Cookbook features new takes on Outer Banks traditions

Elizabeth Wiegand may not be a native of the Outer Banks, but she certainly feels at home there.

"My favorite time is fall," she said. "I like the way the September and October light is on the water. It's so crisp and clear. And all the birds. It's just a beautiful sight."

But the Outer Banks' natural beauty is not the only attraction. Wiegand also comes for the food -- the steamed clams, the crab cakes, the fresh tuna.

Wiegand, a freelance writer who lives in Raleigh, N.C., pays homage to the area in her first cookbook, "The Outer Banks Cookbook: Recipes and Traditions from North Carolina's Barrier Islands" (Globe Pequot Press, $19.95).

The book's 100 or so recipes reflect the culinary traditions of the islands as well as the modern approaches of some of the area's best restaurants.

More than that, "The Outer Banks Cookbook" is filled with the history and stories that make the area so special to her.

Wiegand tells of the Algonquin Indians, who lived, hunted and fished on Roanoke Island. They would pick the native blackberries, grow tobacco and corn, roast oysters and cook fish "on grids of reeds over hot coals."

Early settlers planted gardens between any stands of trees they could find. That helped retain the soil. They established the traditional cooking techniques for one-pot stews, chowders, or grilled or roasted seafood. Bay leaves, abundant on the islands, and onions became their primary seasonings.

To a certain extent, the simplicity of traditional Outer Banks food evolved because of their isolation.

"Historically, they had to make do with what they had. Ships had to bring them supplies," Wiegand said. "You could only reach them from water until the bridges were built (in the late 1930s)."

Of course, they had a wealth of fish and shellfish. But shrimp was initially considered a "bug." "It was traded on the mainland and exchanged for corn," Wiegand said.

Wiegand said that lard was the common fat and that dairy was scarce, though settlers did keep chickens for eggs and meat.

The Wright Brothers famously complained about the lack of fresh milk when they came for their flight experiments in the early 1900s.

As a result, Wiegand said, many recipes call for evaporated milk. And the traditional clam chowder is made without any milk -- just bacon, potatoes and onions.

Beef cattle did roam free on some of the islands for a time, though Wiegand did not find any historical beef recipes in her research. "They roamed free until the '30s, until the sand dunes were built," Wiegand said. "People had planted sea grass to stabilize the dunes (and prevent erosion), but the cattle would chomp on the sea grass -- so they had to restrict the cattle."

The islands also had plenty of berries -- not just blackberries, but huckleberries and elderberries, too. And though figs are not native to the area, fig bushes were established and continue to thrive today.

The large flocks of ducks and geese made hunting popular. A big part of the early tourist trade consisted of hunters.

Many of these native foods are surviving traditional dishes in the Outer Banks. These include clam chowder, boiled drum and baked rockfish (also called striped bass).

Crabs are popular in all forms. Crab cakes often feature mustard and Worcestershire sauce -- though some cooks inherited a fondness for Old Bay seasoning, a product of the Chesapeake Bay to the north. Soft shells are popular this time of year. Hard-shell crabs are stewed with potatoes and onions and "pie bread," which are actually rolled dumplings.

Natives often got sweet potatoes by trading with mainlanders, and used them to make sweet-potato biscuits.

Bread pudding is a popular dessert, Wiegand said, as a way to use leftover bread that was too stale to eat on its own.

Native pecans show up in desserts and other dishes. The most famous dessert, though, features figs. Ocracoke fig cake is actually made from preserves put up during the summer and fall. Some are tube cakes. Some have a cream-cheese frosting between the layers.

And cooks on Hatteras Island have their own version of fig cake, with whiskey in the batter.

"The Outer Banks Cookbook" is not just an ode to the past. Many of the recipes represent what contemporary chefs are doing in the best restaurants.

"They are the chefs who I felt honored the traditions of using local resources, but present the food with a more global influence," Wiegand said. "I tried to choose restaurants that use local fish but serve it in new and modern ways."

The book includes sauteed soft-shell crabs with green onion, country ham and roasted peanuts from the Blue Point restaurant in Duck. Other examples include baked fish with a Parmesan crust from Cafe Atlantic on Ocracoke and Grilled Fresh Grouper and Peaches from Basnight's Lone Cedar Cafe on the Nags Head-Manteo Causeway.

"You also see a lot of grilled fish with creative salsas," Wiegand said.

Though seafood dominates the book, Wiegand does include recipes with vegetables, chicken and duck. Cornmeal, used in abundance because flour was sometimes scarce, shows up in grits, corn bread, hush puppies and more.

Though peaches, figs and blackberries are frequently used in pies, cakes and ice cream, the book does have other desserts, such as chocolate cream pie, lemon squares and raw apple cake.

Wiegand said she originally wanted to write a book about all North Carolina food, and she still hopes to do a book on the food of the mountains. But the food and people of the Outer Banks have earned a place in her heart. "I love the people who are down there. They are honest. They are hard-working. And their traditions are dying out."

She said she hopes that "The Outer Banks Cookbook" helps those traditions survive.