Enjoy a taste of the Lowcountry with these products.
Crab soup mix
Deborah Nelson sold gourmet foods in Charleston’s famous downtown market for many years. Her shrimp and grits mix was a hit with her customers, so she branched out with mixes for soups, biscuits, cornbread, peach cobbler and more. She recommended we try her Cream da Crab soup. You stir the seasoning mix into a quart of half-and-half, add canned crab meat (or fresh, if you’re splurging) and in 20 minutes you have six cups of rich crab soup. We love the packaging (made to look like the newspapers used to wrap seafood at the market), as well as the instructions written in modified Gullah language.
$16.95 per 6-ounce bag of soup mix. Available at gullahgourmet.com.
Credit: C. W. Cameron
Credit: C. W. Cameron
Carolina Gold rice grits
Rollen Chalmers grows heritage rice and other crops at Turnbridge Plantation in Hardeeville, South Carolina, and has built a Carolina Gold rice research field for the University of Georgia at Wormsloe State Historic Site. Now, he and his wife, Frances, operate Rollen’s Raw Grains in Hardeeville, selling a range of organic heritage crops, including Carolina and Charleston Gold rice, guinea flint yellow corn grits and Sea Island red peas. We have been enjoying their Carolina Gold rice grits, which cook up much creamier than corn grits — if you added just a bit of honey, you’d think you were eating rice pudding. You also can try cooking them in chicken broth and topping them with Sea Island peas.
$8 per 12-ounce package of Carolina Gold rice grits. Available at rollensrawgrains.com.
Credit: C. W. Cameron
Credit: C. W. Cameron
Gullah candy
Bert & T’s Desserts, a bakery and creamery in Charleston, South Carolina, is named for Christina Miller’s grandmothers, Bertha and Eutellia, who instilled in her a love of baking. She expresses that love in the pound cakes, sweet potato bread puddings, pies and peach cobblers available on her food truck. But what caught our eye was her assortment of Gullah candy — simple sweets that Black women once sold on the streets of Charleston. The mix includes groundnut cakes made with Carolina African runner peanuts and molasses; buttery benne candy, similar to peanut brittle, but made with sesame seeds; and black walnut brittle. Order a box and the candy will be made fresh and then shipped.
$24 per 12 pieces of candy. Available at bertandtsdesserts.com.
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