Mary Dudley Price. Photo by Scott Taylor
The seafood Mary Dudley Price remembers from her childhood in Tarboro and Raleigh came in cans or was salt-preserved. “Only oysters could be had fresh, and they were ladled out from large tins into quart and pint cardboard containers such as were used later to haul goldfish home from the store,” says Price. Every now and then when her family got hungry for oyster soup, she and her sister, Josephine, would head from their Oakwood home down New Bern Avenue in Raleigh to a little “mom-and-pop” grocery for the fresh, juicy shellfish.
Her mother used the canned salmon for croquettes during the winter. And the salted fish (mostly mackerel, cod or herring) was soaked overnight and broiled in milk for family breakfasts. Too, “Mother often made fish cakes by combining canned fish with mashed potatoes.”
Note: Price passed away on Oct. 22, 2010, aged 95. Read her obituary here.
Find out more about Mary Dudley Price and her fellow Nutrition Leaders in Mariner’s Menu: 30 Years of Fresh Seafood Ideas. It is available from North Carolina Sea Grant by calling 919-515-9101 or 252-222-6307, from your local bookstore, or from UNC Press.
From: Mariner’s Menu: 30 Years of Fresh Seafood Ideas
Contributed by Joyce Taylor
