Alison Stewart (3:22)

Listeners, what's your favorite Southern meal? What makes it special to you? Is it a family recipe, holiday staple, or something you've tied to a specific place or memory? Or maybe you have a question about techniques to recreate a home dish? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. And I want to ask you a question. May I call you Spring?

Anita Spring Council (3:48)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (3:49)

Okay. Thank you. Tell me something that everyone knew about Mama Dip when she was alive, something they would say about her.

Anita Spring Council (3:58)

They would say that she was a very kind and loving person and that she was an excellent cook and a community person. She was one who helped those in need. And people just loved her. They loved Mama Depp.

Alison Stewart (4:12)

UNC Chapel Hill professor emeritus Marcicoan Ferris said that the women in your family are admired for their culinary genius, but also for their deep commitment to community service, education and social justice. How did these parents instill these values in you and your siblings?

Anita Spring Council (4:31)

When we were growing up, we grew in a community that had poor people and had the middle class, and there was always someone there out to help. My mom would take us along with her when she went to visit people and take them food that had less than we had. And as a child, seeing that and seeing the condition people living in, and my mom was helping them, it was a great, great thing to do. And we loved that experience with her. And that carries over to other parts of the community. When we would have the customer coming to the restaurant, they just didn't come to eat. They came to experience Mama Dips and the love and care we gave to the food and to the community. And what she did do is she helped the people a lot of time. Other people would not take the time to, for instance, she was on the prison board in Orange county and she decided to let some of the inmates be on the work release program there. And so that was one way she gave to the community. Another way she did was people who was in drug addicted and halfway houses, they needed a second chance. She would bring them in to work at a restaurant. So we were all a part of that in that sense of how Mama gave back to community.

Alison Stewart (5:46)

In the book, you go into detail about your family history and you reference your grandfather Bill, who you described as a Hard working community leader. What's a story you heard about your

Interviewer (5:57)

grandfather growing up that has stuck with you throughout your life or maybe inspired you?

Anita Spring Council (6:03)

Well, he was a hard working man. And he opened a restaurant up when. The year I was born. And when Martin Luther King came to chop here in the 1960s to do a speech and he actually fed the protesters, he provided the food for that. Now, I wasn't old enough to participate, but my sisters and my cousins talked about it a lot and they was very happy to be a part of that. And he worked and created the restaurant not necessarily to drive fancy cars or to build fancy houses. He did it for the community and made sure people had jobs. And we were children. We actually had jobs there too. Our first was making chicken boxes for the restaurant restaurant. And that was a really great thing to do. We used that money to go swimming, buy candy. And he knew that having eight children in one household, my parents didn't always have a nickel to give out. And so he created that job for us.

Interviewer (6:59)

Did you like the job?

Anita Spring Council (7:01)

I love it. And we would be. I love the. The coins went with him. We would be in the back room making boxes. And we just play the game out of who can make the box the fastest. You know, it was really fun.

Interviewer (7:12)

Who was the fastest?

Anita Spring Council (7:14)

My sister Bun. She was always fast at everything she did.

Interviewer (7:19)

Momma Dip's kitchen was one of Chapel Hill, North Carolina's most beloved restaurants. A new collection of recipes, family stories and personal vignettes about coming of age as a black girl in the Jim Crow south from Mama Dip's daughter, Anita Spring Council. She's here with us now to discuss. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a favorite southern meal? What makes it special to you? Is it a family recipe or something tied to a specific place or a memory? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. I want to talk about the two this two restaurants that your parents started. Bill's Barbecue. Was that your dad, your or your mom, I mean your grandpa?

Anita Spring Council (8:05)

It was my grandfather.

Interviewer (8:06)

Your grandfather. Bill's Barbecue, how did it start?

Anita Spring Council (8:10)

It started. He actually worked in a lumber yard for many years. He saved enough money to build a little small fast schedule restaurant. It was mostly a takeout and my mother was his menu developer. Spread that he had other people to come in to work at the restaurant. He operated that up until 1968 when he retired and my parents started a food truck. My dad did start a food truck in 1968. And save enough money to reopen Bill's Barbecue. And so that's how that started.

Alison Stewart (8:41)

And then we have Mama Dip's Kitchen on the other side. Tell us how we get started. That.

