Offbeat Mountain Edibles
My generation of mountain folks, like every generation before, survived and, in many cases, thrived with a “make do with what you’ve got” mindset. Often there was an addition to that bit of folk wisdom along the lines of “if you ain’t got it, do without.” Nowhere were these thoughts more directly applicable than when it came to food. After all, normal life involved meals three times a day, and that meant a great deal of making do in order to put food on the family table.
Self-sufficiency in today’s world involves thinking along the lines of trendy homesteading approaches, living close to the land, growing much of one’s food, or embracing back-to-the-earth movements.
In yesteryear, however, those were basic aspects of existence, and our hardy forebears embraced them out of sheer necessity. It was a hardscrabble lifestyle, grubbing and grabbling, taking advantage of the wild bounty offered by nature’s overflowing larder as found in the southern Appalachians, and, to use another pithy adage, folks had to “root hog, or die.” With rare exceptions (laziness was virtually non-existent and the welfare state lay in the future) they chose to root and root hard. Little was wasted. Turning again to metaphors linked to swine, in hog-killing time you processed and used “everything but the squeal.” Incidentally, using pigs for proverbs should come as no real surprise, because until the last two generations pork was the main meat of the mountains.
For all the effort required to eke out an existence, and notwithstanding the prevalence of poverty, at least when measured in terms of money in the bank or material possessions, mountain folks took great delight in daily life. Recently, in talking to a grade school classmate, she shrewdly commented on how most of us were poor without even thinking about or knowing it. She mentioned basic needs such as adequate clothing and shelter but turned almost immediately to food. “We had plenty to eat and we ate well. Women took pride in cooking, men rejoiced in raising good crops or in supplementing normal fare with game and fish, and everyone in the family enjoyed aspects of food provision such as berry picking and nutting outings.” What she was implying, with considerable accuracy, was that mountain life as she had known it revolved around food consumption. That simple but vital part of daily living fueled the inner woman or man. It was likewise a source of daily pleasure.
In that regard, the words with which my paternal grandfather invariably concluded when blessing a meal resonate in my storeroom of fond memories. He would look out at the food-laden table for a moment and then ask those present to bow their heads. “You’uns see what’s before you,” he would say. “Eat hearty.” A trencherman of considerable capacity and great gusto, he then proceeded to do just that, paying ample gustatory tribute to Grandma Minnie’s abilities as a mountain cook.
Some of the dishes we consumed have, with the passage of time, become less common or even almost forgotten. The recipes below pay tribute to what I style “offbeat edibles,” although that refers to their status in today’s world as opposed to where they resided in mountain menus of old long ago. They weren’t always offbeat or unusual. It’s just that time has eroded their once prominent place in high country diet.
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Jim Casada
Offbeat Mountain Edibles
An apple fried pie in the making.
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Jim Casada
Offbeat Mountain Edibles
Mule ears in a frying pan.
Mule Ears
Because of their shape, fried fruit pies were often known as “mule ears.” You can buy what are described as fried pies in most any modern grocery store, but they are paltry pretenders posing at the real thing scarcely deserving of the effort required to bite into one. The real McCoy, on the other hand, is a thing of gustatory wonder.
- 1 pound dried fruit (apples, peaches, or apricots work especially well)
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons of cinnamon (or to taste)
- 2 tablespoons butter
Cover the dried fruit with water and soak overnight. Drain any extra water and cook slowly until completely tender. Mash the fruit to make a sauce and then add the other ingredients. Stir well and allow to cool. Make a pie crust but use less shortening than normal. Roll out the crust quite thin, cut in circles (a coffee saucer is the ideal size for a pattern around which you can cut), add the fruit sauce, pinch edges, and fry in piping hot lard. Turn only once. Dust with cinnamon or powdered sugar if desired, or brush with egg white for an attractive glaze. Serve while still warm.
Tip: Fried pies warm over quite nicely and they also make a wonderful cold dessert for a field lunch. Once they were a common treat when ids carried their mid-day meal to school.
