Foxfire Says Mountaineers Ate Real Food

A while back I wrote about a restaurant chain that claims a menu inspired by Appalachian cooking. What’s that make you think of? A big black kettle bubbling with something called applejack beef stew or, maybe, good ol’ burgoo.

A Farm in the Great Smokies

   Well, think again. A lot of what was offered by this restaurant chain, so it seemed to me, was cutesy food that would be more at home in a high-priced New York City eatery. I mean, really, I can’t see grandma gussying up her flank steak with a blueberry chipotle glaze. Say what?

   So let me introduce the real thing, real mountaineer chow, as found in The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery. The book is part of that grand collection of mountain lore, the Foxfire magazine and book series.

   As good examples of real Appalachian cooking, allow me to pass along for your consideration just two of the possible supper menus mentioned. They’re not elaborate like Sunday dinner or holidays, just regular everyday good eating:

1)  Fried ham and brown gravy, sliced onions and green beans, candied sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie.

2)  Baked chicken, rice or creamed potatoes, baked apples, biscuits and gravy, lemon pie or cobbler.

   Now, that is some down-home cooking.

   There’s plenty about chickens, including how to kill them, and hams, how to use every last bit of the hog. (One old mountaineer says “when people ate a lot of pork they seemed to live longer.”)

   Also well represented are biscuits, cakes and pies.

   To me, the skills and knowledge needed simply to make butter are a wonder to behold. Cheese making is explained and illustrated. There are so many activities that, if I’m not mistaken, would baffle modern minds. But they were common practice back then.    Distance and poverty meant doing what had to be done to get by when you lived remote, back in the mountains.

   The book also gets into all sorts of slaws, potato salad and other salads. You won’t find exotic vegetables that are only sold in specialty shops. One basic slaw recipe is called Three-week Slaw but the lady who offers it says it’ll keep up to three months.

   As is often the case with country cookbooks, there is an entry for Brunswick Stew. In this case it is followed by the caution that “many people make it without a recipe…” One cook is quoted as saying her Brunswick Stew is “some beef and some pork and some chicken and tomatoes and potatoes and A-1 sauce. It’s first one thing and then another. I don’t have no recipe.” Keep it simple.

   Teas and remedies get mentioned. Sassafras was a favorite tea – but these days there are warnings about use of sassafras, some concerns about carcinogens, so proceed with caution.

   You’ll also find plenty of meats gathered from the forest, like deer, frogs, rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs or turtles.

   A section covers wild plants that are or were harvested; that section isn’t so well illustrated so might not be your best guide. Of course there’s mention of ramps. In with some ramp recipes is advice that after eating you should “go into solitary in the woods somewhere and stay for two or three weeks because nobody can stand your breath after you’ve eat them.”

   I was pleased to find the entry on “leather breeches,” a term I’ve encountered before but couldn’t recall that it referred to the strings of beans that used to be seen drying in mountain cabins.

   And considerable comment was devoted to one of my favorite subjects, cornbread. It was usually the first thing a mountain cook learned to make: “Practically every person we talked to gave us a recipe for cornbread.”

   Pickles, relishes, jams, jellies are included. 

   The book covers a lot of territory but readers are time and again referred to other Foxfire publications where the subject is discussed in even greater detail. The need for brevity is fairly understandable, the book runs to 330 pages as is.

   If you grew up eating traditional country meals you’ll enjoy a lot of the Foxfire book. Maybe you’ll even make some discoveries. Ever heard of violet jam? Well, it’s mostly lemon juice and violet petals. Here’s a link to the recipe given in the book. The snippet quoted there was cut off before Stella Burrell could tell you to put some paraffin in

the top of the jar if you plan to keep it a while.