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Comfort food: Traditional Appalachian mountain recipes to warm the body & soul

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Karen Dill photo

In the childhood days of my father and mother, winter was not a particularly pleasant time. Staying alive in the rough mountains was neither easy nor a situation to be taken lightly. It required a well-stocked root cellar, a smokehouse with a little meat, and a strong spirit.  

If the weather turned bad for a long period of time, these provisions might not be enough to survive. Winter starvation was a real threat to mountain families in the days before highways and electricity. Roads were poor, transportation limited, and time to react in an emergency was restricted. Yet despite the hardships, food represented a reprieve. Food was not only a basic requirement for staying alive but a joyful escape.  

My father was born in a backwoods cove in Bethel, N.C.; my mother in a mountain glen by the French Broad River in Madison County, which borders Tennessee. Both had difficult childhoods with limited food and financial resources. Both experienced real hunger as children and as adults in the Great Depression. Both were haunted by the fear of a scarce food supply until their deaths. Despite their fears, they loved good food and its connection with family. Meals prepared in a warm kitchen surrounded by family, and a lively conversation gave those early settlers hope for better days. Food not only fed their bodies; it fed their souls.

My father recalled times in his childhood when he ate only cornbread or biscuits three times a day. When corn was plentiful, he ate fried corn for breakfast. He felt extremely lucky if they had sorghum or molasses to pour over the breads, and this simple dish remained one of his favorite desserts even as an adult when food was plentiful. He also loved to crumble up a biscuit in a cup of coffee with milk at the end of a meal and spoon it slowly into his mouth, savoring each bite as if it were his last. 

I would try to eat this concoction that he called “kush,” but I didn’t find it flavorful even with a little sugar added. I imagine that for my father this simple coffee dessert was as wonderful as tiramisu, and I like to think that this love of sweet coffee with bread may account for the popularity of this delightful Italian dessert.

My mother loved all kinds of food and enjoyed cooking, but she especially loved swathing a piece of cornbread with butter and savoring it slowly. She grew up on a small farm in Brush Creek, and despite her family’s extreme poverty, they always tried to have butter. 

As a child, my mother remembers trudging through a blinding snow storm with her sisters as they attempted to find their way home from school. After losing their way and trying to burrow into the snow to sleep, they were found by a neighbor. He led them to this house and fed them hot grits with loads of butter. Though my mother continued to harbor a fear of freezing or starving to death, she never forgot the neighborly kindness and the heavenly taste of melted butter on those grits.  

As an adult, when she had a little extra money, she would splurge and buy a cake made with real butter rather than margarine. Once for Christmas, I wrapped up a pound of butter in colorful paper, and she was as happy with this gift as she would have been with jewelry.

Economic times had changed for the better by the time I was born in Haywood County in Western North Carolina. Growing up in a small frame house in a river valley in Bethel, N.C., I certainly appreciated the significance of food. Our house had electricity and running water, and my parents reminded me often of my good fortune. The same foods of their childhoods were served but with greater ease and less time. My mother lamented that her foods just didn’t taste the same on an electric stove as they did when cooked on a woodstove, but she enjoyed the convenience and passed on her love of cooking to me.

Mountain food tends to be simple and hearty. In the winter, tables are spread with practical foods that can be stored and preserved safely over a long winter—potatoes (both white and sweet), apples, turnips and rutabagas. Winter green vegetables would have to be hearty to grow in the cold ground. Salted meats and pickled vegetables provided some variety in an otherwise monotonous diet as well as the dried apples and dried pole or “shucky” beans that would hang from the rafters in the barn.  

Although the preparation of these foods tended to be repetitious and monotonous at times, we took pride in filling a table with foods for the winter holidays and for the regular evening meals. My mother found ways to cook the simple foods, and though my father complained if the standard fare was “fancied up” in any way, he would clean his plate. 

