South-Carolina
Southern kvells: New cookbook highlights South Carolina’s Jewish history and cuisine
Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey have been friends for decades. Both Jewish natives of South Carolina, their mothers knew each other growing up — but they recently stumbled upon an even older connection.
“My grandmother actually, her papers when she became an American were signed by Lyssa’s grandfather. We didn’t know that,” Barnett told The Times of Israel in a recent joint Zoom interview from South Carolina. “We didn’t know that, and we’re dear friends. So this is how it goes in South Carolina — small Jewish community.”
The unique and close-knit Jewish community of South Carolina — and its culinary traditions — are the focus of a new book, “Kugels and Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina,” out this week from the University of South Carolina Press.
The book, part cookbook and part exploration of South Carolina’s Jewish history, is a collection of stories and essays about food experiences related to the Palmetto State’s Jewish community, dotted with old family recipes and a handful of newer culinary creations.
“What I like to say is: I’m Jewish, and I’m Southern, and food is my love language,” said Harvey. “Because of our history, and because storytelling is so important for all religions and traditions, I feel like Rachel and I are giving the South and the Jewish Southerners something long-lasting, a little bit of a legacy.”
The book grew out of a blog by the same name launched by the pair in 2017 under the aegis of the Historic Columbia nonprofit, which sought to explore memories and stories of Southern Jewish foodways with their connections to the local culinary scene and their ancestors’ traditions.
Rachel Gordin Barnett (left) and Lyssa Kligman Harvey alongside their new book, ‘Kugels and Collards.’ (Courtesy)
In a range of essays gathered from South Carolinians past and present, “Kugels and Collards” tells the stories of a wide swath of Jewish immigrants to the state, from Sephardic Jews who arrived in the late 1600s to an influx of Eastern European Jews at the turn of the 20th century, and even those who put down roots in the state in the past 20 years. Barnett and Harvey solicited and compiled stories and recipes from friends, family members and strangers to paint a picture of the community, its traditions and its history.
“Truly, we ate like our Southern neighbors, but with a few notable exceptions — Granny and Mother did not cook with bacon grease or store it in a special little can on top of the stove,” wrote Rhetta Aronson Mendelsohn and Carol Aronson Kelly about growing up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in the 1950s and 1960s. “Our menus included things our neighbors knew nothing about — chopped liver, herring, blintzes, bagels, lox, brisket, potato and noodle kugel, matzo balls, matzo brei, and more. So, when we went to the beach every summer, we took along fried chicken, barbeque, and deviled eggs as well as chopped liver, herring, and brisket.”
The book paints a portrait of a colorful collection of figures, both Jewish and non-Jewish, from Max Dickman, the longtime “latke king” of Columbia, South Carolina, who was always in the kitchen at the Tree of Life Temple Hanukkah parties; to Larisa Gershkorich Aginskaya, a Ukrainian Jew who moved to South Carolina in 1979 after years living in Uman where she catered kosher food for visiting Hasidim, and who later become the kitchen director of the Beth Shalom Synagogue; and Florida Mae Boyd, a Black housekeeper turned caterer once called the “best Jewish chef in Columbia.”
Most of the recipes in the cookbook are traditional Jewish Ashkenazi fare, from matzah ball soup to kishke, gefilte fish, noodle kugel and more. There are also some lightly adapted Southern staples, including fried green tomatoes, Hoppin’ John, okra gumbo and fried chicken — plus a few modern takes on the intersection of cuisines, including recipes for grits and lox casserole and savory Southern kugel with collards.
Lila Lash in front of Lash’s kosher market in Charleston, South Carolina in 1992. (Courtesy Jewish Heritage Collection/ College of Charleston Libraries)
“The old Southern Jewish table was not a mashup,” said Barnett. “It was more of a bringing together of all of these foods — the Southern, the cultural foods, the collards and okra and tomatoes and corn and rice, along with the brisket and kugels and matzah ball soup.”
The authors also sought to pay tribute to the influence that Black domestic workers in Jewish homes had on the development and preservation of their cuisine, citing their contributions and honoring their role.
