By Rea Needler from MIAR’s
The Appalachian mountain range is around 2,000 miles and stretches from southern New York to northern Alabama, which means that there are many different traditional foods along the region. While each community and state have many cultural differences, customs, and traditions; the food of Appalachia reflects a shared history of the people’s resourcefulness, creativity, and deep connection to the mountains. In the early establishment of Appalachia, many families relied on their own land and their farming, hunting, gardening, and especially preserving; or as I have commonly heard it more as “canning”.
Soup Beans and Cornbread – Eastern Kentucky
If you live anywhere near the Appalachian region, you have probably heard of this simple meal, soup beans and cornbread. It is made slowly by simmering dried pinto beans and sometimes even plain white beans with onions and often with ham or bacon for flavor. Commonly, and if you have it the right way, this soup is served with cornbread that you can dip or completely mix in with your soup all together.
This simple meal became a staple for its inexpensiveness and its easiness. The pinto beans in general were easy to store and would last months without going bad.
Biscuits and Gravy – Southwest Virginia
Biscuits and gravy have been a long-time favorite breakfast; and in my home, dinner. This hearty meal “sticks to your ribs” throughout the day and provided enough food for those in manual labor jobs such as farming and coal mining. Since flour, milk, and pork sausage could be commonly found or made on farmers’ land, it became a very cheap and practical meal.
Ramp Dishes – West Virginia
One of the most unique foods in Appalachia, and one I certainly did not know about until researching, is the wild ramp. Essentially ramps are a native and wild growing spring onion in Appalachian forests. They have a strong flavor that is as if there was a mixture of garlic and onion in one vegetable and is valued by locals.
In West Virginia, especially in towns such as Elkins and Richwood, they celebrate ramp season with its very own Ramp Festival. Visitors will be able to enjoy many different meals that include ramps such as scrambled eggs and ramp, fried ramp, and ramp burgers.
Chicken and Dumplings – North Carolina
A comforting Appalachian meal that is incredible for when you’re feeling under the weather; chicken and dumplings. This meal uses a whole chicken that is simmered to create a rich and salty broth and soft homemade noodle like dumplings are cooked into the broth to soak up flavor and make them tender.
By only needing to use one chicken, this meal became very valuable for its inexpensiveness to feed an entire family when resources could have been very limited.
Fried Green Tomatoes – Northern Georgia
Fried green tomatoes are a summertime favorite in Georgia that have a crunchy and tangy flavor. Before tomatoes would ripen, people made use of the green tomatoes by slicing them into thin rounds and rolling them in seasoned cornmeal and then frying them until they had a crispy texture. This Appalachian recipe shows the resourcefulness and creativity of the mountain’s people.
Apple Stack Cake – North Carolina
Yet another Appalachian dish that I have never heard of; apple stack cake is a traditional dessert that is made by layering thin spiced cake rounds with cooked apple butter and dried apple filling between each layer then left to sit and soften for a couple of days to allow the cakes to soak in the flavor and create its signature texture.
According to Appalachian tradition, during wedding, the guests would each bring a layer of cake to stack on top of one another and were then filled with apple fillings and apple butter to create one large cake for the celebration.
Now I’m Hungry
As you have read, many different and resourceful recipes have come from the Appalachian Mountains, and you’ve likely seen or read them in menus from places like Cracker Barrel or any other country themed restaurant. What is interesting is how truly rooted that food is in the Appalachian culture, right down to the hospitality and the community that the Appalachian culture and tradition brings. Every meal tells a story about its people and the places that created it.
Works Cited
Yeager, Judy. “Appalachian Apple Stack Cake.” The Southern Lady Cooks, 10 Nov. 2024, https://thesouthernladycooks.com/apple-stack-cake/.