Columbia Is Home to the First Pimento Cheese Recipe

Columbia, South Carolina has long been known as playing an important role in the history of pimento cheese, being the undisputed birthplace of the pimento burger which was invented by J.C. Reynolds, proprietor of the now defunct Dairy Bar, in the 1960's. It's also saturated in the stuff with almost every church cookbook containing one or more versions and almost every restaurant utilizing it in one or more ways. What hasn't been known is that the first published recipe for what we now consider modern pimento cheese also hails from Columbia in the form of a 1912 cookbook.

Pimento cheese has had a murky and long misunderstood history. Robert Moss, food historian and writer, set many misconceptions straight in his various articles on the subject, namely that pimento cheese was invented in the North as a combination of cream cheese (or Neufchâtel cheese) and pimentos. This obviously isn't what we would regard today as Southern pimento cheese and the transition to grated cheeses such as cheddar hasn't been clear from the written record. Moss was not able able to find any first hand accounts of Southerners even making pimento cheese before World War II.

1971 reprint of the 1912 Columbia, SC cookbook, A Friend in Need

Enter the 1912 cookbook, A Friend in Need, published by the Ladies of the Free Kindergarten Association of Columbia, South Carolina. It not only includes a recipe of the aforementioned older cream cheese version but also one that looks exactly like what we would consider pimento cheese today. Grated cheese, pimientos and mayonnaise. Ding, ding ding! It was written by Columbian Janie DuBose.

Janie Dubose's pimento cheese recipe from the 1912 Columbia, SC cookbook, A Friend in Need

Janie DuBose, author of the first published modern pimento cheese recipe, in a 1910 college yearbook

Why would the first modern pimento cheese recipe be published in Columbia and why all these years later is Columbia still such a pimento cheese hotbed? I believe it is because of the groundwork set in motion by E.T. Hendrix, proprietor of a grocery store, in 1910. For 27 days he published propaganda in The State newspaper instructing the citizens of Columbia to "Keep Kool, Eat Pimento Cheese". He began making pimento cheese and selling it by the pound instead of just in the prepackaged little bottles that food manufacturers were distributing which were using cream cheese. His version may have used grated cheeses like Janie Dubose's recipe. The recently opened restaurant Hendrix is named after this business.

Example of E.T. Hendrix ads in 1910 The State newspaper issues

So the ball is now in every other city and town's court. Find an earlier recipe that uses grated cheese, pimentos and mayonnaise. Until then, I'm claiming Columbia as the rightful home of pimento cheese.

Recipes from a 1929 Midlands Cookbook

Closeup of cover of Southern Recipes by Elizabeth G. Guion.

Elizabeth G. Guion, born Elizabeth Guinard, was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1880. In 1897, she graduated from the Presbyterian College for Women which was housed in the present day Hampton Preston mansion. In 1929 she published a cookbook, entitled Southern Recipes from Old Green Hill Plantation, where she was living in Lugoff outside Columbia using R.L. Bryan as her printer, Columbia's oldest continuously operating business.

A WorldCat search on this cookbook, which I suspect was privately published, shows only two libraries in the world holding it. The South Caroliniana here in Columbia and Michigan State University over 600 miles away. My copy contains notations in many of the recipes written in pencil. I'm not sure if these are by a previous owner or Elizabeth herself, correcting errors and omissions.

I present to you the cookbook below. The page numbers skip because the back of each page was blank. Let me know if you cook anything from it by emailing me at hardyhchilders@gmail.com.

The Goat Specter of Columbia's Old River House

Linocut by Brielle Hayes Howard

If you have ever been to Sesquicentennial State Park you have probably noticed the log cabin. That structure is the oldest in Columbia and Richland County dating to around 1756. It was moved from River Drive to the park in the 1960's. Many don't know its haunted past. 

It is believed that in its early days, the house acted as a popular tavern to travelers on the Broad River. Sometime shortly after the Civil War, the owner of the house was murdered and robbed of a large sum of money. After the house had became vacant for a long time it gained the name of the "Old River House" and also a reputation for supernatural activity. The most common being that the specter of a white goat would chase trespassers down the stairs and then vanish.

