From Our State Magazine...

FEATURES

North Carolina’s Agent ’Cue

There is no shortage of barbecue experts in our state, but only one hosts the NC State BBQ Camp.

by Jeremy Markovich

Kevin Peterson, who, with his wife, Dana, owns Showtime’s Legit BBQ in Benson, checks the temperature of hogs cooking in a mobile pit. Right: the Petersons’ award-winning brisket, before and after cooking.

PHOTOGRAPH BY RÉMY THURSTON

 
 
 
 
 
 

Whenever someone cooks barbecue in the open for a lot of people, That Guy is inevitably going to show up. That Guy usually asks a lot of questions. What kind of smoker is this? What kind of wood are you using? How long has the pig been on? He lingers just a little bit too long and stares just a little bit too hard. But his aim is true: That Guy (and it’s usually a guy) earnestly wants to know all there is to know about barbecue.

This evening, That Guy is a 30-something man in flip-flops and shorts with a cheap beer in his hand and a lot of inquiries on his mind. He’s a little bit of a barbecue insider — he works for a company that makes machines that pull meat off the bone. “I love barbecue,” he says. He wants to know how to season the pork. The best techniques for pulling it apart. Time. Temperature. He’s been trying to smoke all sorts of cuts of meat lately. Boston butts, especially. When That Guy sees someone with a legit setup, he can’t help himself. “You learn new tricks,” he says.

Unbeknownst to That Guy, there’s an expert lurking in his midst.

Dana Hanson teaches would-be pitmasters and backyard grill masters how to properly prepare and serve a variety of meats during BBQ Camp. One recommendation: Sweet corn pairs perfectly with any style of ’cue.PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN KASE CONDER, RÉMY THURSTON

“I’m the meat guy,” Dr. Dana Hanson says, and that’s an easy summation of his longer title. He’s an NC State Extension meat science specialist, and since 2016, he’s been catering to That Guy (and, increasingly, That Gal). Every June, Hanson, with support from members of the North Carolina Meat Processors Association, and others hold the NC State BBQ Camp on campus in Raleigh. “I’m not the originator of doing an ‘academic’ school of barbecue,” he says. He’d attended Camp Brisket at Texas A&M University and, together with a graduate student, adapted it for a North Carolina audience. Or so he thought. Since it began, the camp has attracted people from California to New York.

Maybe it’s because North Carolina barbecue has gone from a regional delicacy to a nationally known commodity, now playing in the same league as barbecue from Texas and Kansas City. Fans are loyal to specific styles in the same way that sports fans are loyal to their teams. Hanson has thought about that. “It’s fun,” he says. “You can have a conversation about barbecue with anybody.” In an era when disagreements can turn toxic, barbecue is a conversation starter where, yes, you can agree to disagree. “I don’t know many people who are ready to take up fisticuffs over it,” he says. It’s a safe space to fight.

Barbecue is a conversation starter where, yes, you can agree to disagree.

And so, while Hanson’s barbecue camp doesn’t play favorites between eastern- and Lexington-style — or even Texas and Kansas City — it does try to introduce campers to all different types of barbecue, including things like turkey, spare ribs, and pork butts. “It’s more of a 50,000-foot view of barbecue as a whole,” he says.

There’s a lot of interest lately in whole-hog barbecue. The camp has added it to the curriculum, but cooking whole hogs takes time, expertise, and practice. “Whole hog is a bigger study,” Hanson says. By the time you cook one, “hopefully you’ve had wins and losses already. If you spend $300 on a whole hog and it turns into garbage, you’re pretty discouraged.”

• • •

You are not going to become an expert, even after two jam-packed days at BBQ Camp. It’s hard to come up with an itinerary that serves everyone, Hanson says, because some attendees are award-winning pitmasters, and some are newbies who haven’t even used the shiny new smoker they just bought. Instead, the camp is a hands-on attempt to get people interested in the parts of barbecue that are important but don’t get the headlines: Sanitation. Proper food handling. Temperature. The supply chains for meat. How different cuts are processed. “It doesn’t get real heady,” Hanson says. Sure, you’ll learn about how to slow-cook pork shoulders over hickory coals for hours on end. But you’ll also learn how to use your smoker at home.

Which, for a method of cooking food that seems to have a puritanical streak, might feel a little wrong. It felt that way for Hanson. At first. “When the Traeger first came out, I thought it was blasphemy,” Hanson says of the popular wood pellet-fired grill and smoker that you can control with an app on your phone. That ease ran afoul of the toil that many people think has to be a component of good barbecue. Since then, Hanson says, he’s mellowed with age, and he’s seen the benefit that new and affordable equipment has had over the past decade.