“It’s really one of the main underlying themes, is that not only do we live in the South and eat our foods that surround us, but the African American culture has brought that to us, and we are so grateful and honored to include that,” said Harvey.
Barnett wrote in the book about Ethel Glover, an African-American housekeeper who worked for her grandmother, Sarah, in the 1930s in Summerton, South Carolina.
“Sarah taught Ethel traditional Jewish recipes and kosher rules, and, in a reciprocal fashion, Ethel brought African American and Southern dishes such as fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, rice, squash casserole, okra and tomatoes, collards, and many vegetable recipes to the Gordin home,” she wrote. “Their recipes were never written but were told and passed down for generations.”
Dishes from inside the ‘Kugels and Collards’ cookbook. (Forrest Clonts)
While at times the book reads as a love letter to a community and time gone by, both Barnett and Harvey are adamant that though the South Carolina Jewish community is evolving, it’s still going strong.
“I would tell you that it’s changing,” said Barnett, noting that the earlier wave of immigrants were merchants many of whose children obtained college degrees and mostly moved elsewhere. “Charleston’s Jewish community is growing, people are moving in. It’s a changing look… we have a university which brings people in.”
The co-authors said they hope the book and its stories can inspire people to explore their own culinary and family histories.
“Through sensory experiences of food, the smell and the visual and the taste, it brings about very emotional kind of visceral memories,” said Harvey. “And then one memory leads to another, and before you know it, you’re not really talking about food, but you’re talking about people and you’re talking about funny things… so I just love where food takes us. I hope that we all savor the story.”
Recipe: Hyman’s Seafood Salmon and Grits
Hyman’s Seafood Salmon and Grits, as featured in ‘Kugels and Collards.’ (Forest Clonts)
This dish is on the menu at the Jewish-owned Hyman’s Seafood in Charleston, South Carolina as an alternative to shrimp and grits for kosher customers.
Ingredients:
Salmon:
4 fresh salmon filets
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Cajun seasoning (optional)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Grits:
1 cup locally milled grits
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups of water or milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 beaten egg yolk
Any fine-grained breading or cornmeal and flour
White sauce:
½ cup chicken broth (to make the recipe kosher, substitute vegetable broth)
½ cup milk
½ cup heavy cream
1 stick of butter
2 teaspoons minced garlic salt and pepper
1½ cups grated Parmesan cheese
Paprika
Directions:
To make the salmon:
Sprinkle the salmon filets with kosher salt (and Cajun seasoning, if using), and drizzle the olive oil onto the filets. Broil or bake the filets in a conventional oven for 8–10 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the salmon.
To make the grits:
Put 1 cup of grits into 2 cups salted boiling water until the water returns to a boil. Turn down to a simmer, add butter, and cook slowly, stirring constantly and adding water so that it doesn’t burn.
To make a grit cake:
Prepare the grits and put the grits in a greased sheet pan overnight. Once it has hardened, you can cut out round cakes. Brush the beaten egg yolks over both sides of the grit cake. Dip into the breading. Fry the grit cake in a cast iron skillet.
To make the white sauce:
Add the broth, milk, cream, and butter to a large saucepan. Simmer over low heat for 2 minutes. Whisk in the garlic, Cajun seasoning, salt, and pepper for 1 minute. Whisk in the parmesan cheese until melted.
Put the salmon over grits or grit cake. Pour the sauce over the salmon. Shake a little Cajun seasoning or paprika on top for color.
Recipe reprinted with permission from “Kugels & Collards: Stories of Food, Family and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina,” by Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey, University of South Carolina Press.
Kugels and Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina by Rachel Gordin Barnett and Lyssa Kligman Harvey
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The 2024 South Carolina high school football season is in high gear and SBLive Sports is the place to follow of the live scoring updates and finals.
Follow the action get the most to date scores by tracking the SBLive South Carolina High School Football Scoreboard. We will have in-game score updates and all of the final scores from every corner of the state. You can also search for full schedules and complete scores from all of your very favorite teams.
Here’s a guide to following all of the South Carolina high school football this week.