Late one night, thought to be between 1890-1900, a destitute man was trying to make his way back to the Dutch Fork after looking for employment in Columbia but was caught up in a violent storm and had to seek shelter. After finding that the Old River House was abandoned he decided to make it his home for the night. Searching through the empty house he found a room containing corn shucks which he piled in a corner to use as his bed.

Hours later he awoke to a clear sky and pale moon. Through the light of the moon he was shocked to see the glowing form of a phantom goat standing in the doorway. Terrified, the man began to pray nervously until he noticed the goat wasn't trying to hurt him but rather get his attention by repeatedly walking into the room, turning around and looking back at him.

After this the man followed the goat to the upstairs room that it had appeared to the others that had entered the house. The specter went to the hearth of the fireplace and began to lightly hit the bricks with its horns. It stopped, turned around and began stomping its cloven feet "striking an almost human attitude of anxious intensity". Then it disappeared. Investigating the fireplace, he found that underneath the bricks was sand. Digging through the sand he found an earthen jar containing a thousand dollars in gold coins ($25,000 in today's dollars), which he later used to buy a farm near Irmo and soon became successful. 

The goat was never seen again in the Old River House. It eventually became occupied and fixed up to where no one even knew it was an old house. In the 1960's some siding was removed from 3325 River Drive and the structure we know today was rediscovered. 

The house being put back together again after its move from River Drive in 1969. Photo from Mabel Payne Collection at Richland Library.

Source: Bradley, F.W. "Carolina Folklore" The State 22 Aug. 1965

When Witches Rode the People of the Dutch Fork

Art by James Gilbert.

Not so far as ten miles from Columbia and up until 1835, it was very common for those in the Dutch Fork of South Carolina to be transformed into horses by witches and then ridden to great conventions where sometimes even the devil was a guest.

A man by the name of Martin Lybrand, respected by all in the community and whose character was never questioned, was repeatedly changed into a horse by an old woman who lived near him and ridden from the Dutch Fork out to the Sandhills where he was hitched to a pine tree. After the witch would go into a house, he would see lights and hear music and dancing that lasted all night long.

While on trial in 1792, Mary Ingleman was accused by Issac Collins of turning him into a horse after he was resting by a spring.

"He testified that after that she turned him into a horse and rode him to a grand convention of witches. Where, he could not say, but he thought somewhere in North America; and on the way the Devil rode up by her side and observed, 'Mother Ingelman, you have a splendid horse.'

" 'Ah,' she said, 'This is that rascal Collins!'"

Collins wasn't the only one to accuse her of this sort of act as her own grandson, Jacob Free, testified that Ingleman rode him to Pearson's apple orchard by the Broad river, six miles from his home, when:

"she was filling her bag with apples, his eye was attracted by the beautiful red apples that hung over him. He put up his long horse head to obtain a stealthy supply and while he was attempting to do so, she drove a punch into his cheek from the effects of which he did not soon recover."

In his 1860 fictional novel, John Punterick: A Novel of Life in the Old Dutch Fork, O.B. Mayer writes of a man named Awbergloibisch who after lying down on a cot in his yard after a heavy night of drinking was approached by Sibby Dessekker who slipped a bridle in his mouth and a saddle on his back. She mounted him with a broomstick in her right hand with which she hit him in the head and on his backside. They traveled to Ruff's Mountain, now known as Little Mountain, for a gathering of witches. He was hitched to a dogwood limb where in front of him were fifty witches dancing to the music of the devil who was playing a fiddle. The dancing went on until 2am when the devil helped Dessekker up onto the back of Awbergloibsich. On the return trip, he remembered that witches can't cross water so when they got to a mud-hole he threw his head down and kicked up his rear to throw off the witch and galloped across Crimm's Creek. She flew past him like a turkey vulture through the top of the trees riding the broom. He was able to get the saddle and bridle off himself  and trotted leisurely home just as the roosters began crowing.

Sources:

Scott, Edwin. Random Recollections of a Long Life: 1806 to 1876, Columbia: Charles A. Calvo, Jr., Printer, 1884

Summer, George Leland. Folklore of South Carolina, Including Central and Dutch Fork Sections of the State, Publisher Unknown, 1950

Gandee, Lee. The Witches of Fairfield, S.C., Fate Magazine, Jan. 1970

Mayer, O.B. John Punterick: A Novel of Life in the Old Dutch Fork (1860), Spartanburg: Reprint Co., 1981

When Alligators Roamed the State House Grounds

An alligator climbing out of the butterfly shaped pond on the State House grounds. Art by Wendy Brinker.