Last year, Chris Moore, who runs the Moore Than You Can Chew food truck in Raleigh, was one of many campers with experience cooking low and slow, while some novice participants got their first real taste of hardwood smoke and spicy rub.PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN KASE CONDER

“If you have a tool that matches your level of commitment, use it,” he says. “There’s a continuum. If I’m cooking during the week? I hit the switch and use the Traeger. If I’m cooking for more people, I use the Big Green Egg. If I’m doing a big catered event, I’ve got a grill that’s a trailer that burns firewood. I can do 16 briskets on it.”

In other words, Hanson and his fellow instructors meet campers where they are. As a fifth-generation farmer from Wisconsin, he looks at it this way: Agriculture and all of those in the supply chain are underappreciated. But in North Carolina, agriculture and agribusiness are still among the top industries. The state, for all of its growth and its rising urban centers, is still more rural than many of its peers. “I’m using barbecue as a platform to teach other things that are important,” Hanson says about cooking, but also about farming.

Kevin and Dana Peterson are two-time state barbecue champions and teach the whole-hog portion of BBQ Camp.PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN KASE CONDER

Above all, the camp can come off like a pep rally, which is evident from the number of BBQ Camp alums hanging out in this concrete business park in Charlotte. Dana Peterson from Showtime’s Legit BBQ in Benson taught at last year’s camp. “They wanted to learn,” she says of her students, including a few who already knew a lot about how to prepare meat. “When we first piloted the camp, I hadn’t mastered the brisket,” says Kurt Byrd of Smithfield-based Carolina Packers, makers of the well-known red hot dogs. The camp gave him the inspiration to get better, because even though he’s an industry insider, he doesn’t always have time to mess around with a charcoal smoker.

BBQ Camp, he says, is “a break from routine. I get to come here and learn to barbecue.” One of Byrd’s plant managers got so inspired by the camp that he kept learning and practicing and eventually bought his own food trailer. Sure, you can learn a lot from YouTube, Byrd says, but it’s not the same as being able to ask experts questions face-to-face.

Part of the NC State BBQ Camp’s success comes from Hanson’s connections in the industry, Byrd says, and that’s on display here. Hanson feels omnipresent among the plastic tables and the crowd going back for seconds of corn, slaw, brisket, and beans. In fact, one of the only people he hasn’t met is That Guy, who’s still hanging out near the smoker. Perhaps they’ll cross paths in line for dessert — or maybe this summer at camp.

To learn more about the NC State BBQ Camp, visit go.ncsu.edu/ncstatebbqcamp.

4-H Family Seed Saving Club

   We don't give them much thought but with a possible seed shortage and more folks wanting to know where their food comes from this is a great time to learn about not only saving seeds but the versatility of seeds.  Many families have planted gardens for generations.  There is nothing like using fresh herbs or veggies from your own garden or even gifting them to neighbors.  How that all starts is with a seed.  If you take a little time you can harvest your own seeds to plant again, or swap with someone else.  

If gardening isn't your thing think about how seeds are used in cooking and even crafts.  We will explore some popular and maybe some unheard of seed recipes as well get crafty with the unique works of art.   You will be amazed at what you can create, grow, and eat just from some little seeds.

More of our 4-H families have asked for SPIN Clubs that will allow the entire family to take part.  That is what we are doing with this opportunity.  Everything starts with the seeds you plant so why not plant this seed with your family on May 4 & 11 from 6-8 pm and see what it is all about.  Some good might just grow from it.

To register for this free opportunity you can go to programs in our app or click this link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/family-seed-saving-4-h-club-tickets-625700736747

For more information about this event please contact Shea Ann DeJarnette at sadejarn@ncsu.edu
  

A Pole Bean Revival

From Our State Magazine...

 

FEATURES

A Pole Bean Revival in Ashe County

An NC Cooperative Extension agent and several optimistic farmers are helping bring back a crop that was thought to be extinct.

by Bryan Mims

 
 
 
 
 
 

PHOTOGRAPH BY REVIVAL CREATIVES

The magic beans lay hidden away, in darkness and ice, as the world outside warmed to the notion of beans in a can. They had once been so bountiful, these beans, garnishing Sunday supper plates from this hill to that holler across Ashe County. They hung heavy on vines in the deep green of late summer, ripe for the picking. On creeksides, hillsides, and roadsides, the beans burst onto the landscape, summoning truckloads of workers and feeding the local economy.