STATEWIDE SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD
CLASS 5A SCORES | CLASS 4A SCORES
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CLASS 1A SCORES
SCISA CLASS AAAA | SCISA CLASS AAA
SCISA CLASS AA | SCISA A
2024 SOUTH CAROLINA FOOTBALL SCHEDULES: FIND YOUR TEAM
Can’t make it to your favorite team’s game but still want to watch them live? You can watch dozens of South Carolina high school football games live on the NFHS Network:
WATCH LIVE ON NFHS NETWORK
We also invite you to visit the brand new South Carolina homepage on High School on SI, powered by SBLive Sports, for the latest news, highlights, analysis, scores, photos and information on South Carolina high school sports. Follow our live game coverage and read our feature stories, breaking news, the latest recruiting news, rankings and much more.
Follow SBLive South Carolina throughout the 2024 high school football season for Live Updates, the most up to date Schedules & Scores and complete coverage from the preseason through the state championships!
Be sure to Bookmark High School on SI for all of the latest high school football news.
To get live updates on your phone – as well as follow your favorite teams and top games – you can download the SBLive Sports app: Download iPhone App | Download Android App
— Mitch Stephens | mitch@scorebooklive.com | @highschoolonsi
South-Carolina
ESPN's College Football Playoff Predictor has updated again. Here's where South Carolina stands
ESPN.com’s College Football Playoff predictor isn’t perfect because it applies analytics to a situation that ultimately will be decided by a committee of humans. But it does provide a nice guide and discussion piece about which teams have the best chance to make this year’s College Football Playoff.
Because of that human element, the predictor has been updating twice each week, once on Sunday to account for Saturday’s games and again after the latest CFP rankings are released.
[More for subscribers: What latest rankings mean for South Carolina’s College Football Playoff chances]
While the Gamecocks won their game on Saturday and got a lot of help from the teams around them last week, the logjam of SEC teams ahead of them in Tuesday’s rankings is still limiting their upside at this time.
With the committee putting South Carolina behind fellow three-loss SEC teams Alabama and Ole Miss, the predictor currently gives South Carolina a 20 percent chance of making the 12-team field, which is three percentage points lower than its chances in Sunday’s update.
The Gamecocks do, of course, have one more huge opportunity to pad their resume when they travel to Clemson this weekend to renew the annual rivalry in what may be the biggest game in the matchup’s history.
Beat the Tigers, who are currently No. 12 in the CFP Top 25, and South Carolina’s chances of making the playoff jump to 46 percent, according to the predictor.
While that’s just under a coin flip, it’s also 12 percentage points lower than it was in Sunday’s update.
South Carolina is still very much in the hunt but is going to need to win and play very well against Clemson and get more help around it.
[GamecockCentral: $1 for 7 days]
As a reminder, the CFP committee’s top 12 teams won’t correlate exactly with the 12-team field.
The CFP will consist of the top five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked at-large schools. The top four conference champions will receive the top four seeds and a first-round bye. The fifth conference champion will be seeded by its CFP ranking. If that ranking is outside of the top 12 it will be seeded 12th as the final team in the field.
The teams seeded 5 through 12 will fight it out in the first round with the winners advancing to the quarterfinal round to face the top four seeds.
The Gamecocks and Tigers are set for a noon showdown Saturday in Clemson.
ESPN Analytics uses FPI to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation. The most likely CFP teams are provided for user selections. After user inputs, a likely bracket is generated and randomly simulated using FPI.
South Carolina football superfan Chris Paschal writes a weekly column during the season for GamecockCentral called “The Verdict.” Chris is a lawyer at Goings Law Firm in Columbia.
It will have been 44,592 days since Clemson students marched onto our campus with guns drawn when the Gamecocks take the field this Saturday in Death Valley. Back in 1902, Clemson students were mad because of a cartoon that depicted a Gamecock whipping a Tiger.
They marched on our campus, ready to cause bodily harm, over a cartoon. For 44,592 days, Clemson students, fans, coaches, players, and administrators have done everything but declare war on South Carolina to ensure they remain the superior football program in the state.
In 1902 there was more than just the cartoon. In 1902, Carolina beat Clemson.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it best following the game: the Clemson Tiger “was so successfully tamed this morning by Carolina. Its tail was twisted and twisted by the sturdy ‘pig skin pushers’ of Carolina, and after two hours and more of hard battle it gave up further fight, for time was called and it became as tame as the proverbial lamb.”
