Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison
Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to
livermush biscuit is a culinary DNA test. If you see one on a menu, you can be certain that either you’re in the western part of the state or the folks in the kitchen came from there. It’s as sure as swabbing a cheek and finding out that you’re Irish. John Dean inherited a taste for livermush from his great-grandfather, who made it at home. Dean, executive chef at the New Public House & Hotel in Blowing Rock, found that his eat-local sensibilities fit perfectly with his grandfather’s recipe, so he serves livermush on a large biscuit with a fried egg and a zigzag of yellow mustard. “I feel like a good homemade breakfast is a basis for a good, healthy day,” he says.
Indeed, livermush is a hearty start. The combination of ground pork liver, head, or butt; cornmeal; and spices is chilled and formed into a block, then sliced and fried. Since the Great Depression, foothills farmers and mountain mill workers have enjoyed it as an inexpensive, portable meal. Love of livermush is centered in the west, perhaps owing to the sausage-making traditions of Germans who settled there in the 18th century. Two major producers of the specialty, Mack’s and Jenkins, are located in Shelby.
For people who didn’t grow up eating it, livermush can be an acquired taste. (It’s not the same as liver pudding, which has a softer texture and is popular near the coast.) Go ahead: Be brave. Give the livermush biscuit tradition a try at Circle G Restaurant in Charlotte, at Tony’s Ice Cream in Gastonia, and at Countryside BBQ in Marion, which uses locally made Hunter’s livermush.
This tiny city block in downtown Greensboro once had a gigantic reputation. Not so much for its charbroiled beef patties — though they, too, were plentiful — but for its colorful characters and their wild shenanigans.
In the 1950s, as Americans hit freshly paved roads in shiny new cars during the postwar boom, a new kind of restaurant took shape: the drive-in. From those first thin patties to the elaborate gourmet hamburgers of today, North Carolina has spent the past 80 years making burger history.