Appalachian Food O Appalachian Food E Appalachian Food D F
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Mountain Promise Vol. 12, No. 1 The Newsletter of the Brushy Fork Institute Summer, 2001 Food in Appalachia Summer 2001 1 OD A BLO LL P E E N UI P O IT Q ATI P O C TU L F IN R E V O S Appalachian Food O Appalachian Food E Appalachian Food D F A T H M E Brushy Fork Institute S E A A H 1 R D 8 Y T 5 O K 5 C H G • U BE NT • REA • KE B • ER GE Appalachian Leadership and Development EA COLLE Culture, History, Diversity Mountain Promise is published quarterly for friends and associates of Brushy Fork by Mark Sohn Institute of Berea College by Brushy Fork Institute CPO 2164, Berea College Berea, KY 40404 When we think of Appalachian cuisine, many dishes come to 859.985.3858 mind. Stereotypical Appalachian foods include stack cakes, shuck 859.985.3903 (FAX) beans, sweet potatoes, fried apple pies, chicken and dumplings, www.berea.edu/brushyfork green beans with pork and biscuits covered with sausage gravy. Peter Hille Some traditional foods, such as cornbread, remain popular Director today, while other foods such as rhubarb gravy and bologna gravy are rarely mentioned. Appalachian families still enjoy preserved Van Gravitt Program Associate winter foods like specialty pickles and relishes from the can house and summer foods such as cushaw squash from the garden. The Donna Morgan region also boasts street fair foods such as elephant ears and funnel Communications/ cakes. Program Associate The list of special Appalachian foods could stretch to more than Editor 400 items. From foods gathered in the wild such as morels, paw Tina R. Collins paws, venison and ramps to sophisticated wines from the Administrative Assistant viticultural regions of Lake Erie and the Kanawha River Valley, Appalachia has produced a unique food tradition influenced by the Dr. Gordon McKinney Director region’s cultural and historical diversity. The Appalachian Center To broaden our perspective we must move beyond the foods of Berea College that Central Appalachian families prepared between 1900 and 1950 and recognize the ethnic diversity of the people who settled Lori Briscoe northern and southern Appalachia, a region stretching from New Associate Director The Appalachian Center York to Mississippi. From the ancient foods of Native Americans of Berea College that have laid the foundation for many traditional dishes to the all- new and inventive chef-styled restaurant foods that are emerging in Mission of Brushy Fork today’s cooking world, we should consider all Appalachian fare. For more than one hundred years, Berea College has served the people of Appalachia. The Brushy Fork Institute topic this issue carries forward this commit- ment by working to develop Food in Appalachia strong leadership in the Culture, History, Diversity. page 2 mountains. Pawpaws: New Cash Crop? . page 6 Working with both existing Chicken & Dumplings . page 7 and emerging leaders, we draw Cam's Cornbread. page 8 on local understanding and Highland Harvest. page 9 vision to help communities Toolbox: Meeting Refreshments. page 13 build for tomorrow. Of Possums & Papaws . page 14 Book Review: Fast Food Nation . page 16 On the cover: Pickled beets Reader Feedback . page 18 and other preserves (photo courtesy of Mark Sohn) Program News . page 19 2 Mountain Promise Pre-Columbian Food While Europeans started colonizing North America after its “discovery” by Christopher Colum- photo courtesy of Mark Sohn bus, other people, possibly from Asia, moved into the region much earlier. These first inhabitants developed food traditions that continued largely unchanged until the Industrial Revolution. Some 12,000 or more years ago, a nomadic people hunted, fished and gathered in the region. They ate mastodon and giant tortoise. Then, the earth warmed and the diet changed. About 10,000 years ago native Appalachians ate white-tailed deer, turkeys, squirrels and raccoons. They also enjoyed hickory nuts, black walnuts, acorns, grapes and per- Cushaw squash: Smooth-skinned, hard-shelled, simmons. and striped green and white, these winter squash The most identified native foods include corn, are shaped like yellow crookneck summer squash but weigh from 10 to 25 pounds and beans, pumpkins and squash, cultivated plants that ripen in the fall. were introduced much later than those foods gathered in the wild. For example, domesticated squash dates back about 5,000 years, while corn appeared about 1,000 years ago, and the common bean arrived about Frontier Food 800 years ago. These foods came to play a significant During the frontier period and until the coming role in Native American cooking. of railroads and industry, European settlers lived an The method of growing beans up corn stalks was often isolated and independent existence. To survive a practice of Native Americans that is still found in on the frontier, they built cabins, cooked on hearths, today’s Appalachian gardens. Corn bread is another and hunted, planted or gathered the indigenous foods native