Decades have passed since Tammy Kelly was a little girl growing up on a tobacco farm in Carteret County, but the memories haven’t faded. After a long week of work, her family would sit down to supper and enjoy a home-cooked meal featuring Down East baked flounder, Ma Pat’s coleslaw, and, if they were lucky, Grandma Clara’s strawberry pound cake. “We had a meal every night,” Kelly says. “It may have been 8 o’clock during the tobacco season, but Grandma left her farm work early to go cook lunch for everybody, and then Mom cooked at night. That’s my knowledge of way-back-when foods.” Dr. Tammy Kelly, Extension director for Lenoir County, always loved her grandma’s Down East strawberry pound cake. photograph by Chris RogersIn her 35 years with North Carolina Cooperative Extension, Kelly has seen some of eastern North Carolina’s culinary heritage crumble like the old packhouse that now barely stands on her family’s farm. As Extension director for Lenoir County, part of her work is keeping t...