My parents believed that food should never be wasted and that every part of a fruit or vegetable should be used. Apple peelings were boiled down for apple butter.  Pumpkin seeds were dried, salted and baked to use in cakes or as snacks. Every imaginable part of the pig was utilized. Chitterlings or “chitlins” (pig intestines) and fatback would crackle in cast-iron frying pans. Hominy would be warmed up in pots on the woodstove. Dried apple slices would simmer in butter. Ground corn would be mixed up for a cake of cornbread, the batter poured in heavy skillets and baked in the tiny oven of the woodstove or over the fire in the field-stone fireplace.

When Christmas rolled around, simple foods continued to grace our table. A salted ham that had been tucked away in the smokehouse was brought out with great ceremony, and several bowls of steaming vegetables were presented. My father did not remember receiving many gifts but waxed poetic about the oranges (an exotic treat) and nuts that might be given to the children. I suppose the once-a-year oranges were purchased from one of the general stores in the area. I remember Rickman’s Store from my childhood and its wonderful candy and pickle jars and the glass-enclosed loaves of bologna and liver mush—a rare splurge.

Oranges were a special treat in those days and they were slowly savored at the end of a meal. Even the orange peelings were munched or used to spice up a pot of cooked fruit—an old mountain name for applesauce. My parents continued to call it “fruit” rather than the more modern moniker. My attempts to correct them over the years were blatantly ignored. A bowl of cooked fruit—boiled or fried—graced the table for most meals. 

As I prepare my own winter and holiday foods, I am engulfed in these memories.  My own kitchen in Webster, N.C., is modern and well equipped by my parents’ standards, but I still insist on cooking the traditional foods. I imagine my mother and father giving me advice, warning me to keep the dishes simple and to deliver only hot food to the table. If a dish cooled on its journey to the table, it was quickly rescued and reheated on the stove. 

Though I may alter the dishes to suit my family’s taste, I start with the same good, wholesome ingredients that were readily available in the past. In honor of my parents’ memories and of all foods that are traditional to the mountains, I try each year to create a menu that features the beloved food of the past as well as flavorful additions available in the present.

Our Christmas supper (dinner is the noon meal in the mountains) begins with soup. December weather calls for many varieties of soup made from winter vegetables. Our family favorite is potato soup: boiled potatoes mashed with butter and lots of milk or cream and topped with bacon bits, chopped chives, grated cheese, and (for a Christmas look) red and green bell pepper bits. This year I have decided to use winter potatoes, onions and a leftover pumpkin from our garden to create a creamy pumpkin soup.

For the main course, I will stick to my parents’ favorite Christmas ham (but with a cranberry glaze), sweet potatoes, pinto beans with cornbread, collard greens, Christmas hominy, fried apple slices and fresh biscuits with molasses and honey. This is a meal that will please both old and new tastes. I like to embellish the dishes a bit with exotic spices that were unavailable in my parents’ childhoods, but I imagine that they will be a bit forgiving with this untraditional act. I am still using those simple, stick-to-your-ribs foods that warm the body and soul.

For dessert, I will honor my father’s childhood thrill with Christmas oranges as well as his love of coffee-flavored bread. My husband’s mother—a true Southern lady from Georgia—taught me to make the “real Southern” ambrosia, a dish that uses oranges in a simple way. I’m sure my father would approve.  The dessert—a simple coffee pound cake—would also please his tastes, but he would probably continue to crumble a biscuit in his cup of coffee and reminisce about the past.

I have continued the tradition of preparing seasonal mountain dishes and adding my own flavors just as my own children are continuing their preparation of mountain winter foods. We know that food provides the connection between generations of people. Recipes are handed down by word of mouth or through pencil-scrawled instructions from one generation to the next. And when these foods are prepared, the spirits of those who have left our world return to join in the meal. As I age, I have actually started to hear my mother’s words come from my mouth at these family gatherings. She warned me that this would happen!

I picture my father clad in overalls and a worn flannel shirt. He sits in his straight-back wooden chair at supper time on a winter’s day. He crumbles his biscuit in his coffee, savors each spoonful as he recalls childhood in the mountains. He remembers the hardships—long days of work in a local sawmill and later a logging company at Sunburst, leaving school in 7th grade. But he also remembers the joy of sunsets and the ever-changing seasonal vistas on unscarred mountains. He knows the mountain ridges like the back of his own hand. He remembers food cooked over an open fire and shared with his family.  

