THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505110212
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY DARA McLEOD
STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 166 lines
THE AROMA of a fresh pot of Outer Banks clam chowder, a rich clear broth full of clams and potatoes, brings back fond memories of good times with friends and family for many locals. And for visitors to the Outer Banks, being served a bowl of piping hot chowder is what vacationing here is all about.
Although every local family's clam chowder recipe differs slightly, the ingredients are basically the same: clams, potatoes, onion, fatback and water - or clam juice for the true purists. And while some recipes call for using bacon instead of fatback, or salt pork, many locals wouldn't hear of it.
``To be truthful, most of the Outer Banks recipes are purist recipes,'' says Wayne Gray, chef and co-owner of Queen Anne's Revenge restaurant in Wanchese. ``Most of these recipes are not necessarily written down. They're the things I grew up eating and learned how to cook.''
Gray says he used bacon instead of fatback in his clam chowder when the restaurant first opened 17 years ago, but the local people chided him for straying from local tradition. Today, he makes it just like his grandfather did.
But pleasing the locals and pleasing the tourists can be a difficult task for restaurant owners and chefs. It's a challenge that requires striking the proper balance between tradition, and changing tastes and nutritional guidelines.
``Many people on the Outer Banks. . . expect us to follow those traditions,'' Gray says. ``But if you're not an Outer Banker, maybe you don't want a really strong clam chowder with all that clam juice.''
Clara Mae Shannon, who owns Owens Restaurant with her husband Lionel, says time-tested recipes, an appreciation for nature's bounty and respect for the people who make their living on the sea all help make Outer Banks seafood unique.
Shannon's mother, Clara M. Owens, known to many as ``Mrs. O,'' established a diner in Manteo in the 1930s. She opened Owens Restaurant with her husband, Bob, in 1946. The deliciously sweet hush puppies and the tasty crab cakes served there today are made from her mother's recipes. And the family still purchases fish from fourth- and fifth-generation watermen, she says.
``You just can't beat fish that was caught that day,'' Shannon says. ``I think the care that goes into the final product begins with them, the fishermen.''
All the recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation of fishermen and their families have ingredients that include whatever was most readily available, says Bea Basnight, co-author of ``A Taste of the Outer Banks'' cookbooks.
From the time these isolated barrier islands were first settled, Outer Bankers were known for their independence and their ability to make do with what they had.
Boiled drum is another popular local dish made with the ingredients every Outer Banks household had on hand.
``That's definitely an Outer Banks favorite, and anybody that comes down here and tries it loves it,'' Gray says.
``A lot of these old recipes were based on necessity. They were created in a time when there was no beef steak or any other red meat, but everyone had pork back and potatoes, and everyone could get fish.''
Drum is a white-meat channel bass. The boiled fish is an old Christmas morning tradition on Hatteras Island. But traditions varied from village to village, and other coastal families ate boiled spot or salt herring on Christmas morning.
Gray says his family never participated in the Christmas morning boiled drum tradition, although today they often eat it for birthday parties and other celebrations.
``A true Hatterasman would eat his boiled drum, then the next day put the leftovers in a pan and stir-fry it,'' Gray says.
But the public's taste for seafood, among locals and visitors alike, has changed dramatically over time.
Although Gray's grandfather would eat only old drum, claiming it had to be mature to have just the right flavor, Wayne Gray says he'll eat a drum even if it has reached only a foot long.
``When I was a boy 40 years ago, my grandparents didn't eat shrimp,'' Gray says. ``It wasn't worth messing with. And they wouldn't have considered eating dolphin or tuna. No one around here ate anything like that.''
Recognizing the changes in the public's taste for coastal fare and the need to record the recipes held by many old-time cooks and traded among friends and family, locals, tourists and researchers alike have undertaken efforts to preserve traditional coastal foods as part of the area's cultural heritage.
Gail Midgett, who co-wrote the ``A Taste of the Outer Banks'' cookbooks with Basnight, says they had accumulated boxes of old recipes that had been given to them by friends and family, along with quite a few newly created ones.
The first of their cookbooks, published in 1990, includes a 150-year-old recipe for Outer Banks Clam Chowder.
The effort was so successful that they published a second edition of the cookbook in 1991 and a third one last year. Many recipes that appear in their cookbooks came from their husbands, Elmer Midgett and Saint Basnight, whose families have been fishing and cooking for generations.
``When we decided to do this cookbook, we knew that there were some recipes that had been handed down from generation to generation. I have two daughters, and I wanted to be sure they were passed on to them,'' Midgett said.
``They've been handed down for so long that we were afraid that somewhere down the line they're going to get lost. We wanted to make sure that didn't happen.''
But even if these family recipes are recorded to ensure that they are passed on, there is still the danger that some traditional dishes will be lost to changing public demands and tastes, says Nancy Davis, co-author with Kathy Hart of ``Coastal Carolina Cooking.''
As part of their research for the book, Davis says she and Hart interviewed well-known cooks from longtime families all along the North Carolina coast.
``We were looking for recipes that, if we didn't get them down on paper, might have been lost,'' Davis said. ``These are things that were regular fare 50 or 75 years ago.''
Davis says they concluded from their interviews with cooks that the regional differences along different areas of the North Carolina coast were less dramatic than they had anticipated. The differences were primarily limited to the types of fish available.
In addition to Hatteras-style clam chowder and boiled drum, herring, softshell crab, bluefish and fish muddle were common traditional seafood dishes along this part of the coast, Davis says.
And although some of the dishes featured in ``Coastal Carolina Cooking'' are still prepared here, many are fading away because of the time it takes to prepare them, and because of warnings about the health risks associated with fat and cholesterol.
Gray says the greatest threat to traditional cooking is that people today want to take shortcuts, and they want their food right away.
``Making pastry, for example, is an art form,'' he says. ``It's simple to do, but not many people do it anymore because it's time-consuming.''
Shannon says traditional foods will have to be adapted to fit in with today's nutritional guidelines.
``I think the only way some of these foods can survive is through superb preparation,'' she says. ``I don't think people will be willing to waste the calories on a fried shrimp dinner unless it's very well-prepared.
``I think even some of the local people who grew up eating these things enjoy a lighter taste,'' she says. ``But on the other hand, if you've grown up eating foods a certain way, I'm not sure the taste is ever the same.''
As nutritionists continue to warn about the hazards of eating too much fat and cholesterol, restaurant owners say the demand for grilled, steamed and sauteed foods is continually increasing, even though people are much more willing to indulge when they're eating out - especially on vacation.
Gray says it's ironic that many locals who grew up eating traditional dishes high in fat and cholesterol lived to be 100 years old. But he says established restaurants can carry on local traditions and still respond to customer needs by offering to prepare foods with customers' special needs in mind.
Shannon says Owens Restaurant also has modified its menu over the years as public tastes change.
``Our menu has experienced a sort of evolution,'' she says. ``We're trying to keep it where our heart is supposed to be, but we're also introducing new techniques, new methods of cooking and healthy ingredients.'' MEMO: [For a copy of the recipes, see microfilm for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
[Color Photo]
OUTER BANKS SEAFOOD SPECIALTIES
Staff photos by DREW C. WILSON
Hal Scarborough, 27, kitchen manager at Owens' Restaurant in Nags
Head, shucks clams for the clam chowder.
``Most of these recipes are not necessarily written down,'' says R.
Wayne Gray, chef and co-owner of Queen Anne's Revenge in Wanchese.
by CNB