Appalachian Home Cooking

History, Culture, and Recipes

Mark Sohn

Publication Year: 2005

Mark F. Sohn’s classic book, Mountain Country Cooking, was a James Beard Award nominee in 1997. In Appalachian Home Cooking, Sohn expands and improves upon his earlier work by using his extensive knowledge of cooking to uncover the romantic secrets of Appalachian food, both within and beyond the kitchen. Shedding new light on Appalachia’s food, history, and culture, Sohn offers over eighty classic recipes, as well as photographs, poetry, mail-order sources, information on Appalachian food festivals, a glossary of Appalachian and cooking terms, menus for holidays and seasons, and lists of the top Appalachian foods. Appalachian Home Cooking celebrates mountain food at its best.

Published by: The University Press of Kentucky

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Cooking my way through this book made me want to prepare huge portions of food to share with friends. The recipes made me hungry for flavors I haven't enjoyed in years. They made me remember to tell my little girl the stories and songs I learned from my ...

Preface

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pp. xi-xiv

Behind the negative hillbilly stereotypes associated with the Appalachian people, I find a culture of pride. One by one and family to family, many mountaineers cook the foods that combine history, religion, and environment and reflect a glorious heritage. However, ...

Acknowledgments

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pp. xv-xvii

Because my roots have strongly influenced my study of Appalachian culinary traditions, I must first thank my parents, Fred and Frances Sohn, of Roseburg, Oregon. I am a grateful beneficiary of their life-long fascination with flavors, recipes, and cooking methods. ...

Map of Appalachia

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p. xviii-xviii

Part One: Appalachian Foodways

Food Origins: Regional and Cultural Roots

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pp. 3-23

Appalachia, reflecting the diversity of its people, does not have a homogeneous style of food and cooking. Its food has neither a linear history nor a predictable shared taste. Certain ethnic foods are Appalachian because Africans, Asians, and Europeans migrated to the region. Other foods became popular because the ...

Breakfast Traditions: Biscuits, Gravy, Apples, and Grits

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pp. 24-38

Mother and daughter or father and son may argue about what to serve for an old-fashioned mountain breakfast, but on one issue many agree: The early mountaineers ate gigantic breakfasts. But mountain lifestyles have changed, and mountain breakfasts have gone through a three-phase evolution. First, 75 to 150 years ago, as ...

Vegetable Delights: Green Beans, Cushaw, and Chow Chow

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pp. 39-55

Today, the bean that was once a primary Native American food the pole bean-includes green beans, half-runners, shuck beans, and shelly beans. The beans can be made up into countless dishes, such as three-bean salad, pickled dilly beans, and green beans boiled with pork. But more on that later. ...

Dinner Side Dishes: Macaroni and Cheese, Cornbread Salad, and Fall Greens

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pp. 56-68

It may seem that "everyone" is eating out, but rural Appalachians still gather for large dinners of home-cooked food. Some come together for church and family reunions; others enjoy Sunday dinner at the home of "mamaw and papaw." Families partner with food to celebrate births, graduations, weddings, and retirements. ...

Farm Starches and School Lunches: Soup Beans, Potatoes, and Slick Runner Dumplings

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pp. 69-86

When the first frost nips the poke leaves and the sun is so low in the sky it fails to reach deep mountain hollows, soup beans come into their own. Fifty years ago they often simmered on the back of the stove all winter, and in the eighteenth century when hill country householders were truly pioneers on the frontier, the combination ...

Corn: Gritted Corn, Cornbread, and Custard Corn Pudding

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pp. 87-106

When Europeans arrived in America, native people had been growing corn for 6,000 years, and they enjoyed a diet that also included beans, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet peppers, and pumpkin, as well as smoked wild game and an abundance of fresh and saltwater fish. The environment had a large variety of foods to offer ...

Herbs and Game: Dry Land Fish, Greens, and Wild Game

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pp. 107-121

Morels are one of the great luxuries of Appalachia. Mountaineers gather them in abundance and collect them with pride. Morels are earthy in flavor and robust in texture, and perhaps because the mushrooms are collected so frequently and by so many, Appalachians ...

Homeplace Meats: Chicken, Pork, and Lamb

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pp. 122-140

The "old homeplace" is a house, outbuildings, and farm. But this land, which for some families becomes almost sacred, is also a gathering place and is frequently the site of the family's cemetery. As long as the old folks are around, the homeplace is a center for the family and a place for Sunday dinner, with long visits on the ...

Sweets, Fruit, and Nuts: Apples, Peaches,and Pecans

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pp. 160-162

Honey is almost as sweet as love and surely as old. Some 4,000 years ago a Sumerian clay tablet described a bridegroom as honey sweet, a bride's caress as more savory than honey, and the wedding bedchamber as honey-filled. In the Old Testament, the Promised Land is flowing with milk and honey. Honey is the oldest ...

Sweet Endings: Pies, Cakes, and Candy [Includes Image Plates]

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pp. 163-174

When large numbers of hill folk grew what they ate, cut timber with axes, crossed rivers in boats, and mined coal by hand, they ate pies for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Even today, the cooks of the central and southern Appalachian Mountains make twice as many pies as cakes. They serve these pies sweet or savory, hot or ...