I think he hopes the legacy and power of food will be passed on to his daughter and grandchildren. He smiles, content in knowing that this will come to pass. The recipes, the stories that have been passed on through my parents and grandparents continue to flow through us.

Traditional Old Standards

Christmas Hominy

My grandparents made hominy by boiling corn kernels in lye water heated in a cast iron pot over a fire built in a pit in the front yard. The lye was made from ashes taken from the fireplace and placed in a piece of hollow log. The log slanted downward, and water had to be poured repeatedly over the ashes and caught in a wooden bucket. The resulting lye water was used to make hominy and homemade soap. The dry corn kernels were cooked slowly and soaked in the lye water until the skin came off and the kernels were swollen.  The kernels were then washed many times until the lye was removed and stored in a cork. In essence, the kernels were cleansed of their earthly skin and transformed to a heavenly white. I loved to watch this transformation.

Now, I would not go through this process. I simply buy a can or two of white hominy, drain the water from the kernels and sauté them in a frying pan with butter.  Add chopped red and green bell peppers to give a nice holiday appearance.

Pinto Beans

Soak a bag of beans overnight. Drain and rinse the beans several times. Bring the beans to a boil in a pot with enough water to cover the beans. I like to add 3 or 4 chicken bouillon cubes at this point. Lower the heat to medium. Add some fatback or streaked meat that has browned in another skillet. I also like a few garlic cloves and a chopped jalapeno pepper for an extra kick. 

Collard Greens (my mother’s recipe with my additions)

Take a mess of collards— this is a big bunch. I will buy the bags of greens that are already washed and cut if I can find them. Wash the greens many times if you haven’t bought them in the bags. Boil the greens for about 30 minutes. For extra flavor, I use 3 or 4 chicken bouillon cubes as they boil. Drain the greens. Fry up some fatback. (I like to use bacon slices.) Chop the greens and fry them in the grease. I remove the fried bacon strips and crumble them over the greens after they are cooked. Salt and pepper the greens to taste. I like to add some red pepper flakes, a couple of teaspoons of vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar.

Buttermilk Cornbread

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Melt butter in an 8-inch iron skillet (or square metal pan).  Melt butter in the skillet.  Remove about one cup of the butter and pour in a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar and quickly add eggs, and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour and salt (and chitlins if you choose) until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the warm skillet with melted butter.  

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Traditional ingredients with a new twist

Creamy Pumpkin Soup

While this is not actually a traditional mountain recipe, it does utilize the basic winter foods stored in root cellars and is pretty tasty.

In a large saucepan, sauté the onion in butter until it is tender. Add the broth, potatoes and pumpkin. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Puree half of the mixture at a time in a blender or food processor until smooth; return to the pan. Add the cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Heat through. Meanwhile, combine the sour cream and parsley. Spoon soup into bowls; top each with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with bacon.

Cranberry-Glazed Ham

In a small saucepan, stir together cranberry sauce, mustard, brown sugar, orange zest and cinnamon stick. Bring to a simmer. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick before using.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Place ham or rack in roasting pan. Cover with foil and back at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Remove foil and brush with some of the cranberry glaze. Bake 15 minutes. Brush again with glaze, and bake an additional 15 minutes or until heated through. Slice and serve with remaining glaze.

Ambrosia (the real southern kind)

Peel the oranges, taking care to remove all the white pith. Slice the oranges over a bowl or storage container so that you can catch any juice and add the slices to the bowl. Circular slices look prettiest, hold together well, and are easiest.

Add the coconut to the orange slices and gently toss. The ambrosia can be refrigerated up to two days, covered. Serve the ambrosia in your prettiest glass bowl.

Old Fashioned Coffee Pound Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon until well blended; set aside. Beat butter and granulated sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with coffee, beating until well blended after each addition.

Pour into greased 10-inch tube pan.

Bake 1 hour 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes; loosen cake from side of pan. Gently remove cake from pan.  Cool on wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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