Twenty-two years before the State House even had a dome, attention was turned to revamping the grounds of the state capital of South Carolina. In the Summer of 1878, a five foot deep pond in the shape of a butterfly was built in the northwest corner of the State House grounds through prison labor. It featured four fountains and a bridge in the middle that was so huge that locals jokingly referred to it as the "bridge of size".

Pond with bridge circled in red. From 1895 map.

The pond featured standard wildlife such as turtles, goldfish and carp but it was the addition of two alligators, one being a gift of Governor Wade Hampton, that added a whole new element. The pond quickly became a favorite late night hangout and police were reported to come across "lively bathers". Adding to the danger of having alligators in the pond was the addition of a small boat which on at least one occasion capsized.

We don't know how long the alligators lived on the State House grounds or how many in total there may have been but we do know one met an unfortunate fate:

"The alligator, which spent his time between the capitol, lake and neighboring yards, was shot and killed by Mr. B.F. Griffin, on his premises ... This was his second visit to Mr. Griffin's yard."

At some point the pond was filled in due to maintenance problems. That corner of the State House is even more terrifying today with the addition of the statues of J. Marion Sims and Ben Tillman.

Sources:

Brown, John M. Creating the South Carolina State House, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001

Wilkinson, Jeff "Grounds Once Home to Gators, Gardens", The State 16 Aug, 1998

Columbia, SC Isn't Named After Columbus

Growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, I was always under the impression that my city was named after Christopher Columbus. There's even a statue of Columbus in Riverfront Park with a plaque saying "The first city as well as the first-planned capital in America named after Christopher Columbus..."

 

Christopher Columbus statue in Riverfront Park. Photos courtesy of One Columbia.

The problem is this isn't true.

The word Columbia had been used to describe the thirteen colonies since the 1730's. Yes, the word derived from Columbus but by the 1780's when the city of Columbia was formed, it had taken on a whole new meaning as a concept and the personification of the United States in goddess form.

A depiction of the goddess Columbia

The personification of Columbia was invented by poet Philiss Wheatley, a formerly enslaved woman, in her 1776 poem entitled His Excellency General Washington, of which here is an excerpt:

   Celestial choir! enthron’d in realms of light,
Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!

   The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.

Phillis Wheatley

The Wheatley Branch of Richland Library is named after her and there is picture of her inside.

When it came time to pick a name for the new capital that was being moved from Charleston to its present site, Senator John Lewis Gervais, whom the present day street is named after, in 1786 said, "in this town we should find refuge under the wings of COLUMBIA." It is from this speech that people rallied to name it Columbia, beating out the name Washington in an 11-7 vote in the state senate.

John Lewis Gervais

It is clear from Gervais' quote that Columbia, South Carolina was named for the goddess Columbia and not Christopher Columbus.

The Plants That Ward Off Evil Spirits in Randolph Cemetery

Randolph Cemetery, located next to Elmwood Cemetery, was the first African American internment in Columbia, South Carolina after land was bought for it in 1872. Prior to this, black Columbians were buried with poor whites in the "potters field" nearby. The cemetery is named after Benjamin Franklin Randolph who was an African American senator that was assassinated in 1868 during Reconstruction Columbia.

A fascinating feature of the cemetery are the multitude of cactus and yucca planted both on graves and surrounding them. This is a West African tradition of planting abrasive and thorny plants to ward off evil spirits. The white flowers theses plants produce also coincide with the West African tradition of white meaning death and that the world of the dead was supposed to be white and watery.

The Committee for the Restoration & Beautification of Randolph Cemetery (CRBRC) is meticulously attempting to contact every family member of someone buried here so that they are aware of these and other cultural and spiritual practices in the cemetery that have their roots in West Africa.

Sources:
Historic Randolph Cemetery Cultural Customs
Randolph Cemetery:Mapping and Documentation of a Historic African-American Site