Monday, November 23, 2015

Let us give thanks (for dessert!)




by John B. Green III

With Thanksgiving nearly upon us, it goes without saying that all you folks out there have already secured turkey and ham and dressing and vegetables of all kinds and styles, as well as pickles and relishes and other appropriate delicacies for your family feast.  This does not concern us here at the Kellenberger Room.  What does concern us here is dessert.  Proper dessert.  Dessert for Thanksgiving.  What have you done about the dessert situation?  That's what we thought.

Fear not.  To the rescue comes a  fifty-five-year-old New Bern cookbook entitled From the Baron's Kitchen: Proven Recipes of Coastal Carolina.  Compiled about 1960 by the Mary Bryan Hollister Bible Class of First Presbyterian Church, it contains many excellent dishes by some of New Bern's best cooks.  



What follows are four proper desserts for the coming feast:  sweet potato pudding, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and pound cake.  A word about the pound cake: this is a recipe for REAL pound cake, not the adulterated, fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free pound cake of these latter days.  Sugar and butter are called for in ONE POUND measures.  You only live once.