While I was out and about yesterday afternoon (flying our paper kite on the beach with Lachlan and friends) someone stopped by and left me a homemade chocolate Easter egg. Making these eggs is a long-time island tradition. Although fewer islanders have been making them in recent years, it was nice to be remembered...and to be reminded that the tradition still lives on.
Here is Ms. Wilma Williams' recipe:
2 pkgs. powdered sugar
1/2 lb. butter
Sm. jar maraschino cherries, cut up, and their juice
1 sm. can coconut
About 1/2 c. chopped nuts
1/2 box raisins
1 8 oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate squares
Put sugar in a bowl. Work in softened butter; add nuts, raisins, coconut and cherries. Add cherry juice slowly until mixture can be molded into egg shapes. If it gets too soft, add more sugar. Set egg shapes on waxed paper. Chill. Melt chocolate in double boiler and spoon over cool eggs on waxed paper; chill. When chocolate is hard, eggs may be decorated with icing, small candied fruits or candy. [And then delivered to friends and neighbors -- I added that!]
I think I know who brought me the chocolate egg. Many thanks!
In our latest Ocracoke Newsletter I share information about our many local cemeteries, with examples of some of our more interesting epitaphs. You can read it here.
To read about Philip's new book, Digging up Uncle Evans, History, Ghost Tales, & Stories from Ocracoke Island, please click here.
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MMMMM
ReplyDeleteSounds good
I'll have to try this
Thanks for sharing
Well . . . duh . . . the Easter Bunny brought it.
ReplyDeleteDarn ,is it too late for a picture of you and an egg? Now was it large enough to have your name written on it? When was the first Ocracoke Island Easter Egg made?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of traditions and well pirates have been making the headlines "we are Muslims we don't kill people." No they just Steal and hold people prisoner for a ransom -- where does it allow that in the Muslim religion?? was Blackbeard a Muslim?? pirates are traditionally found along the Barbary Coast hence the word Barbarian
ReplyDeleteThe chocolate egg is half gone : )
ReplyDeleteI just came back from visiting with Blanche. The Easter Bunny had brought her an egg too. I asked her about the tradition, and she said it was a popular item when she was a little girl...and long before that also, she was sure.
Recent research here in New York State indicates that Blackbeard wasn't Muslim after all. Scholars now believe he was the very last of the Nephites (see the Book of Mormon), a tribe that was thought to have gone extinct in 385 AD. Many researchers now hold that Blackbeard somehow managed to get his hands on sacred golden plates, sailed to New York Harbor, then transported them overland and buried them in a hill near Palmayra, NY. After Blackbeard's death in 1718 William Howard, his quartermaster, obtained Blackbeard's handwritten treasure map showing where the plates were buried. One of his descendants (the Ocracoke Howards are silent about the details) traveled to Palmyra, NY with the map. There, claiming to be the Angel Moroni, he deceived Joseph Smith into helping him unearth the plates. After Smith translated the plates, and then started his new religion, the unnamed Ocracoker absconded with the plates. He eventually sold them on the black market and stuffed the money in his mattress. Ocracoke Howard descendants can now be seen wandering about the village without any visible means of support. None of them is Mormon
ReplyDeleteGood story. Now let me tell you the one about Blackbeard and the Easter Bunny.....
ReplyDeleteNational geographic has published on the internet images of treasure/artifacts of a ship wreck off the North Carolina coast. The Ship is thought to be the one Blackbeard ran aground outside Beaufort North Carolina. Could Beaufort South Carolina have added to any confusion. In any event, the La Concorde a French slave vessel was commandeered by Blackbeard and renamed Queen Ann's Revenge or something like that.
ReplyDelete