"SouthCarolina" news and stories

Few diners who polish off the Chili Cheese A-plenty at South Carolina's legendary Beacon Drive-In (for the uninitiated, that's a chili cheeseburger buried under a mound of French fries and onion rings) are hungry for more, but that hasn't stopped owner Steve Duncan from trying to tempt them with a new Southern-pub grub mash-up of his own invention.

"We make our own pimento cheese here, so I combined that with some jalapenos and stuffed it in a hush puppy," Duncan explains. "We call it a hush pupper."

Chicken bog is a seasoned chicken, rice and sausage dish that's not half as soupy as its name suggests. What chicken bog isn't -- at least according to the organizers behind the 30th annual Loris Bog-Off being held this weekend in Horry County, S.C. -- is pilau.

Samantha Norris, executive assistant to the Chamber of Commerce's board of directors, maintains that bog is distinct from the beloved African-tinged casserole served one county over, also known as pilau, perloo, pilaf and perlau.

"Some people tell me bog is wetter, some people tell me there's more chicken in bog," Norris says.

Food historians don't necessarily agree: In her book "The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection," Karen Hess posits that bog is really just pilau made on a massive scale. "It is difficult to make very large amounts of a proper pilau, so it ends up being 'boggy,'" she writes.

Photo: huggingthecoast.com food blog/Flickr

Shrimp baiting may be nasty and expensive, but for the shrimp festival in Yemassee, S.C., it's cause for celebration.

Crowds will converge upon the low-country town this weekend to feast on shrimp gumbo, meet Miss Yemassee and pay tribute to shrimp baiting. But even Lori Poston, who's chairing the 16th annual festival, cops to being slightly ambivalent about the peculiar regional practice of using a mix of clay and fish meal to lure thousands of wriggling shrimp.

"It stinks to high heaven," Poston says of the traditional bait. "It's the stinkingest thing you ever smelled. When my husband comes back from shrimp baiting, he takes his clothes off at the door."

Shrimp caught using bait don't return in much better shape than the shrimpers, she adds.

"The vein's the main thing," Poston says. "The meal gets into the shrimp and you have to clean the veins. It's nice when you can just free cast without bait."

Photo: terren in virginia, Flickr.

So much for putting a wiener on a stick and calling it dinner.

Campground cooking, once the province of anyone who could wrap a potato in tin foil, is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Vicki Loughner, who's coordinating the 2009 South Carolina Campground Cookoff, reports it's not uncommon for campers today to get cracking on a recipe for spinach sausage quiche.

"They are very serious about the cooking they do," Loughner, project manager for the Old 96 District Tourism Commission, says of the teams registered for this weekend's competition. "When you look at their food, you'd never know it was cooked over a campfire."

In pursuit of the $500 prize, some entrants this year have purchased their own Big Green Egg, the fetishized grill with the startling price tag. But Loughner says it's not just the promise of riches that's inspiring outdoorsy gourmands to up their dinner game. According to Loughner, more and more South Carolina campers are applying their "Top Chef" sensibilities to campground menu planning.

Recycling heap in South Carolina. Photo: huggingthecoast, Flickr.

Coastal conservationists say the first South Carolinians had the right idea when they flung the remnants of their oyster feasts back into the ocean.

"Native people didn't put their oysters in a cooler and head down the road for a party," says Joy Brown, marine restoration specialist for the South Carolina Nature Conservancy. "They put their oysters right back in the water."

The Nature Conservancy is now trying to replicate the Cusabo's recycling habits, which they credit with sustaining the state's oyster crop, filtering its waters and preventing shoreline erosion. The advocacy organization is partnering with the Department of Natural Resources on a pilot program to collect emptied oyster shells from Charleston-area restaurants and return them to the sea.

"A lot of times, these shells are going into landfills," Brown says. "But they can serve a better purpose."