Our Two World-Renowned Ambassadors of Food

Last week, we looked at 100-year-old recipes. Today, we're still talking about food, but from a little different perspective. I've been wondering recently how many rural counties in the United States, other than Williamsburg, can boast of not one, but two, chefs who have worldwide reputations. And to be even more to the point, how many communities the size of Nesmith can say that two world-renowned chefs were born there? Of course, I'm talking about Rodney Scott and the late Sylvia Woods.

Rodney Scott's first cookbook is on sale now. It is a mixture of

recipes, instructions, and storytelling. He gives instructions on

how to build a pit, select the wood, and cook a whole hog. He

also provides the recipe for Scott's vinegar and pepper sauce.

Rodney's first cookbook, Rodney Scott's World of BBQ, hit bookstores last week. It is already a #1 bestseller on Amazon: #1 in Barbecuing and Grilling; #5 in Southern US Cooking, Food, and Wine; and #11 in Celebrity and TV Show Cookbooks. It is also the first cookbook ever published by a Black pitmaster.

Rodney, the son of Ella and the late Roosevelt "Rosie" Scott, was born near Nesmith, and grew up in the Nesmith-Hemingway area. His parents were hog farmers who opened Scott's Variety Store and Bar-B-Que at Brunson Crossroads in the early 1970s. Rodney learned from his parents, and he writes that growing up, he always imagined being able to cook for people all over the world. In the past few years, he has seen that dream come true, cooking in Australia, Belize, Colombia, France, Uruguay, and all over this country. 

And even before that, people from all over were finding their way to Scott's near Hemingway to sample what they had seen Anthony Bourdain eating on television. Before COVID, I spent some interesting weekend middays standing in line at Scott's where I've met people from Maine to California. And I've had some fascinating conversations. I particularly enjoyed giving a couple of Californians instructions on how to eat boiled peanuts. 

In 2017, Rodney branched out, opening Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ in Charleston with Nick Pihakis. They have since expanded to  Birmingham, AL, and Atlanta, GA. In 2018, he captured one of the highest accolades in the restaurant industry when he received the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast. Food & Wine magazine put Rodney Scott's Charleston location on its list of the "40 most important restaurants in the last 40 years."

A generation earlier, Sylvia Pressley was also born near Nesmith. Sylvia, too, grew up near Hemingway. Before she was out of junior high school, she had gone to night school to get her beautician's license, but she had also set her sights on leaving Hemingway for the bright lights of New York. When she married her high school sweetheart, Herbert Woods, they moved to the Big Apple, and Sylvia found work waiting tables at Johnson's Luncheonette in Harlem. In 1962, she was able to buy the restaurant, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Sylvia became known as the "Queen of Soul Food," and Sylvia's Restaurant™became so well-known that in 2017 it was named one of the "Magnificent 10 Restaurants That Changed America."

The cover of Sylvia's 1992 cookbook.

Sylvia Woods authored two cookbooks during her long career: Sylvia's Soul Food in 1992, and Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook in 1999. The latter book contains recipes from friends and family from Hemingway to Harlem. In the introduction, Sylvia wrote, "Hemingway, South Carolina, where my husband Herbert and I grew up and have our roots, probably has more great cooks per square inch than you would find in most cooking schools."

Sylvia's 1999 cookbook which shared recipes, primarily from

friends and family in the Hemingway area.

When Sylvia Woods died at age 86 on July 19, 2012, the Rev. Al Sharpton noted that while there are many soul food restaurants in New York, Sylvia's personality "made us all feel like we were home with Mama." I only met Sylvia Woods once, at a book signing at the Hemingway Library for Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook, but during the time I was with her, I felt that I was in the presence of royalty. Although she has passed on, her children and grandchildren are keeping her legacy alive, which includes the restaurant, a line of products, and a catering business.

Sylvia Woods and Rodney Scott share a philosophy about cooking. Love, to them, is the most important ingredient in any recipe. In 1999, Sylvia noted that there is a "spice called LOVE, and it is absolutely essential to everything you fix."

Rodney Scott echoes that sentiment by stating, "I like spreading the joy and sharing the love, and whole-hog barbecue is my means of doing it."

Williamsburg County is blessed beyond measure to be able to claim these two as our own.

What They Ate

Exactly 100 years ago, the ladies of Williamsburg Presbyterian Church published a cookbook, containing local recipes. Today, we'll look at a few of them, beginning with Caroline "Carrie" Heller's recipe for loaf bread or rolls. I think we'll find that cooking was a bit different then than it is today. 

The Heller House where Carrie Heller, no doubt, made many batches of bread and rolls.

