Mountain Bites: The Culture of Food in Southern Appalachia

Three cornbread recipes from Lorraine Metcalf Griffin’s Family and Friends Cookbook, written and distributed by Kathy Griffin in 2003. (Image courtesy of Raegan Metcalf)

A young woman grating ears of corn on the porch of a log building. (This is a photograph of a young woman grating ears of corn on the porch of a log building . (This image is #82-10-386 in the James G.K. McClure, Jr. Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Mars Hill University)

Hickory king corn, grown in MHU's Heritage Garden and ground by students in AS 344: Creative Traditions in Southern Appalachia. (Photograph by Leila Weinstein)

By MHU students Daniel Loredo, Raegan Metcalf, and Darian Smathers

Madison County, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, offers many examples of Southern Appalachian traditions. One of the tastier traditions is the foodways. The traditional foods that are popular in this area are a result of the crops that farming families could grow. Corn was a native crop that was originally cultivated by the Cherokee in this area. Corn was milled into cornmeal and baked into the cornbread which is still well-known and well-loved today. Foods like cornbread are often romanticized as the food of a simpler time, but growing and cooking all the food used for sustenance was hard work. Food was not only a means to survive, but it also helped bring the community together. Many of these foods came from heirloom seeds, which were kept by families for generations. Heirloom seed collector Bill Best wrote, “I had been slow to realize that I was involved in an activity that dealt with a lot of history and culture (Best, 8).” Food reflects the history of the land it comes from.

In the past, many families in the Madison County area relied on farming as their primary source of food. The hardscrabble nature of the region demanded resourcefulness, and the typical meal reflected the availability of ingredients and the skills of the cook, often the mother or grandmother of the household. They most often cultivated crops like corn, beans, and other vegetables. Corn was a staple of various dishes, such as cornbread and grits, and continues to be a staple in many Southern restaurants and households. Corn would have been planted in the spring and harvested in the fall and then milled into cornmeal for recipes. Cornbread was popular in the region because wheat was not widely locally grown and would have to be imported from areas in the country where it was grown and purchased. Many family cooks did not write their recipes down. They learned how to cook from their mothers and would pass the knowledge to their daughters, family, and friends. This knowledge continues to be passed down today.

Cornbread often lacks an official recipe; instead, the ingredients are “eyeballed” or approximated and foods are made by instinct rather than strict instructions. Watching someone eyeballing a recipe is a confusing but exciting process, as the person who is making the dish seems to know how much of each thing is needed without measuring or even looking at a cookbook. Without exact measurements, the recipes have to be taught to be shared between neighbors, which contributed to the sense of community in rural areas. In Helvetia, West Virginia, there is a community cookbook that helps keep the people within the community connected. The cookbook contains vague recipes that encourage conversation between neighbors. Neighbors have to consult each other for tips and tricks regarding the recipes in the community cookbook. One of the most popular treats from the book is rosettes, which are similar to funnel cakes, but are fried using a branding iron. Folklorist Emily Hilliard writes, “The lack of specificity in the recipe inspires conversation, even for those in the know. As Bunch stacks the cooled rosettes and prepares to dust them with sugar, she asks Eleanor what type to use. ‘Some of the people use regular and some use powdered sugar,’ Eleanor replies. I chime in, ‘I remember last year when I interviewed you, you said, ‘Well, you use what you’ve got’’” (Hilliard 185). This type of communication helps the community come together, promoting the change and adaptation of tradition because newer generations come with new ideas that build upon tradition.

Similar to the cookbook in Helvetia, there is a time when recipes need to be written down. This was the case with the Lorraine Metcalf-Griffin Family and Friends. The Metcalf family is a family of sixteen children from Barnardsville, North Carolina and as the children are getting older it is harder for them to remember the recipes for all of the different foods they make, and therefore harder for them to pass on these recipes to their children and grandchildren. In order to keep these recipes alive, along with other well-loved recipes in the community, a family cookbook was created.

Regional recipes are often the result of the most abundant resources available to the people who live there. As resources change and access to newer ingredients improves, the recipes change with them. Cornbread was a dish that originally called for cornmeal as its only grain. However, as wheat became more readily available, cornbread recipes started to call for flour to make the resulting cornbread fluffier. Recipe traditions are not about keeping an original recipe the same for years to come, but rather sharing the love of food, baking, and community. As resources improve, the tools and ingredients used to bake also improve. In the community of Helvetia, “Eleanor enacts folklorist Henry Glassie’s definition of tradition as ‘the creation of the future out of the past.’ While ingredients, techniques, styles, and tools change according to time and context, the tradition persists” (Hilliard, 186). The tradition of making a specific food stays the same even when the recipe changes.

It can be easy to hold an idealized view of Southern Appalachian food—images of cabins deep in the mountain woods, where aromas of slow-cooked stew and baked cornbread linger. The family gathers around the table after a hard week of work, and the room fills with laughter and conversation, creating a tapestry of shared stories and collective memories. Although people in Southern Appalachia experienced days like these, it would not have been an everyday occurrence. Erica Abrams Locklear, in her article “Setting Tobacco, Banquet-Style,” describes her idealized view of food traditions. “I grew up hearing about the plentiful meals both sides of my family had enjoyed after hours spent in the field, those heaping plates of vegetables, fresh fried chicken, and elaborate cakes took on mythic proportions in my adolescent mind” (Locklear, 25). Locklear alludes to the idea that food from the past is often romanticized. However, many meals would have been quick easy recipes that could have been eaten quickly before returning to work in the field or home.

Works Cited

Best, Bill. Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste: Heirloom Seed Savers in Appalachia. Ohio University Press, 2013.

Griffin, Kathy. Lorraine Metcalf Griffin’s Family and Friends Cookbook: 700 Great Mouthwatering Recipes. Privately published, 2003.

Hilliard, Emily. “‘The Reason We Make These Deep-Fat-Fried Treats’:” The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell, Ohio University Press, 2019, pp. 181–93, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv224tvn0.21.

Locklear, Erica Abrams. “Setting Tobacco, Banquet-Style.” The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell, Ohio University Press, 2019, pp. 24–45, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv224tvn0.7.