An Anthology Edited by Randall Kenan
By Gina Malone
Southerners know food and southern writers know how to write about it. A new anthology, The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food, has arrived just in time for the holidays. Edited and with an introduction by novelist and food writer Randall Kenan, the book compiles essays and recipes from some of the state’s finest writers.
“I don’t think food memories are something southerners monopolize,” says Kenan (A Visitation of Spirits). “Folks in San Francisco and Alaska and Boston certainly have similar interests and attachments to food. Ours just happens to be more distinct and flavorful, and we tell it better.”
Wayne Caldwell (Cataloochee) is an Asheville native whose food memories center around childhood. “My mother would not have waxed poetic about oysters—outlandish food for the mountain 1950s—but she sure knew a thing or two about ham hocks and soup beans,” he says.
Heather Newton (Under the Mercy Trees) grew up in Raleigh, but calls Asheville home now. Fellow writer Michael Parker’s essay resonated with her. “The pieces in this anthology,” she says, “will pique memories for a wide variety of readers, whether they are from the South or not and whether they consider themselves ‘foodies’ or not.”
The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food, anthology, 2016, softcover, $17.95, edited by Randall Kenan, and published by Eno Publishers, Hillsborough, North Carolina.