Anita Spring Council (8:45)

Yes. So Mama was decided to leave the. The Bill's Barbecue Restaurant. And so she was walking down the street one day, and Mr. Tate, George Tate, he was a business property owner, and he asked her to take over a failing restaurant. And so she did. She went in and. And she got it cleaned up and reopened. And she had help from the Mega Psi Phi fraternity came in, which my brother was going online at the time, and he helped with that as well.

Alison Stewart (9:11)

Oh, that helped a lot when he was online.

Anita Spring Council (9:14)

Yes.

Alison Stewart (9:15)

Your mom owns a restaurant. Let's talk about some recipes in the book Sweet Potato Cornbread. What does sweet potato add to this recipe that you won't get from regular cornbread?

Anita Spring Council (9:32)

It's going to add that sweetness and that nice caramel flavor of the sweet potatoes, a nice earthly flavor to it. And sweet potato has really been in our community a lot. It was something that was always on the stovetop for a snack, and it played a lot of history in what we cooked.

Alison Stewart (9:49)

So you need a cup of sweet potatoes. How do you. Do you. Do you roast them? Do you boil them? What do you do with them?

Anita Spring Council (9:57)

I like to bake my sweet potatoes to get the extra caramel flavor and then just mash them up. Not too mashy, but little chunks left, and then put them into the. Fold them into the sweet cornbread after it's made up.

Interviewer (10:09)

Yeah.

Alison Stewart (10:09)

And in addition to the sweet potatoes, there's also cinnamon, nutmeg, and grated orange zest, which is what my sister puts in her sweet potato pie, by the way. What does the orange zest do to the biscuits?

Anita Spring Council (10:23)

You give it a nice citric flavor, and I just want to add more layers of flavor to that cornbread. So a little orange zest would give it a nice kick and nice orangey, zesty taste to it. Yeah.

Interviewer (10:36)

You also have braised collard greens in here. A lot of African American families have their own recipes for collard greens. What is the. What's the council spin on collard greens?

Anita Spring Council (10:50)

Well, my mother always used salt pork for collard greens. She would cook the collards first, and then she would pour off the excess liquid pot liquor, and then she would fry the fat back on the side and add that to the collard greens. With me, I did a little different take on that. So you can have, like, a vegetarian at your table or vegan at Your table. So I put just olive oil sauteed with the green peppers and onions and then put it back into the pot and braise it without the meat or the that.

Interviewer (11:20)

You also have turnip greens in here as well. What's the difference in terms of their flavor profile as compared to collard greens?

Anita Spring Council (11:28)

I think in the sense of the turnip greens, they have more bite to them than the collard greens. Collard greens more of like a thicker green. And the flavors, Turnip greens a little less lighter flavor than collards. And when my mom used to cook those and season those, she would actually put the fat in the collard greens and just boil them off at the same time.

Interviewer (11:51)

Some people make their greens with smoked pork or sometimes with turkey. How much protein do you use? You said and. And how much of it do you

Anita Spring Council (12:02)

use for the protein for the pork? It's just probably I like to use about three or four pieces of a salt pork and fry that off and not too much. Yeah, because you don't want to get it greasy.

Alison Stewart (12:14)

Definitely don't. Let's talk about apple coleslaw. You use Granny Smith apples. Why do you use Granny Smith's?

Anita Spring Council (12:22)

They're a nice apple for eatin raw. Nice tart apple. I like that. And it plays well with the sweetness of the coleslaw. Put a little sugar in there, and that goes well with that fresh dill. And then when you make that recipe, make sure you use the fresh dill, not the dried stuff or you'll really miss on a great flavor.

Alison Stewart (12:38)

My guest is Anita Spring Council. We're talking about her book Southern Recipes and Stories from Mama Dip's Diner. All right, we're gonna talk about mains in the book. What is something a main dish has to have in in Southern cooking?

Anita Spring Council (12:53)

The main dish I have love and the best ingredients. My mom always taught me to use the best ingredients. That's what really is going to create a delicious dish. Definitely farm to table.

Alison Stewart (13:07)

All right, we're going to talk about plump dumpling encounters. In the book, you state chicken and dumplings were a dish that was occasionally served for Sunday meals and annual church homecoming dinners. What? Why was it served at homecoming dinners?

Anita Spring Council (13:22)

Well, it was something you can take. You can make a lot at one time. Chicken dumpling is like a big pot dish, and you can feed a lot of people with that. So it's one of the reasons we would take it there. And of course, it was a very popular dish. It still is a popular dish in the South.

Alison Stewart (13:38)

How do you make good? Yeah. How do you make good dumplings? I make good dumplings, I will say. But how do you make good dumplings?

