it is today.’ ”

— From “American Canopy: Trees, Forests and the Making of a Nation” by Eric Rutkow (2012)

 

Wilson newspaper warns against ‘pernicious tipple’

“[By 1903] it hardly mattered that Coca-Cola contained nothing but the merest trace of either drug named in its trademark. People were growing frightened….’Every ingredient [in Coca-Cola] is a poison,’ the Wilson (N.C.) Daily News warned its readers, ‘and not long hence each unhappy victim of this pernicious tipple, like the opium fiend of the East, may take his neighbor by the hand and say, “Brother, what ailed thee, to seek so dire a cure?” ‘ ”

— From “Secret Formula: How Brilliant Marketing & Salesmanship Made Coca-Cola the Best Known Product in the World” by Frederick Allen (1999)

 

Check out what’s new in the North Carolina Collection.

Several new titles just added to “New in the North Carolina Collection.” To see the full list simply click on the link in the entry or click on the “New in the North Carolina Collection” tab at the top of the page. As always, full citations for all the new titles can be found in the University Library Catalog and they are all available for use in the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Needing some last minute recipe ideas for Thanksgiving?

From Kitchen Kapers.

“Thanksgiving Turkey and Gravy” from Granny’s Drawers: Four Generations of Family Favorites.

“Thanksgiving Eve Opossum” from A Taste of the Old and the New.

“Sweet Potato Cornbread Stuffing” from Well, Shut My Mouth! The Sweet Potatoes Restaurant Cookbook.

“Yams Gone Tipsy” from Favorite Recipes of the Lower Cape Fear.

“Mama’s Rolls”

“Green Bean Casserole” from Historic Moores Creek Cook Book: A Collection of Old and New Recipes.

“Pumpkin Pie Supreme” from Hyde County Cook Book.

“Sweet Potato Pecan Pie” from The Cat Who–Cookbook.