Weekend Cooking...The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery [80]

The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery edited by Linda Garland Page and Elliot Wigginton
The University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 978-0807843956
352 pages, October 31, 1992

No doubt, if you are a regular reader here, you will know that I took a little trip down south a few weeks ago, to Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Just driving around, seeing the sight. But you know I could not make it home without a few books making their way into my car. One very nice entertaining and informative one that I picked up, in Dollywood by the way, was this cookbook.

Yes, it contains over 500 recipes, but so much more...

Mingus Mill

"A sampling of favorites includes rhubarb cobbler, sassafras tea, fried quail, Brunswick stew, angel flake biscuits, seven-day cole slaw, and lime pickles. The book also explains traditional methods of preparing and preserving food, including directions for making homemade yeast, curing pork, 'gritting' corn, canning foods, cooking with a wood stove or fireplace, and preparing wild game."

Yes, there is a delicious sounding recipe for old fashioned chicken pie, but the chapter starts with about four pages of pictures and text explaining how kill and 'dress' the chicken. I must say I liked the page about how to make fried chicken a bit more, but it is interesting! You never know when you might need to know these things. Yes, there are recipes for raccoon and possum and squirrel but also ones for cheese souffle, baked apples with honey and old time favorites like brown betty.

But perhaps most interesting, even more interesting than the recipe for pig's snout, are the chapters on things like how to cook in a fireplace or a wood cook-stove or how to 'put up' a batch of homemade sauerkraut or prepare a brand new cast iron pan for using the first time. These are illustrated by a huge number of wonderful black and white pictures and the contribution of almost 150 'contacts', who tell their fascinating stories about growing up and living in these mountains and the part food and it's preparation played in that life. Yes, without question, the best part are the countless wonderful stories...

When I first glanced at the book in the store, it happened to open to a recipe, a very simple recipe, that brought make memories for me, because it is something my mother used to make. And since I had bought a bag of freshly milled cornmeal back too, I was all set!

Cornmeal Much (from Ruth Holcomb)

1 cup cornmeal
2 cups water
pinch of salt

Sift meal. Bring water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt. Pour meal into the boiling water and continue cooking. Stir until thick. Put mush into a cereal bowl. Serve with sweet milk or buttermilk, and if desired, add butter and sugar.
Yield 3-4 serving

My mother would makes this frequency, but with an added step. She would fry it.
When the mush was cooked, you pour it into a loaf pan and cool over night in the frig. Then you can pop it out of the pan, slice it and brown in a frying pan.
Serve...as mom did...with maple syrup, for breakfast.

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This is my contribution this to this week's Weekend Cooking.
"Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend."
Be sure to check out the other entries this week. As always, hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

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