Picnic at El Bethel Presbyterian Sunday School, Rockingham County, North Carolina, ca. 1910.
Courtesy of Historical Collections, RCC.

What is a 'poke' sallet? How do you make the best 'Brunswick' stew? What was life like on a 1920s farm? An oral history project involving hundreds of senior citizens resulted in a book entitled Food for Thought: Rockingham County Stories of Sustenance containing old-timey recipes, photographs, and original stories documenting country life over the last century. Spearheaded by June Guralnick, the Food for Thought project was the result of a unique collaborative effort between the Center for Active Retirement, Rockingham Community College Humanities Division, and Historical Collections to document and preserve an area's disappearing way of life.

Rockingham County Arts Council (with funds from North Carolina Arts Council Grassroots Grant)
Rockingham Community College Foundation
Barber/Chevrolet/Oldsmobile
George & Betty Kirzinger
FNB Southeast
Madison Dry Goods

From the story Memory Lane by Bonnie J. Joyner

"…. Homecomings and reunions were a common occurrence in the rural South. Eating and fellowship, dinner on the grounds, old-timey Gospel singing afterwards, that was the rule of the day…. Lots of good food was the order of the day. Aunt Mary brought lemonade in the cooler and Mom brought her great fried chicken and deviled eggs…. It was always hot by that time of the year and there was no air conditioning. We all had little paper fans with a stick down the middle, with advertising for funeral homes on them. You tried to find one that wasn't broken or bent, because you were going to need a good one before the day was over….
Little did we know that years down the road, we would finally come to appreciate the quiet, peaceful life we had grown up disliking and wanting to escape….We would grow vegetable gardens and have flowerbeds because we still loved the earth and dirt under our nails. We would all become mothers and fathers and successful people, only to realize that the silly folks we thought we had grown up with, and the silly folks we thought had raised us, were not so silly after all. They were the stuff that had made us the good people we were. And their nosey concern for every detail of our lives was a genuine caring for us that was hard to find in other places.
….The memories are not gone, even though many of the places are not physically visible, nor the people still alive. The memories are still there in our hearts and minds, in our subconscious, and they are the fiber that makes us who we are. After years of wondering if I could ever get away from it all, I have finally come to realize that I can be proud of where I came from and who I am."

"Whether raising a barn, celebrating homecoming at church, killing hogs or priming tobacco, be assured that, throughout the century, food was an integral part of most every Rockingham County event. So important that a group of Rockingham County citizens compiled a book of food memories that serves as a living history of the county." Greensboro News & Record

"Interviews with farm families make this … book special. While Food for Thought focused on various aspects of food-from growing, canning, curing and cooking to preserving, fishing and hunting-it's also about family, caring and growing up in different times." The News & Observer

"Food for Thought is important because we are in a changing period in history, with a lot of development taking place…. With this change, the old ways are being lost and forgotten. This book helps preserve the way people lived in this county." Bob Carter, Historical Collections Director

"Turtle stew, pecan pie, and plenty of stories from North Carolina… Food for Thought, a combination history book and cookbook … is the culmination of a year-long project at Rockingham Community College….[and] the brainchild of June Guralnick, an artist-in-residence at the college. "It struck me that food would be an interesting lens by which to look at the county and involve people in telling their own stories." The Chronicle of Higher Education

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