LOAF BREAD OR ROLLS

Wash and peel 3 medium sized white potatoes, boil and mash, using the water they were boiled in; to this add 1 qt. of lukewarm water, 1 cake of compressed yeast, stir in enough flour to make a stiff sponge, set aside to rise in a very warm place. When risen, add 1 tablespoon butter or lard, 1 tablespoon salt and enough flour to make a stiff dough, knead until it blisters, then set to rise again. For either loaf bread or rolls.

Only one gentleman contributed recipes to the book. His name was Edgar B. Maynard. A quick look at The County Record archives revealed that in 1921 he was operating The Paragon Restaurant on Academy Street in Kingstree. 

Advertisement for the Paragon Restaurant in The County Record, March 24, 1921

MOCK DUCK

Take my advice, try this: (Not my advice. This is actually part of the recipe printed in the book.)

Three lbs. round steak in one piece. Make a deep slice in the middle. Fill this with four onions chopped in fine pieces, boil in 2 waters, 1 cup of toasted bread crumbs, 2 cups mashed potatoes, salt, pepper, and powdered sage to taste. Run threads of bacon through beef to make it more tastey (sic). Bake slowly until done, 3 to 4 hours. Use a good brown gravy to pour over when served.

Essie Montgomery

I am including Essie Montgomery's recipe for Mayonnaise Dressing because I cannot count how many times I heard my mother say that once you had tasted Miss Essie's homemade mayonnaise, you understood that nothing you bought at a store could compare.

MAYONNAISE DRESSING

Yolks of 4 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 pt. Wesson oil, 3 to 4 tablespoons vinegar, few grains of cayenne.

To your egg yolks add salt, beat about ten times with Dover egg beater before adding oil, add oil gradually, at first drop by drop, beating constantly, as mixture thickens, thin with vinegar or lemon juice, add oil and vinegar or lemon juice alternately until all oil is used, stirring or beating constantly. If oil is added too rapidly at first dressing will have a curdled appearance. A smooth consistency may be restored by taking a yolk of another egg and adding curdled mixture slowly to it. Mayonnaise should be stiff enough to hold shape.

Bessie Britton shared her recipe for shrimp salad. Somehow, I've never associated beets and potatoes with shrimp salad before.

SHRIMP SALAD

One small can shrimp, 2 large Irish potatoes, 2 slices red beets, 2 hard boiled eggs, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon celery seed, 1/4 teaspoon sugar, salt to taste.

Dice potatoes, beets, and eggs. Mix with shrimp, add lemon juice, sprinkle with celery seed, sugar, and salt. Mix thoroughly with mayonnaise dressing and chile before serving. (I suspect that "chile" should be "chill," but...)

A postcard of The Columns after Belle Blakely sold it to Mrs. Rodgers.

I wonder if Belle Blakely served this apple pie to her guests at The Columns.

APPLE PIE

Three or 4 mellow apples, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, 1 lb. butter, 2 tablespoons water.

Line pie plate with paste, pare and cut apples in thin slices, covering paste with thin slices of apples, sprinkle 1/2 sugar and butter over this. Then put another layer of apples and remainder of sugar and butter. Then sprinkle the nutmeg and water over this. Bake until brown in a moderate oven.

I include these last two recipes for personal reasons. The first, Lillian Payne's chocolate fudge, because I can attest to its goodness. My parents rented the apartment in the back of the Payne house on Kelley Street for several years, including the year after I was born. Even after we moved, we went back often to visit, and those memories include Mama Lill's chocolate fudge. 

Lillian Payne from around 1919-1920

Source: Ancestry.com

CHOCOLATE FUDGE

Boil 1 cup of sugar to 1/2 cup of sweet milk and 1/2 block of chocolate until it forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water. Take from fire, adding butter the size of a walnut and two teaspoons vanilla. Beat until creamy, then spread on buttered paper and cut into blocks.

Finally, here is Luna Arrowsmith's sponge cake. When I was growing up, I never thought that one thing I would long for as an adult would be to have just one more piece of Celeste Hodge's sponge cake. So, if anyone has Miss Celeste's recipe for sponge cake, please share it. I will be forever indebted to you if you do.

SPONGE CAKE

Ten large or 12 small eggs, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon flavoring, 1 salt spoon salt.

Break up eggs (yolks and whites), add sugar and beat until stiff, adding salt. Fold in flour sifted twice, add flavoring. Bake in moderate oven 30 minutes or less for layer cake. If desired, sift 1 cup powdered sugar over cake before baking and cut in squares.

By the way, if you want to browse through the 1921 Kingstree Cook Book, click here to go to the South Caroliniana Cookbook Collection.

