Roxy Todd, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Mapping Appalachia's Food and Farm to Table Destinations

Agri-tourism is not a new concept to Jennifer "Tootie" Jones. A fifth generation farmer, she raises grass fed beef on Swift Level Farm in Lewisburg. She…

Agri-tourism is not a new concept to Jennifer “Tootie” Jones. A fifth generation farmer, she raises grass fed beef on Swift Level Farm in Lewisburg. She was one of the farmers who attended yesterday’s event at the Capitol Market. She sells beef to 14 West Virginia restaurants and several retail stores, some of which are featured on a new online map, called Bon Appétit Appalachia, a project by the Appalachian Regional Commission. There’s also a print map, which lists 283 food destinations across the region, including:

Capitol Market, Charleston
The Wild Ramp, Huntington
South Side Depot, Parkersburg
The Custard Stand, Webster Springs
Swift Level, Lewisburg
Thistledew Farm Proctor
The East End Bazaar, Charleston

The map was distributed to tourism agencies and ran in a magazine called Food Traveler. The premier of this map was celebrated at an event yesterday at the Capitol Market in Charleston.

Jones’ Swift Level Farm is featured as a destination on the Bon Appétit map. “We love people of all ages coming to the farm, and we have activities for children. They can feed the chickens and collect eggs and feed the pigs and run free in the grass, and not worry about anything except having fun,” says Jones.

Credit Roxy Todd

Pickens Maple Syrup and Homemade Bread from Jeff’s Bakery in Frankford

The movement to promote regional food could help give farmers like Jones a boost by helping them establish their farms as tourist destinations.

Yesterday’s event also celebrated the work of farmers and chefs who have been behind the local food movement in West Virginia for some time.

“My name’s Dale Hawkins. I’m one of the owners of Fish Hawk Acres in Rock Cave. We believe local food is important for the economy of West Virginia because it’s going to keep the money as opposed to sending it out of state.” Fish Hawk Acres is also featured on the Bon Appétit Appalachia Map.

At the event Hawkins displayed local breads, homemade ramp mustard, and one of West Virginia’s most iconic local foods—Pickens Maple Syrup.

According to Mandala Research, nearly 80 percent of all leisure travelers list dining and other culinary activities as a top priority. As local food movements across the country begin to take root and the term foodie has emerged in urban areas, Appalachian festivals, farms, and farm to table restaurants could benefit by promoting the region as a tourist destination.

Credit Roxy Todd

Granola made by Fish Hawk Acres in Rock Cave

The Appalachian food map features businesses and events from 13 states, with events like a Green Bean Festival in Georgia, a Pawpaw Festival in Ohio, and a Liver Mush Festival in North Carolina.

Although the Mountain State is known for its many festivals, only the East End Bazaar in Charleston is listed as an event for West Virginia on the printed map. Other events, like the West Virginia State Fair, are included on the online version, which has about 300 more destinations than the printed map.

Governor Earl Ray Tomlin joined ARC federal co-chair Earl Gohl and state Commissioner of Agriculture Walt Helmick and officials from the West Virginia Division of Tourism to announce the maps.

Something New is Sprouting on Charleston's West Side

The first of Tom Toliver’s gardens is in what looks like an unlikely place—there’s a lumber mill across the street, a busy road without sidewalks, and the garden itself is nudged in between a pawn shop and a DeWalt tool center. Along 6^th street, a mom and her two kids walk by carrying groceries from the nearby Family Dollar. Toliver also lives down the street. He believes that putting gardens in urban areas, like Charleston’s West Side, helps reduce crime and revitalize the neighborhood.

“When you bring in the good, the bad will eventually creep out because they cannot survive together. That’s another advantage of a community garden,” says Toliver.

For about twenty years, Toliver has been a mentor for children whose parents are in prison. Five years ago, he had one of the children over for dinner, and they were serving green beans as one of their sides.

“So my wife said, ‘you know where this food comes from?’ And they said, ‘Kroger.’ They had no idea or concept how food grew.”

Das Menon and Tom Toliver. Green-beans are growing on the trestle.

That’s what planted the seed in Tom’s mind to create gardens throughout his neighborhood in Charleston’s West Side. Toliver doesn’t sell any of the food he grows— in fact, he gives most of it to neighbors or to nearby shelters. So when Sarah Halstead, with the West Virginia State University Economic Development Center, heard about Toliver’s project, she connected him with volunteers from around Charleston who began helping him this season.

