Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article provides background information for the Charlotte Observer's ReadCarolinas book club's summer selection, Nowhere Else on Earth (item HUMP001). It explains that Lumbee food is Southern food with some unique twists and variations. In the late 19th century--the setting for Nowhere Else on Earth--historian Maud Thomas (Away Down Home, 1982) noted that the Lumbee cultivated food crops such as peas, beans, corn, sweet potatoes, and rice. They would also have eaten pork from hogs and used honey, beeswax, and brandy and cider made from fruit trees.

The article describes the barbecue and lunch buffet at Fuller's Old-Fashioned Barbecue on Roberts Avenue, outside Lumberton. The restaurant serves--in addition to barbecue--chicken and pastry, collards, fried fatback, liver pudding, okra, turnip greens, rutabagas, and cornbread.

Twelve-layer cake, another Robeson County tradition, is served at An-Mae's luncheonette across from the courthouse as well as at Fuller's.