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.