Carolina upset Clemson who at the time was led by John Heisman and was considered one of the great southern football powers. I think that too probably had a little something to do with the hostilities and hurt feelings coming from the Clemson students.
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For the 121st time this Saturday, it will be Carolina and Clemson playing a football game against each other. And while we are past the days of armed invasions, you can’t help but think this Saturday’s showdown may be the most consequential in the series’ history.
There have certainly been big matchups in years past. I am not discounting 1987. I am not overlooking 1979. I understand 2011-2013 featured some great teams. But this coming Saturday, both Clemson and Carolina will still be alive and in contention to bring home a national title.
The chances for both are not significant, but they are legitimate. For the first time in the entirety of the rivalry’s history, both Carolina and Clemson fans can hope that with a win over their hated rival they are one step closer to a playoff berth, which means one more step closer in the quest for a national championship.
Hopefully, the players donning the garnet and black won’t think similar thoughts as they run out onto the field for what should be a cold but sunny day. This game to the players needs to be about one thing: beating a team they are better than.
In continuing the list of firsts, for the first time in roughly a decade, South Carolina will have what I consider to be the better football team when they kick the ball off against Clemson. I think we have a better defense, I think we have a better offensive line, I think we have skill position players that are just as good as Clemson’s (if not better), and I think we have the better quarterback.
But that is what I think. I am an attorney. I am a fan. Clemson players won’t just roll over because I declared we have the better team. In fact, I expect this Dabo Swinney-led Clemson football team to fight like hell in an effort to keep their thumb still firmly on top of us.
Like Clemson fans, I think Clemson football players and coaches also think it is their birthright to beat the Gamecocks. And why shouldn’t they?
Clemson has won eight out of the last nine against Carolina. They have danced on our sidelines in the fourth quarter to Sandstorm, they have talked about how they think they will dominate us; they have talked about how we aren’t the real USC nor are we the real Carolina.
Underneath this façade of respect and admiration for this year’s Carolina team, Clemson fans (and I assume players) quietly assume 2024 will be just like most other recent years. They assume the moment will be too big, they assume the ghosts of years past will be too much, and they assume that by about 3:30 in the afternoon, Carolina will have once again not been physically or mentally strong enough to defeat Clemson.
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But I also think these assumptions, which often manifest themself in a holier-than-thou arrogance, stem from a small shred of doubt and fear that has crept into their minds. Carolina fans had no idea Clemson was passing the Gamecocks as a football program until it was too late. From 2009-2013, Carolina won five straight over Clemson. They assumed Clemson and their bumpkin coach were finally second fiddle to the Gamecocks. They ignored Clemson’s recruiting successes, they explained away Clemson’s double-digit win seasons as illegitimate due to being in the ACC, and they watched Clemson build a juggernaut that had passed Carolina in a very real and lasting way by 2014.
All it took was one whipping in 2014 for Carolina fans to realize that Clemson was now on a path that would destroy Gamecock hopes and dreams for many years to come. That feeling of “oh, crap” that Carolina fans felt in the few weeks leading up to the 2014 Clemson games, I wonder if Clemson fans are feeling that very same thing leading up to this Saturday’s game.
Maybe the thought of Carolina passing Clemson as a program hasn’t even crossed their minds. Maybe it is absurd that I would mention that in this column. Maybe by the final snap on Saturday, Clemson will have soundly defeated Carolina and made me and so many hopeful Gamecock fans look foolish.
Or maybe Harbor, Kennard, Stewart, Hemingway, Sanders, Knight, Emmanwori, Sellers, and so many other Gamecock stalwarts are capable of handling business and showing we do have the better team.
A win this weekend could be program defining. It at the very least could be season defining.
Is Shane Beamer and this Gamecock program always a bridesmaid but never the bride? Or is this team going to let this state and this nation understand that this is a new type of Gamecock football program?
We won’t know until Saturday, but I will be in Clemson cheering Carolina on, with the hope – the belief – that we will see that latter. Let’s tame the tiger once again into the proverbial lamb.
Forever to thee.
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