✕
☰

High Country Country Foods

by

“A body can get the miseries or suffer from mollygrubs most any time,” my Grandpa Joe used to say, “but somehow they seem to come most often in the dead of winter.” He had what he considered surefire remedies for these ailments (in case the words are unfamiliar, they are traditional mountain talk for being down in the dumps or feeling poorly). 

One of his nostrums was hot pepper tea, which he made from dried cayenne peppers parched in the oven then crumbled up to seep in water after the fashion of tea. I personally had no use whatsoever for this sinus-clearing infusion of liquid heat, but ingesting other cures was another story entirely. Grandma Minnie could prepare several dishes which were the high country equivalent of chicken soup for body and soul, and he rightly reckoned they were not only mighty fine fare, but most useful cure alls and spirit lifters.

Grandma prepared savory, stick-to-the-ribs dishes which not only tasted wonderful but enjoyed the undoubted advantage of utilizing ingredients which were standards in mountain cupboards, canneries, smokehouses, or kitchens. Invariably they dispelled spells of cabin fever even as they issued a clarion call to “eat hearty,” which was part of the verbiage with which Grandpa Joe concluded every blessing: “You’uns see what’s before you. Eat hearty.” With one of these dishes on the menu, you had to be sho’ ‘nuf sick not to do precisely that.

Cornpone Pie

This recipe is really just a variation on time-tested approaches to making cornbread in a fashion which basically becomes, if not an entire meal, at least the key dish. In a sense, it is a derivative of both cracklin’ cornbread and cornbread with soup beans. The ingredients vary a bit from those traditional standards and the meat and beans provide a double dose of protein. 

Begin with your regular recipe for cornbread, leaving out the cooking oil, and prepare your batter. Set it aside (something I also do when making regular corn bread) while browning a half pound of 80 percent lean hamburger or a comparable amount of ground venison (if you use the latter, mix in a bit of bacon or pork fat) in a skillet along with a diced sweet onion. 

When the meat is fully browned, empty a drained can of pinto beans or a cup and a half of previously cooked pintos into the cornmeal batter, add the meat-and-onion mix, stir just enough to mix completely, and pour into a pre-heated baking dish or well-greased cast-iron skillet . Bake at 400 degrees until done.

Serve with stewed apples, slaw, or a green salad.

Soup Beans and Streaked Meat

Few dishes convey heartiness in a manner comparable to soup beans (pintos, navy beans, northern white beans, cornfield  beans, or kidney beans all work well) slow cooked to perfection with some streaked meat added to the pot for seasoning. Preparation is the essence of simplicity and involves little but patience and a watchful, pot-checking eye. 

Begin by “looking” your soup beans, checking carefully for any foreign matter. Then wash them in a pot of water, removing any beans or foreign matter that floats to the top. Rinse again and fill the pot two-thirds full of water and bring to a rolling boil. Then cut the heat back to a barely bubbling simmer. At this juncture, thoroughly rinse several thin slices of streaked meat which has been previously soaked to remove excess salt and then fry the slices to a crunchy crispness. Crumble two or three pieces of the fried meat into the bubbling beans and pour in some of the grease from the frying pan. Set the remaining slices of streaked meat aside atop paper towels to drain. 

When the streaked meat and grease are added to the beans, sprinkle in freshly ground black pepper or, if you prefer a bit more heat, crumble one or two dried cayenne peppers into the pot. DO NOT add salt. The streaked meat will likely offer enough seasoning and if needed, you can always salt individual servings to taste. Cook until the beans are tender, checking periodically to see if you need to add water (this will likely be the case) and to ascertain whether the beans are done. Slow simmered soup beans take several hours, but this means magic in terms of the marriage of flavors.

A Waldorf salad, cooked apples, or a green salad featuring winter greens such as kale, spinach, or Swiss chard goes well with this dish. The same is true for a more traditional accompaniment, mustard or turnip greens (also cooked with streaked meat).