tradition that has evolved with our culture and introduced to them by the native peoples. They tastes. The original Native American corn bread, integrated many of these new foods into old recipes called suppone, was a combination of corn meal, from their homelands. water, grease and salt. Reflecting the diversity of immigrants from many The Cherokee Indians also made bean bread. In European countries, Appalachia during the frontier 1951, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, located period did not have a homogeneous style of food or in Cherokee, North Carolina, published a 72-page cooking. Today, Appalachian food does not have a book titled Cherokee Cooklore, To Make Bread, linear history or a predictable shared taste. Many which focuses on this bread. The book also illustrates times, community-based cookbooks illustrate various how the Cherokee prepared many of “our” classic ethnic influences on our foods. mountain dishes. For example, For example, they cooked mush, cornbread, Johnstown, Pennsyl- cornmeal dodgers, gritted bread, cornmeal gravy, flat vania, a coal mining Mark Sohn is a dumplings, succotash, butter beans, leather breeches, and historically steel- Pikeville College pro- ramps, creases, watercress and squirrel. They also used producing town of the fessor, occasional chef, indigenous plant foods such as blackberries, huckle- Appalachian Allegh- and author of the berries, strawberries, raspberries, elderberries, wild eny Mountains, award-winning book, plums, wild cherries, crab apples, ground cherries, contains a population Hearty Country Cook- persimmons, field apricots, fall grapes, fox grapes, of people from ing, published in 1998 by St. Martin’s Press. opossum grapes, dewberries and gooseberries. Croatia, Germany, To share a comment or As time passed, Cherokee cooking habits com- Greece, Hungary, ask a question send an bined with North American and European traditions. India, Ireland, Italy, e-mail to We can still see Pre-Columbian influences on our Mexico, Poland, [email protected]. food, in such items as cornbread, succotash and continued on page 4 cushaw squash. Summer 2001 3 Appalachian Food (continued from page 3) Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. In mingle. This cake is delicate, highly flavored and low 1989, the Johnstown Area Heritage Association in fat, so it fits many of today’s dietary and life-style identified about 20 local ethnic recipes for each of needs. It stores well, slices thin and looks classy. (See these groups. The Association published a spiral- recipe on next page.) bound cookbook, Ethnic Recipes of Johnstown, which reflected the ethnic influences on Appalachian Industrial Period Food food traditions. The impact of industrialization on Appalachia Consider some examples. When Poles came to was uneven with some communities maintaining work in the mines and mills, they prepared pierogies, traditional ways long into the twentieth century. crullers and pickled herring. Russians brought sweet While electricity reached some rural areas in the nut and poppy seed breakfast rolls. Italians cooked 1930s, other areas were not electrified until the 1950s gnocchi and stromboli and Croatians prepared sarma or even ‘60s. or stuffed cabbage. In some of the region, one- and two-room Germans brought orange cookies and sauerkraut schools were the norm until the late 1950s, and a salad. Lamb soup, Greek salad and braised string rural life-style was dominant. Those living in the beans came from Greece, and from Scotland arrived country raised livestock, pork for meat and cows for shortbread, scones and oat cakes. The pattern of milk, and planted gardens. By hunting and canning, ethnic diversity illustrated in Johnstown is repeated Appalachian families enjoyed a more diverse diet than over and over throughout Appalachia. some other people, such as rural families of the deep During the frontier period and beyond, people in South who often lived on cornmeal, fatback and the region helped one another with various tasks such molasses and sometimes suffered from pellagra, a as corn shelling, bean stringing, sorghum processing disease associated with malnutrition. and barn raising. This practice extended to cooking. During this period, families were large and close. For example, fine, complex foods served at social Men and women divided work, and life centered occasions were sometimes a cooperative effort. around meals. In some settings, women prepared the One example, the dried apple stack cake, has food, served it to the men and ate later. remained popular. To make a stack cake, mountain Today, much has changed, but families still find people would donate cake layers to create a stack of value in occasional family meals. Traditions continue six to twelve spice-flavored layers. Each layer is cov- to bring families and friends together for church and ered with a spicy apple sauce. The sauce soaks into family reunions, Sunday dinners, births, graduations, the cake, softening it and allowing the flavors to weddings, retirements and funerals.