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4. Beat the egg whites until silvery in a second large bowl with clean beaters, add the cream of tartar, then continue beating for about 3 minutes or until the whites peak softly.

5. Mix about 1 cup of the beaten whites into the cake batter to lighten it, then gently fold in the rest until no streaks of white remain. Divide the batter among the four pans, rap each sharply on the counter once or twice to expel large air bubbles, then bake in the lower third of the oven for about 25 minutes or until the cakes are springy to the touch and a cake tester inserted midway between the center and the rim comes out clean.

6. Cool the cakes in the upright pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then turn out on the racks and cool to room temperature.

7. Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Set the top of a double boiler on the counter and add the egg yolks and sugar. Using a hand electric mixer, beat at moderate speed for 5 minutes or until thick, then, beating all the while, drizzle in the melted butter. Set over simmering water and cook, beating constantly, for about 8 minutes or until thickened. Fold in the coconut, pecans, dried currants, glacéed cherries, if you like, bourbon, and vanilla, then cook and stir 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

8. To assemble: Place one cake layer upside down on a large round platter and spread with one third of the filling. Add a second layer, right side up this time, and spread with another third of the filling. Add a third layer, placing upside down, and spread with the remaining filling. Set the fourth and final layer in place, right side up. Let the cake stand while you prepare the icing.

9. For the icing: Combine the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a medium-size heavy saucepan and insert a candy thermometer. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then cook without stirring until the syrup spins a long thread (234° to 236° F.)

10. Beat the egg whites and salt with an electric mixer at high speed until soft peaks form, then, beating constantly, add the boiling syrup in a thin stream. Continue beating for 3 to 4 minutes or until the icing is stiff enough to hold its shape; stir in the vanilla. Swirl the warm icing over the top and sides of the cake and cool for at least 1 hour before cutting. Note: Because the filling and the icing both contain egg, refrigerate any leftover Lane cake.

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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine

1984

Lexington, North Carolina, stages the first of its annual barbecue festivals, serving two and a half tons of barbecue to 30,000 people. Today you can quadruple those figures.

1985

Bill Neal’s Southern Cooking—mainly a collection of the “new southern” recipes that made him and Crook’s Corner, his restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, famous—is published by the University of North Carolina Press. It becomes the go-to book for young southern chefs eager to put a modern spin on regional classics.

R. J. Reynolds tobacco company, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, enters the food business by buying Nabisco.

Planters adds honey-roasted peanuts to its inventory.

A specially engineered can of Coca-Cola soars into space aboard a NASA shuttle. That same year, long-time company “Boss” Bob Woodruff dies.

1986

Nathalie Dupree of Social Circle, Georgia, intensifies national interest in southern food with New Southern Cooking, her PBS TV series and tandem cookbook.

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LOUISIANA FRESH FIG CAKE

MAKES A 10-INCH BUNDT CAKE

Back-roading through Louisiana shows the Pelican State at its best: antebellum plantations approached by long allées of live oak, sleepy towns that time forgot, bald cypresses wading in the inky waters of the Atchafalaya. No surprises here. But what did surprise me were the miles and miles of sugarcane rustling in the wind, the vast pecan orchards, and, in every yard, it seemed, fig bushes bent under their