Squirrel and Dumplings

Although the grand comeback stories of the white-tailed deer and wild turkey have relegated the humble bushytail to a place well down the ladder when it comes to game species favored by hunters, for several generations squirrels were the single most popular quarry among mountain sportsmen. Add to that their historic importance. The “Over Mountain Boys” who turned the tide in the American Revolution were squirrel hunters, as was our nation’s greatest civilian soldier, Sgt. Alvin York. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that until the demise of that giant of the Appalachian forests, the American chestnut, the tree-top tricksters were amazingly abundant throughout the region. 

In my family at least, squirrel was a regular menu item from when the season opened in mid-October right through until it closed at the end of February. My maternal grandmother was also known as “a squirrel-hunting fool,” and in her final years when it was otherwise almost impossible to get her to eat, she would dig into a helping of squirrel and dumplings with the appetite of a greedy-gut teenager. Here’s how Momma fixed squirrel for her and for our family.

NOTES: Don’t have squirrel meat in the freezer? You can substitute dark meat from a chicken or turkey.

Place the quartered squirrels in a Dutch oven and cover with water. Add bay leaves and simmer for an hour and a half or until meat is tender. Skim if necessary. Squirrel may be removed from the bones at this juncture and returned to the pot or leave pieces intact if you wish. Add onion, celery, carrots, seasonings and more water. Cook for 15 to 20 additional minutes or until the vegetables are tender. At that point increase heat to a boil and add dumplings which have been readied while the vegetables cooked.

Dumplings

Slowly add milk to dry ingredients and drop resultant batter by teaspoons into the bubbling stew. Cook for another 15 minutes or until the dumplings are done in the center.

NOTES: This recipe can be doubled if desired. Also, if you want to take a shortcut on your dumplings, pinch small pieces from store-bought canned biscuits and drop into the stew to cook.

Chicken Stew

Chicken soup is associated with being a bit under the weather, for good reason. It’s nutritious, tasty, filling, and somehow seems just the thing for when, as Grandpa Joe would have put it, “a body is ailing a bit.” Curiously, I don’t remember Grandma Minnie ever making chicken soup or indeed soup of any kind, although her stews, laced with meat and vegetables swimming in gravy, were in essence just thickened soups. This recipe is similar to the manner in which she prepared chicken stew. She usually did so when there were a couple of leftover carcasses from baked hens served at holidays (we almost always had hens the family had grown as opposed to store-bought turkey) or when an old hen had been sufficiently derelict in her egg-laying duties to invite consumption. The stew made a great wintertime dish, especially when a heaping platter of cathead biscuits was served as a side.

Remove skin from the carcass. Place in a stock pot and surround with onion, celery, carrot, garlic and bay leaf.  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for two hours.  Refrigerate stock and remove fat which accumulates on the top.  Remove all meat from bones and save.

Cook stock, milk, potatoes, carrots and celery for a half hour.  Add lima beans, pasta, spinach, peas, meat, parsley, basil and pepper to the soup and cook an additional 20 minutes.  Remove from heat, season with salt if necessary, and stir in evaporated milk.  Return to low heat, stirring often.  Do not let stew boil.  Thicken with a flour and water paste if desired. 12 hearty servings.

Berry or Fruit Cobbler

Wonderfully hearty, especially if a bowl of the cobbler is topped by a good splashing of cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This versatile cobbler recipe can be prepared using about any type of berry, as well as apples and other types of fruit. Its preparation is the essence of simplicity. 

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk; stir with a wire whisk until smooth. Add melted butter and blend. Pour batter into 9 X 13 inch baking dish. Pour fruit or fresh or thawed berries (amount depends on personal preference and whether you like a lot of crust) evenly over the batter. Do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm. Serves 6 to 8.

About the author: Jim Casada’s next book, Fishing for Chickens: A Smokies Food Memoir, is due out from the University of Georgia Press in 2022.

Back to topbutton