This week on Inside Appalachia, step shows are a tradition at many historically Black universities, including schools in Appalachia. We hear about one that’s part of West Virginia State University’s annual homecoming celebration. And, abandoned industrial sites have long been a magnet for people to explore and turn into not-at-all-legal hangout spots, but some come with hidden dangers. We learn about the danger at Fairmont Brine, a site in West Virginia that processed liquid used in hydraulic fracking.
Step shows are a tradition at many historically Black universities, including schools in Appalachia. We hear about one that’s part of West Virginia State University’s annual homecoming celebration.
Abandoned industrial sites have long been a magnet for people to explore and turn into not-at-all-legal hangout spots, but some come with hidden dangers. We learn about the danger at Fairmont Brine, a site in West Virginia that processed liquid used in hydraulic fracking.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Members of Delta Sigma Theta at WVSU’s homecoming. The sorority was part of the annual step show at the university.
Photo Credit: WVSU’s Alpha Delta Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Fraternities and sororities at West Virginia State University (WVSU), one of the state’s two historically Black universities, introduced step dancing at the school decades ago. They made it part of the school’s annual homecoming celebration.
Folkways Reporter Traci Phillips has been attending step shows since she was a kid. Last fall, she brought along her 11-year-old daughter Jayli. They brought us the story.
Teaching Soul Food
Xavier Oglesby cuts onions for a macaroni salad he is cooking inside Manna House Ministries’ kitchen. A pot of boiling water is behind him, cooking the pasta for the dish.
Photo Credit: Vanessa Peña/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Appalachian table is complex and varied. Along with biscuits and gravy, it includes things like collard greens, extra cheesy mac and cheese and fried chicken feet — soul food.
Soul food is associated with southern Black communities, but it’s also traditional to Appalachia, too.
Folkways Fellow Vanessa Peña visited with Xavier Oglesby, a master artist in soul food cooking from Beckley, West Virginia.
Radioactive And Dangerous
Fairmont Brine has fallen into disrepair since it was abandoned.
Photo Credit: Justin Nobel
Starting in the late 2000s, parts of Appalachia saw a natural gas boom from hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. But, some of that faded and in some places, the oil and gas industry has left behind dangerous industrial sites — like Fairmont Brine in Marion County, West Virginia.
Left alone, the abandoned site became a popular hangout spot for unsuspecting young folks.
Mason Adams spoke with Nobel about his investigation.
Sugar Syrup Season In Central Appalachia
Valerie Lowry offers samples to visitors at the Highland County Maple Syrup Festival.
Photo Credit: Clara Haizlett/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Highland County, Virginia and its neighbors in West Virginia are some of the southernmost places in the U.S. to make maple syrup.
Generations of people in these communities have turned tapping trees for syrup into a longstanding tradition — but modern producers are experimenting with new syrups while adapting to changing demands, and a changing climate.
Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett brought us the story.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Jeff Ellis, Tyler Childers, Amethyst Kiah, Joe Dobbs and the 1937 Flood and Frank George.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
Have you ever had “churched-up soup beans?” West Virginia State Parks has hired Wheeling’s Matt Welsch as its new executive chef, who has that Appalachian dish on his menu.
Have you ever had “churched-up soup beans?”West Virginia State Parks has hired Wheeling’s Matt Welsch as its new executive chef, who has that Appalachian dish on his menu.
Known on YouTube as “The Vagabond Chef,” The owner and head chef at the Northern Panhandle’s Vagabond Kitchen spoke with Randy Yohe about his plans to enhance the dining experience at state park lodge restaurants.
Yohe: Chef Matt, you’re the new executive chef for the West Virginia State Parks system. They’ve hired you to enhance the dining experience. What does that mean to you?
Welsch: I think it means a lot of attention to detail, and also the value of bringing in an outside perspective. Due to my history with what I’ve done, as the Vagabond Chef, having seen so many different restaurants, and being outside of the park system itself, I can bring a very experienced, fresh perspective to the operations at each of our parks.
Yohe:I understand you have made a commitment to West Virginia’s rich flavors. That’s made you a prominent figure in the industry. Is that going to play into what we see on some of the state park menus?
Welsch: Absolutely. I think one of the great things about the menus at our state parks is they offer us the chance to tell a story. And that story needs to be about who we are as West Virginians, and who each park is as its own individual entity. It’s the little things, the little nuances that we can bring our guests attention to, and I think the menu is an excellent opportunity for us to do that.