Anita Spring Council (13:45)

Well, if you're making the roll dump, you have to make sure that you roll them thin enough so they're going to get done. And then making sure that you don't overcook the drop dumplings, and. And then just use your broth that you're cooking the chicken out. You cook your chicken in the broth first, and that help brings out the flavor.

Alison Stewart (14:02)

How do you prepare your chicken?

Anita Spring Council (14:04)

I boil the chicken. Boil the chicken and just take off all the, you know, the skin and take away, you know, debone it, and then just put. Chop the chicken up and put it in there and making sure that you don't chop it too fine because it too much, the chicken will overcook and just have little pieces in your dumpling. So make sure you keep it good size.

Alison Stewart (14:22)

We got a text here that says, I've always loved Southern Creole, but unfortunately, living here on Long island, it's really hard to find good, traditional gumbo. Do you have any recommendations in your book for someone who wants that kind of food?

Anita Spring Council (14:38)

Well, I don't have gumbo in my book, but I love gumbo. And what I like to do sometimes is take a roasted chicken, sort of make it quick, and I start them that point, and then add my, you know, doing sausages, and use it that way, rice.

Alison Stewart (14:56)

Working at Mama Dip's kitchen, you got to know the customers, right? And sometimes your experiences getting to know customers led to recipes like shrimp croquettes. Tell us what the backstory is here.

Anita Spring Council (15:09)

Backstory of the. The shrimp croquettes.

Alison Stewart (15:11)

Yeah.

Anita Spring Council (15:11)

Yes. And so what I did, I was challenged to go on a bike trip of the Outer Banks with a friend of mine who owned the bike store in Carrboro. And I went on that trip, and one of the places we went to was a place that served shrimp burgers. And the shrimp burgers was just on a bun, a steam bun with some tartar sauce and the shrimp in there. So I said, let me try creating that in a different way. So that's why I came up with the shrimp croquettes, to sort of remind me of that dish I had at the Outer Banks.

Alison Stewart (15:41)

I wanted to ask you about some. They were listed as breakfasts, but I think they could be anytime, to be honest. You mentioned a plum nectarine yogurt bowl, which is a really interesting combination. What is it about the plum and the nectarine that go together?

Anita Spring Council (15:58)

Well, the plum is sweet. I love Plums. The plum is sweet, and then the nectar is sweet, but still have, like, a little sourness to it. So give you some different layers of flavors in that, and it's going to cut through the sweetness of the granola, so you don't have too sweet of a dish for that. So. And then, of course, they're coming out pretty much at the same season, so you get them really good and fresh.

Alison Stewart (16:22)

I wanted to ask you about setting your table. What lessons did you learn from your mother about setting the table?

Anita Spring Council (16:30)

Well, I actually learned mom always say, use your best stuff and don't just put it in the cabinet, just leave it there to make sure that you use it all the time. And for my grandmother, my paternal grandmother, she used to have parties for the Women's Missionary Society, and they would get together to plan out what they was going to do for the community. And I was always go to my grandmother's house and look at her table setting. And I was just at awe at the beautiful, you know, the china, the crystal and the silver on the table. And not only that, I knew when those women gathered together, they came together to help the folks in the community.

Alison Stewart (17:07)

This says. Yeah, this says. This message says, hi, Spring. I'm so happy to hear you on the radio. Now that we're here in New York, we miss Mama Dips and you too, badly. We cannot get anything like dip, spickled beets, fried chicken, greens, fried okra, and your wonderful zucchini casserole. If you haven't had New Year's Day dinner, you haven't lived. What's your favorite recipe in the book?

Anita Spring Council (17:33)

My favorite recipe that really actually brings back memories is the sweet potato pecan pie. Yes. And I say that is because go back to my grandmother's baked sweet potatoes and my mother's. But then if I really want to get something that brings back that comfort food my mom wanted to cook for me, it would be the braised beef short ribs. You know, when I remember the first time I ate that dish, it was just absolutely delicious. And it just stuck to my memory. So I would say those Bay's B short ribs, and I cook that, too. When I want to just have that comfort food and think about Mama, I make that.

Alison Stewart (18:10)

The name of the book is Southern Roots Recipes and Stories from Mama Dip's Daughter.

Interviewer (18:14)

It is by Spring Council.

Alison Stewart (18:16)

Spring, thank you for being with us.

Anita Spring Council (18:18)

Sure. Thank you for having me.

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