Asheville Firemen’s Annual Banquet, December 31, 1921. Photo by H.W. Pelton. Note jugs of milk at each place setting and Tiffany lamps.
Title: Asheville: 200 Years of Good Eating
Speaker: Nan Chase
Date: Wednesday November 29, 2017
Time: 12:00 to 1:00
Bring a brown-bag lunch and eat while you listen.
Pack Memorial Library, Lord Auditorium, lower level.
Most people think Asheville recently became a foodie town. . .
Not according to Nan Chase, who says Asheville has always been a foodie town!
Curious what the original Battery Park Hotel served for New Year’s Day dinner in 1888? Would you have guessed that oysters were common in Asheville by the mid 1800s? They found their way onto fancy hotel menus, at oyster bars, for lawn party’s. You could buy them fresh or canned. The Swannanoa Hotel opened an oyster bar in 1902 for the purpose of serving Blue Points on the half shell.
Jan. 4, 1888 “Asheville Citizen-Times”
Do you know what Plum Charlotte is? Or Chicken Okra? Before there was the Fresh Market, in 1913 the Grove Park Inn served the following appetizers: Roquefort, Camembert, De-La-Trappe and Philadelphia Cream Cheese with Bar-Le-Duc!
And then there’s the local country people’s fare to consider. . .Ham baked in a Jacket, Nice Muffins, Portable Soup, Pork Cake, Pigs in a Puddle, Green Tomato Pie, Persimmon Pudding and Old Fashioned Stack Cake!
Come hear Nan Chase– a food-gardening-vintner-canner-historian-author–expert. This slide lecture is based largely on historic images from the Pack Library’s North Carolina Collection.
Nan Chase writes about architecture and design and is the author of Asheville: A History and several other books, including, most recently, Drink the Harvest. She has written for such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post, Southern Living, and Air & Space. Nan served on the Historic Resources Commission of Asheville and Buncombe County and currently serves as a Friend of the North Carolina Room board member. A long-time resident of western North Carolina, she now lives in central Asheville.
Post by North Carolina Room Librarian Zoe Rhine