But now the only ones left sat in a basement freezer, through the waning years of the Cold War. They lay there since before the Internet and social media took off, through both Bush presidencies, through roaring times and recessions, through the onset of DoorDash and Uber Eats, waiting for someone to … well, spill the beans about their existence.

During the late 1960s, pole beans were the biggest crop in Ashe County. They’re called pole beans because their vines cling to poles or trellises, creating rows of leafy labyrinths. And the dominant bean of the area’s growers was Morse’s 191, a pole bean developed and registered by the Ferry-Morse Seed Company in 1938. The beans flourished in the moderate summers of the Ashe County mountains. Trucks hauled them as far away as grocery stores in Florida, where they fetched premium prices.

From left: Travis Birdsell, Extension director in Ashe County; Blake Williams, Extension agriculture program assistant; and Bill Naser, Extension Master Gardener volunteer, all played a role in the comeback of a local icon.PHOTOGRAPH BY REVIVAL CREATIVES

“It is the signature pole bean from our industry,” says Travis Birdsell, director of North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Ashe County Center. In 2016, Birdsell, along with the NC State Extension Master Gardener program, started the Ashe County Victory Garden to preserve and celebrate the county’s agricultural history. “I went on a pretty big expedition to find as many heritage seeds as possible,” he says. But he figured Morse’s 191 was as good as gone; nobody had grown the bean in decades.

Among the last growers was the late Elmer Poe, who retired from bean farming in 1980. He grew 23,000 bushels of Morse’s 191 that year, but by then, the area’s bean business was beginning to wither. His 84-year-old son, Paul, blames it on the demise of family get-togethers around the table — and on the rise in popularity of green beans in a can. “Somebody asked me one time what happened to the bean business in Ashe County, and I said, ‘Mama quit cooking Sunday dinner,’ ” he says. “And I’m still sure today that had a big influence on it.”

Can you spot the Morse’s 191 pole bean? Hint: It’s a shade lighter than the green beans on either side.PHOTOGRAPH BY REVIVAL CREATIVES

Paul and his son, Mitchell, now grow Fraser firs for Christmas trees at Cardinal Tree Farms. Rows of evergreens, not pole beans, ribbon the county’s rolling terrain. But back when beans were the county’s bread-and-butter crop, the Poe family was royalty. After Mitchell returned home from college in the early 1990s, he worked for Ashe County Motors, where customers who had worked for his family’s farm would tell him how much the Poes meant to their own families. “We just want you to know that your family kept us alive,” they’d say. “That was our only means of making money.”

Looking back, Mitchell describes Morse’s 191 as a bean of beauty. “That 191 is as white as snow,” he says. As it happens, his father decided to put some of the Morse’s 191 seeds in a freezer after the Poe family quit growing pole beans. “I thought I might want to eat one a little later on,” Paul says with a laugh. “It’s part of my heritage.”

• • •

In his quest to unearth the area’s heritage beans, Birdsell paid a visit to the Poes’ office in 2017. That’s when Paul brought the seeds out of the freezer in a Ziploc bag. Birdsell and others had nearly written them off as extinct, but there they were as frozen morsels, ready for planting. “I would say it’s like the feeling an archaeologist gets when he finds some historical site and realizes it still exists,” Birdsell says. “There’s an opportunity for a whole new generation to experience it.”

Birdsell planted some of the seeds in the Victory Garden at the Museum of Ashe County History and in his home garden, successfully multiplying the Morse’s 191 bean. He also gave seeds to local farmer Don Smith, who had expressed interest in growing pole beans.

Farmer Don Smith inspects trellises brimming with Morse’s 191 pole beans.PHOTOGRAPH BY REVIVAL CREATIVES

Don Smith and his oldest son Josh (left), along with their dog, Zeb, tend 10 acres of pole beans and last year harvested 300 bushels.PHOTOGRAPH BY REVIVAL CREATIVES

On a gentle slope along the South Fork New River, Smith’s vines are lush in the late summer sun. “As long as they’re blooming, they’re making more beans,” he says. “Most of the beans that you buy in the grocery store now, they’re bred to get rid of the bean on the inside. The flesh of the hull is all you’re getting. You’re not getting any bean in green beans nowadays.”

Smith now has a contract with Ingles grocery stores to grow bona fide beans on his farm — and the darling of the batch is their two acres of Morse’s 191. The big, white, flavorful beans can once again hang heavy on vines in the summer sun, waiting to be picked before the first frost. They can once again populate backyard gardens and side dishes from hills to hollers to flatlands.

“The best place to preserve seed is in a garden,” Birdsell says. “We want to have a diversity of people growing it so that it doesn’t ever get lost.”

