Ocracoke Oyster Pie

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by David Cecelski

I found an old Ocracoke Island cookbook in my pantry and took it out to the island with me this week. Published by the island’s United Methodist Women half a century ago and long out of print, the Original Ocracoke Cookbook contains a nice collection of mostly traditional local recipes. You won’t find recipes reflective of the island’s passion for beef and mutton, relics of the days when Ocracokers kept large herds of cattle and sheep roaming free on the north and south ends of the island. (A tick fever eradication program and the purchase of most that land by National Park Service put an end to that.) You will discover, however, a raft of wonderful seafood recipes.

Some of the most striking recipes are those for the old-time islanders’ most beloved fish, drum (channel bass). The cookbook has a half-dozen recipes just for that one fish. There’s stewed drum, creamed drum, boiled “old drum” and potatoes, fried drum, baked “old drum.” and smothered drum. Now “old drum”—the big, granddaddy drum—are illegal to catch, a fact that has broken the heart of many an old-timer.

There are even more clam recipes. You’ll find recipes for stewed clams, deviled clams, 4 different recipes for clam chowder and 3 different recipes for clam fritters. Ocracoke was the center of the coast’s clam industry late in the 19^th and early in the 20^th century and no doubt a good many of the cookbook’s authors worked at least part-time at the Doxie Clam Company on Cockle Creek when they were young.

Most of Ocracoke’s oysters vanished before World War II—locals most often attribute that decline to Chesapeake dredgers and the hurricane of ’33. But for earlier generations, oysters were a winter mainstay. Tonging for oysters was a hard, hard way of making a living—my great-uncle Armistead did it and I’ve heard the stories—but you can see the islanders’ fondness for the taste of oysters in 9 recipes ranging from oyster stew to oyster pie.

The cookbook also features four recipes for turtle—2 for stewed diamond-back terrapin, 1 for stewed sea turtle and 1 for stewed snapping turtle or swamp turtle. You don’t see a lot of turtle recipes in American cookbooks today and that’s probably a good thing: an ecological crisis has been threatening all sea turtles and many terrestrial turtles. The Original Ocracoke Cookbook was written in another time though.

Diamond-back terrapin, inhabitants of eel grass beds and salt marshes, were the basis of a commercial fishery late in the 19^th and early in the 20^th century. Fishermen kept them alive in pens until they could be shipped north, where they were considered a delicacy in cities like Philadelphia and New York City. More recently, Chowan River snapping turtles flavored a turtle soup marketed nationally by the Campbell’s Soup Company.

 

Here are a couple classic island recipes from The Original Ocracoke Cook Book. It may be illegal to hunt diamond-back terrapins now, so let’s consider that recipe as being here just for history’s sake.

 

 

OYSTER PIE

Line pie pan with rich pie pastry. Fill with layers of oysters dotted with butter. Continue until pie is as deep as wanted ending with butter and a generous sprinkling of pepper. Cover with top crust and seal. Make slashes in crust to allow steam to escape. Bake in 400 degree oven until brown and bubbly.
Mrs. Myra Wahab

STEWED DIAMOND-BACK TERRAPIN

Remove shells from four terrapins, pour boiling water over meat, skin and remove claws, cut off head. ¼ lb. salt pork cut in cubes, fried out in pot terrapins are to be cooked in. Add terrapin and eggs if any (of terrapin). 4 or 5 medium potatoes peeled and quartered, 1 onion cut up, salt and plenty of black pepper; 1 pod red pepper. Water to cover. Cook about 1 ½ hours.
Mrs. Loui Dell Williams

CLAM FRITTERS

Chop or grind one pint clams. Add mixture of ½ tsp. salt, 2 tsp. baking powder, ½ cup flour, 1 beaten egg, and ¼ cup canned milk or clam juice. Mix well. Drop from spoon to make fritters in ¼ inch of grease in fry pan. Brown well.
Mrs. Fonnie Willis

According to my friends on Ocracoke, Mrs. Wahab, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Willis have all passed on. In fact, all but 2 or 3 of the ladies who contributed recipes to this cookbook in order to raise a little money for their church are gone now.

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Though Ocracoke was a much quieter place when this cookbook was published, I suspect that those ladies would have felt at home there this week. Winter always affords a break from summertime crowds, but this winter is special. The state is doing repair work on several creek bridges on NC-11, the only road to the north end of the island. The road is closed from the campground north. To get to the Hatteras ferry, you have to drive a 4-wheel drive vehicle up the beach. As a result, traffic through the village has temporarily been reduced to a trickle.

In addition, two of the state ferries that usually run between Cedar Island and Ocracoke broke down this week, so that route is reduced to two runs a day. The motels, restaurants and gift shops on the island are nearly all closed. Even Howard’s Pub, a local institution that boasts that it is open 365 days a year, is taking advantage of the lull by closing and doing renovations. Dogs are sleeping in the road.

Leaving Ocracoke; photo by David Cecelski

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