Offbeat Mountain Edibles
A cluster of pawpaws ready to be picked.
Pawpaw Pudding
My studied guess would be that not one in a dozen readers could even identify a pawpaw and that not one in a hundred has eaten this delicacy so beloved by our forebears. Pawpaw custard was George Washington’s favorite dessert!
The wild fruit grows widely up and down the Appalachians and in good years, if you can beat woodland critters to it, can be harvested by the peck or even bushel.
- 1 cup of pawpaw pulp with all seeds removed
- 1¼ sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup melted butter (the real thing)
- 1 teaspoon ginger (optional)
- 3 eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
Strain the pawpaw pulp using a plastic sieve. Mix it with all the ingredients and bake in a well-greased pan for approximately an hour at 350 degrees (when done it will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan). Cool and cut into squares.
Streaked Meat and Hominy
Streaked meat (also variously known as fatback, side meat, streak-of-lean, salt pork, and more—although the cuts aren’t all the same) was once almost as prominent in mountain cooking as salt and black pepper). It works wonders with the somewhat bland taste of hominy. Instead of butter and black pepper, the seasonings most commonly associated with hominy, fry a few slices of streaked meat until crispy brown and then crumble atop hot hominy. Taste before adding any salt, keeping in mind you are dealing with salt-preserved meat, and sprinkle with black pepper. This is an unusual and tasty starch dish for a meal utilizing two key items—streaked meat and hominy—that are not nearly as prevalent in today’s fare as once was the case.
Poke Sallet
The first “cash money” I ever made as a youngster was a quarter given to me by my second-grade teacher when I presented her with a Number 8 poke (paper bag) chock full of poke salad. Somehow I had found out she loved this wild vegetable and the shiny quarter she gave me meant no more to me than her words: “My goodness, you’ve brought me a poke of poke!”
Gather a mess of tender poke sprouts (they are best when 3 to 5 inches high) and rinse thoroughly to remove any dirt. Place in a pot and bring the water to a rolling boil, then cool to a simmer before pouring the poke sallet and water into a colander to drain. Repeat the process at least once and preferably twice. The reason for doing this is that poke weed is exceptionally rich in Vitamin A, so much so that it can be toxic unless you use this cook-and-drain process to remove some of the vitamin.
Next, place the drained poke in a skillet with a bit of melted butter or bacon grease. Heat until piping hot; add salt and black pepper to taste, and serve immediately. Some folks like to garnish with chopped boiled eggs or to break a couple of eggs into the greens when they are added to the skillet and stir until the eggs have cooked.
NOTE: A pone of cornbread or cathead biscuits goes mighty fine with poke sallet, and it works well as a breakfast dish or a side dish for dinner or supper.
The Enduring Goodness of Gravy
The title for a chapter in a recent cookbook I co-authored with Tipper Pressley is “You’ve Got to Have Gravy.” That choice of words was mine, and I’ve been delighted at how many folks have agreed with thinking along the lines of just how essential gravy was in mountain diet. Here are two examples you are unlikely to encounter on any restaurant menu and that are increasingly rare on mountain tables.
Tomato Gravy
- 2 cups chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons bacon drippings
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- Water
- Dash of sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Add flour to hot bacon drippings and cook for 2-3 minutes while stirring steadily. Season to taste with salt and pepper as the mixture cooks. Stir in tomatoes and add dash of sugar. Cover over low heat until mixture thickens. Depending on how juicy the tomatoes are, water may need to be added to thin the gravy to the desired consistency. This recipe was once a favorite summer breakfast item in many rural parts of the Appalachians.
TIP: Canned tomatoes may also be used. A variation is to sauté diced onion in the bacon drippings before adding the tomatoes.
Chocolate Gravy
- v 3 tablespoons flour
- v 4 tablespoons sugar
- v 2 cups water
- v 3 tablespoons cocoa
Place flour in cast iron pan on medium heat; add sugar and cocoa and mix well. Gradually add water to mixture stirring constantly like you would for any other type of gravy. Serve over warm biscuits or pancakes