Morse’s 191 may not be magic beans, exactly, but there’s something magical about seeing them emerge from a deep freeze and brought back from the brink of extinction. TV dinners and Green Giant couldn’t polish off the pole beans. With soil, sunshine, and a newfound appreciation for their savoriness, they have another shot at Sunday dinner.

4-H Animal Science

 

It's that time of year folks.  We are excited to be offering our 4-H Animal Science program again but this year we have some new things to talk about so please read everything carefully.

4-H Animal Science is the cornerstone of the 4-H program. Youth get the opportunity to raise an animal for show at the fair. In the process they learn about responsibility, record keeping, anatomy of that animal and more. It is a fun project with real world learning opportunities.

This year we are turning the animal science project on its ear so please read the following information carefully.

-All youth taking part in this project must be actively registered in 4-H Online to receive an animal.

-This project is open to all youth ages 5-18. Please note our 5-7 year old Cloverbud division is non competitive.

-Youth must register and pay in Eventbrite prior to the deadline.

-Before registering please consider the needs of the animal (cost, pen, feed, outdoor area, predators, fencing, weather, etc.) before registering for this project. Once you register care, food, and other needs will be the responsibility of the family. Also think about vacations and schedules so that you can maintain a steady schedule for your animal in terms of water, feed, exercise, etc.

-We are offering the following animals this year:

Laying Hens:  You will receive at least 6 pullets (young female laying hens less than a year in age) $25

Turkeys:  You will receive from the state 3 turkeys about two weeks old as well as 5-10 lbs of food to start them off with.  $15

Rabbits:  You will receive one rabbits approximately 8-10 weeks old.  $25

Goats:  You will receive one wether (castrated male goat) $85

Please note this is a cost share opportunity thanks to funds from Lumber River United Way.  Your payment also covers a polo shirt that your child will receive when they pen their animal at the fair.  If you decide not to show up or no longer wish to finish the project you may be subject to paying the rest of the cost of the project.

-There will be a mandatory Animal Science training and animal give-out at the Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair Grounds on May 20 from 9:30-11:30 am.

-Other in person scheduled visits, video trainings, and possibly in person trainings per species are likely during this process. This will be discussed at the animal science meeting/training/giveaway in May.

-Youth are required to show their animal at the Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair.

-If completing the turkey project youth will also be required to show at the state turkey show prior or during the state fair.

-We recommend the youth start by showing rabbits or chickens as a first project and move up to larger animals such as turkeys and goats.

-Please check the zoning ordinances and if applicable Home Owners Association policies, on raising animals where you live.

-Youth may complete up to 3 different animal projects.

-A project record book will need to be completed and turned in as part of this project. There will be a training on record books and we will offer virtual help in completing the books. Please note that there is a separate competition for record books in January as well that you may turn these books in for. More information will be given about that program during training.

-To register you can click on the link on our app under programs or click the link below:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/4-h-animal-science-tickets-598007114377

If you have any questions please contact Shea Ann DeJarnette at sadejarn@ncsu.edu.

From Soups to Knots

-By Todd Dulaney, Executive Editor of Our State Magazine. 

While its history is long and its presence in the state extensive, the core mission of NC Cooperative Extension is, and always has been, pretty straightforward: solving problems.

Where the waters get muddy and the weeds get thick is the sheer scope and scale of its problem-solving — from food and agriculture to health and nutrition to youth development. (And, yes, Extension has experts who can suggest solutions for that muddy water and those tangled weeds.)

In Watauga County, farmer Joey Clawson (left) discusses the health of his Fraser firs with Extension agent Eddy Labus.PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NC STATE EXTENSION

Its more than 1,200 experts — together with a statewide army of volunteers, partner organizations, and agencies — tap into a wealth of scientific research and firsthand knowledge to answer just about any question that folks throw at them. Are these bugs in my yard fire ants? An Extension entomologist can tell you for sure. Why do my azaleas look peaked? There are horticulturists who can help. My green thumb is very green. Can I grow vegetables for a living? Yes, Extension even has economists who can help with an agribusiness start-up.

You could find an answer — or 1,000 — to your questions on the Internet, but in addition to comprising some of the smartest scientists and researchers around, Extension is bound to have a center nearby — one in every county plus the Qualla Boundary. Extension agents, staff, and volunteers are the wise neighbors that you didn’t even know you had, who know about the place where you live — its weather and topography, what grows well in your backyard and what doesn’t — better than Google does.