The Story of Wilmington Bradley

Six hundred and thirty-two young Black men with close ties to Williamsburg County found themselves from 1917 to 1919 in situations they could not have imagined only a year or two earlier. They were called to serve their country during World War I. But because of the color of their skin, they were, with a few exceptions, not allowed in combat. Instead, they were put in support roles as part of the Quartermaster Corps, as mechanics, as road workers, stevedores, and other such jobs. And, they were in many ways just as much "hidden figures" as the Black women of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were a generation or so later–until Margot Lee Shetterly brought these unsung ladies to our attention in her book, Hidden Figures. Newspapers, for the most part, did not tell the stories of Black World War I veterans, either, but in the past few years, as military records and other documents have been put online, it has become possible to get some sense of their roles during the war, and, in some cases, to find out more about their lives. From time to time here, we will share some of the stories of these young men from Williamsburg County as they are pieced together. Today, we look at the life of Wilmington "Bunk" Bradley.

The County Record office was behind these second-story windows in the 

Gourdin Building on Main Street when Wilmington Bradley came into

his own as the paper's pressman while he was in his teens and early 20s.

Wilmington Bradley's birthdate is something of a mystery, as a number of dates were used on public documents over his life. It seems likely that April 5, 1890, may be the most accurate. This is likely because it lines up with some other dates from his life's story. In 1900, he was living on E. Main Street, the youngest son of Andrew and Tena Fulton Bradley. The census record notes that he was attending school, but it seems that when Charles Wolfe bought The County Record in 1898, he hired an eight-year-old Wilmington as a roller boy and errand runner for the paper. Wilmington also did other chores around the newspaper office and became very interested in the operation of the press, so much so that several years later, he was hired as the newspaper's pressman. This was probably around 1911, or so, when James Tharpe, who had operated the paper's press for years was forced to retire as his health no longer allowed him to do the hard work of a pressman.

A 1919 article in The County Record noted that "for several years (Bradley) pulled the old Washington hand press with the skill and efficiency of a (Benjamin) Franklin. In later years he had charge of the big cylinder and job presses, which supplanted the old hand and foot-powered machines, at the same time acquiring a knowledge of the plant's gasoline or kerosene engine that enabled him to get the best service out of these usually vexatious mechanisms."

This no doubt means that Wilmington Bradley was part of the newspaper's staff when the paper was published from a little cottage on the corner of the Hammet property on W. Main Street and moved with the paper to the second floor of the Gourdin building and later still moved again when the paper took over the old Bank of Kingstree building.

The County Record would have been located in the building with the 
double arches, the old Bank of Kingstree, when Bunk Bradley was
drafted into the US Army during World War I.

In 1910, Wilmington, or "Bunk" as he was known around town, was still living on E. Main, but with his sister and brother-in-law, Viola and Nathaniel Kennedy. He apparently also held a job as ironer at the laundry on days when the newspaper press was not operating, as that occupation is listed on the census.

On June 5, 1917, all young men in the United States were required to register for military service. Wilmington Bradley registered that day, along with 1,658 other Black men, 886 White men, and two resident aliens from Williamsburg County. His draft card lists his occupation as pressman for The County Record.

Wilmington Bradley's World War I draft card.

Source: Ancestry.com

By the time he was inducted into the military on June 19, 1918, he had been employed by The County Record for 20 years, and was still in his 20s. He was a part of the 156th Depot Brigade until August 14, 1918. From August 30, 1918, until July 4, 1919, he was a Private in Company D, 534th Engineers. He departed New York with his unit on August 30 aboard the transport steamer Harrisburg and spent the next 10 months working on roads in France as a part of the American Expeditionary Forces. He was honorably discharged on July 15, 1919. He returned to Kingstree that day, took the next day off, and on Thursday, July 17, was once again at work as pressman for The County Record. 

Some time after his return to Kingstree, he married Vermell Franklin, a daughter of Joseph and Queenie Franklin, and by 1935, they had relocated to Philadelphia. The 1940 census indicates that Wilmington had spent 1939 unemployed but had in 1940 secured a position with the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

In 1942, at age 51, he once again registered for military service. His Pennsylvania draft card notes that he was 5-feet, 6.5-inches tall and weighed 170 pounds. It also designates his race as White, describing him as having hazel eyes, dark complexion and brown/gray hair, with the distinguishing feature of a scar on his left arm. There is no indication that he actually served in World War II, nor is there any indication that he was considered White in any of his other endeavors in Philadelphia.

He died there on July 26, 1946, his death certificate indicating that his body was brought back to Kingstree for burial.