One of those volunteers is Stephanie Hysmith. Hysmith is a Master Gardener, which means participated in a series of workshops offered by West Virginia University Extension Service.

And Das Menon, an industrial designer, was also excited to help Toliver with his gardens when he found out about the project earlier this year.

“I grew up in India. I’m at the later part of my life, and I want to do something good for people. You want to feel like you have done something that will help people, and that will carry on for the next generation,” says Menon.

This year, Menon is putting design skills to work and is helping the group create a gazebo for Toliver’s second garden, just down the street on 6^th and Orchard. This garden is a partnership between the West Side Community Gardens and Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurs, also known as SAGE. Here, vegetables are not separated by rectangular beds. This is an organically imagined garden with plots arranged in a kind of swirling, starburst design—with sunflowers and other bee-enticing flowers at the center.

One of the neighbors, Sharon Bills enters the garden, walking her dog up the grassy hill. “We walk the dog up here and come check it out. And we all say that it was so neatly done, the way that it waters itself and everything,” Bills explains, pointing to the sunflowers which are in full bloom.

Toliver says their project would like to eventually allow neighbors like Sharon to have their own garden plots so they will be invested in helping raise food for themselves and for people in need. “My philosophy is: begin to help people to grow their own food, eat healthy, it will cause a healthy community,” Toliver explains.

“Nothing hurts me any more than to go into countries, even in America, and see kids eating out of garbage cans, when it’s so simple to grow food. It’s so simple.”

A follow up story about Tom Toliver’s gardens and a group of 22 YMCA children who recently volunteered to help him bring vegetables to a local shelter, can be found here.

This story from West Virginia Public Radio is featured in The Charleston Gazette. Click here to view the article.

85-Year-Old Veteran and Environmental Activist Begins Extended Fast

Inside the West Virginia Capitol Building, Roland Micklem sits on a marble bench, holding in one hand a handmade wooden cane. In his other hand is a small poster, a kind of manifesto, which he wrote to explain his reasons for going on an extended fast, without consuming any food except water, coffee and juice.

Micklem hopes that his quiet campaign will in some way inspire more awareness for the various causes of climate change, which he says include mountain top removal mining. Activists Vincent Eirene and Mike Roselle are joining the 85-year-old army veteran in this fast.

Micklem grew up in Virginia in the 1930s. Over the years he’s watched as some of his favorite animals and birds have slowly disappeared from the landscape. He remembers first noticing these changes in the 1950s, and this is why he become an environmental activist.

But Micklem, an environmental writer and a retired science teacher, is quick to point out that the type of activism he believes in is non-violent, civil disobedience.

“It has to be conducted by people who have love in their hearts and absolutely no animosity toward the people who would oppose them,” he said.

Micklem admits that his fast alone cannot help inspire the type of environmental change he would really like to see. He isn’t asking for anything except the chance to express his opinion through this fast.

“I don’t like to call it ‘protest’. But it is a witness and an expression of my genuine grief for the loss of creation. I’m quite willing to fast here until I can’t do it anymore…or until I die,” he explained.

Volunteer Shenna Fortner has also been assisting the activists during the first days of the fast. She brought her juicing machine to make them fresh juice.

At the end of each day as the Capitol Building closes, Fortner drives the three activists back to a hotel in Downtown Charleston, where they’ll rest until morning when their fast will continue indefinitely. On Tuesday night, Micklem joined about 200 others at a community meeting to rally against a proposed mining operation near the Kanawha State Forest.

Activists Vincent Eirene and Mike Roselle are joining Micklem in the fast.

Fasnacht Celebration Urges Old Man Winter to Leave

The little town of Helvetia, W.Va., tried its best to frighten away Old Man Winter at its Fasnacht festival, which takes place every year on the last Saturday before Lent.

Hundreds of people thronged the streets of the remote Swiss community in Randolph County, many of them squeezing into the community hall for the square dance.

People this year had large, papier-mâché masks that resembled long nosed-monsters, Chinese dragons, and druid-like trees.

But before the party, cooks and volunteers were busy helping to prepare the Swiss feast in the Hütte restaurant, which included sausage, spiced sauerkraut, brat wurst, green beans, parsley potatoes, homemade applesauce, and peach cobbler.

Three years after one of the most important matriarchs of Helvetia, Eleanor Mailloux, founder of the Hutte, passed away, the question many people are asking is: how will the traditions change without her?

Editor’s Note: Traveling 219 is a production of Allegheny Mountain Radio with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the West Virginia Humanities Council, and AmeriCorps VISTA.