• • •

While many people engage directly with Extension experts at our two land-grant universities — NC State and NC A&T State University — the majority interact with local founts of wisdom, including the state’s more than 3,000 Extension Master Gardener volunteers, who help beautify their communities and give novice gardeners the tools they need to grow their own food. Their knowledge is critically important in places where the future of traditional foodways is imperiled, an issue affecting Cherokee in the Qualla Boundary as well as residents in our cities, where food insecurity is a major concern.

And even though gardens and lawns and pests around the house are a significant part of Extension’s focus, don’t be fooled into thinking that its expertise is limited to backyards.

Science and nature are key components of Extension. As part of the Extension 4-H program, kids put their engineering skills to the test by building robots.PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NC STATE EXTENSION

Many Extension 4-H programs teach vegetable canning, along with lessons on animals, the environment, and science and technology — which is why 4-H members always keep safety goggles handy.PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NC STATE EXTENSION

Extension works with many of the state’s future gardeners — and future chefs, scientists, and engineers — through 4-H. Programs include community clubs and school enrichment projects that range from raising animals to working on computers and building rockets. Extension 4-H programs attract kids from communities of every size, as well as from military bases through Operation Military Kids, a partnership to develop a support network for the children of deployed soldiers.

A highlight of 4-H for more than 11,000 kids from across the state is having the opportunity to participate in camping programs at North Carolina’s three 4-H educational centers. There, kids from all backgrounds experience the fun of summer camp together.

Many of those campers return as counselors, and some may find careers with Extension, which will no doubt be solving problems for many future generations of North Carolinians.

• • •

Much like homeowners who want to know what’s nibbling on their peonies, the state’s farmers and agribusinesses rely on Extension for answers, too — just on a much larger scale. Agriculture is a $93 billion industry in North Carolina, and includes everything from oysters on the coast to sod farms in the Piedmont to Christmas trees out west — not to mention 43,000 farms that raise and tend row crops, livestock, and orchards.

Extension is the authority on the basics of large-scale farming, including when and how to spray chemicals on fields, how to keep vulnerable row crops safe from frost and freezes, and how to promote healthy bee colonies.

The NC State apiary on Centennial Campus is one of many resources for aspiring beekeepers.PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NC STATE EXTENSION

Small and midsize farms look to Extension for help figuring out ways to get their eggs and vegetables to market, how to adapt their crops to a changing climate, and how to better promote what they grow — in the areas where they grow it. Initiatives that include the NC Oyster Trail and a movement to diversify Christmas tree farms by introducing corn mazes and pumpkin patches are all part of broader agritourism efforts among Extension, its local partners, and growers. Sometimes, the close relationships that Extension staff share with farmers lead to unexpected opportunities, including resurrecting crops — like Ashe County pole beans — that were thought to be extinct.

Preparing the food produced by growers from across the state is also a focus for Extension. Experts teach safe and proper preparations for meats and canned vegetables, as well as regional specialties that might otherwise be lost to time.

Extension works with growers of every size. At the annual Northeast Ag Expo, NC State Extension soil science specialist Carl Crozier shares the latest on 21st-century farming based on data collected from research plots, like this soybean field in Currituck County.PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF NC STATE EXTENSION

Looking to the future, Extension continues to address 21st-century challenges. Climate change has impacted how plants grow, and how farmers in North Carolina grow them. Tropical storms are more powerful and their aftermaths more deadly. Crops that are new to modern North Carolina farmers, namely hemp, require instruction beyond just when to plant and when to harvest. And finding ways to put food on the table requires creativity with budgets and menus.

Facing these hurdles, and many more, experts and volunteers with Extension engage with their respective communities to find solutions and help their neighbors.

---

An Extension Partnership

Rapid industrialization during the Civil War brought to light a pressing need in the United States: higher education specializing in agriculture and technology. In 1862, the Morrill Act provided each state with 30,000 acres of public land to sell or develop to fund universities that would teach “such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts … in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes.”

As a result, “land-grant” colleges sprung up across the country, including what is now North Carolina State University, which was founded in 1887. In 1890, a second Morrill Act provided funds for African American land-grant colleges, and what is now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University — our state’s only other land-grant university — was established the following year.

From the beginning, these schools connected farmers and rural communities with agricultural guidance and technology. That role was made official with the passing of the 1914 Smith-Lever Act, which founded the NC Agricultural Extension Service — now NC Cooperative Extension.

With Extension offices in all 100 counties and the Qualla Boundary, the partnership among NC State, NC A&T, and local, state, and federal governments continues to grow and innovate to meet the diverse needs of people in our state. As its mission states, Extension “extends research-based knowledge to all North Carolinians, helping them transform science into everyday solutions that improve their lives and grow our state.” — Elizabeth Riddick

This story was published on Apr 24, 2023