Introducing the North Carolina Heritage Recipes Project

Your mother’s spaghetti and meatballs. Uncle Joe’s famous chili. Grandma’s pecan pie. Heirloom recipes are memories as much as they are a set of instructions. They can transport us to another time and place. Treasured recipes passed down from generation to generation almost become members of our families; they tell our stories as well as any biography.

The North Carolina Heirloom Recipe Project seeks to gather just such recipes, and through them learn what it means to be a North Carolinian today. We are an incredibly diverse state, comprised of old Southern families and new imports, immigrants, refugees, and (dare I say?) Yankees. North Carolina cuisine has come to encompass flavors from across the globe, from Southern-styled tapas in Durham to Mexican-influenced seafood in Wilmington. No matter where where we may have come from, we have brought our recipes, and stories, to North Carolina, and in the process created a vibrant culinary backdrop that is garnering national and international attention.

I invite you to join me as I travel the state to cook with notable and noteworthy North Carolinians in their own kitchens. We’ll explore the heirloom recipes that make our state so unique, and in the process learn the stories and tales behind those recipes. I can think of no better venue to host this project than the North Carolina Folklife Institute, for food, and the creation of food, is as much a part of our folk history as music and art.

Check back often for new recipes and stories from across North Carolina, and perhaps you’ll be inspired to revisit some of your family’s heirloom recipes and all the memories and stories they contain within.

(All articles and recipes will be published in full on North Carolina Folklife Institute’s NC Food blog, with excerpts published here.)