Yohe: So, will that be regionally sourced menu items? I know that my wife is always talking about how she would like to taste some smoked West Virginia trout and enjoy a good smoked trout spread? We know that up in the Williams River area of the state, they have those trout. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?
Welsch: Absolutely. I think championing local ingredients and heritage ingredients is 100 percent something that we need to be doing. And it’s that opportunity to share what makes West Virginia great by highlighting those heritage ingredients and heritage recipes and preparations.
Yohe:I’m taking a look at the dinner menu at the Hawks Nest State Park, for example. And it looks pretty standard. I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not, but under Greens and Things, we’ve got some salads, broccoli soup. Under Main Dishes, there’s steaks, ribs, barbecue chicken breast, it does have sauteed rainbow trout, and a couple of pasta dishes. What will you do to liven up that menu?
Welsch: I think the Hawks Nest menu should also have some beans and cornbread on there maybe as an appetizer. They’ve touched a little bit of the heritage ingredients there, and I think we can do more. But honestly, Randy, one of the first things that I did coming into this position was say ‘we need to know what our guests want’. We need to do a survey asking them what they are looking for? It’s our job to guide them towards the experience that they’re looking for. We don’t want to be too easy, and just give them exactly what they expect and exactly what they want, but we need to know what that is. We can say ‘okay, you like that, you like salmon, but have you had our trout? You really like steak, but maybe try this West Virginia aspect preparation.
Yohe: When I took a look at the menu for your Vagabond kitchen up there in Wheeling, It’s a little eclectic. Duck Fat Fries, Duck Wings. Your Churched-Up Soup Beans, sounds interesting, and I know you served that at a couple of Farm to Table dinners as well. But, you’ve got Rabbit, you have a 12 ounce Wagyu Burger (That’s a big one). Then, assorted things for brunch like cobbler. It looks like a lot of it is freshly made, not taken out of the freezer.
Welsch: We do handcrafted food rooted in the local community at Vagabond kitchen. We turn things on their heads a little bit, and I’m the Vagabond. I’m looking to update what is Appalachian cuisine with the state parks. We’re going to stay a little bit more rooted in history. The soup beans are a great example. I absolutely love soup beans, I grew up with them, I enjoy making them and feeding them to folks. But at our Churched-Up Soup Beans at Vagabond are garnished with homemade chow-chow, or pickled jalapeno and red onion and cornbread dust and candied bacon, so it brings it into the modern day a little bit. If we were going to do that dish at a state park, we probably go more the traditional route of minced raw onion, and a side of cornbread.
Yohe:You’ll do a survey that will find out what’s of interest at all of our state parks. There’s different things that go on, say at Cacapon State Park over there in the Eastern Panhandle, or up north where you are, or down at Chief Logan State Park, I imagine there might be some different tastes at those different areas.
Welsch: Yes, you’re 100 percent correct. I think it’s important to look at the state parks as a whole, and as a singular entity of what we want to offer to folks. But also, to honor those little variations and discrepancies based upon region. And the demographic that’s being attracted to each individual Park is going to be a little different.
Yohe:Do you have a timetable on when you’re going to make these changes, or is this something that’s going to morph over time,
Welsch: It’s going to morph over time, I think it’s very important to go into all these different kitchens. We have 10 Food and Beverage programs across the 37 parks in our state. And it’s very important that I enter these kitchens, humbly with my hat in my hand and say, ‘Hey, I’m here to help, I’m here to add to, I’m not here to take over. I’m not here to say I know things that no one else knows. I’m here as a resource. And we’re going to figure these things out together, and we’re going to take it to the next level. Right now I’m very much getting the lay of the land. I’m drawing a map and seeing where we are. That way we’ll be able to decide how to get to where we want to go.
Yohe: I noticed that at the bottom of your menu at the Vagabond it says you can buy the kitchen a round of drinks for $6 each. Tell me about that?
Welsch: I think it’s important I grew up in the kitchen, I started out as a dishwasher. And I worked my way up to where I am now. It’s really weird these days that this celebrity chef gig exists. And that people actually want to hear what the people who cook your food have to say. It’s a very interesting and weird time for us to have that status. For years, the kitchen is what we called ‘the back of the house’, in kitchen restaurant lingo, and it was very much kept out of view. You didn’t see what happened and a lot of times you didn’t know what happened back there. A lot of times the kitchen staff were largely ignored. Coming up that way, being a cook myself. I wanted the opportunity that when people really enjoyed their meal, they also had the opportunity to say thank you to the people who prepare their food. And when there’s a lot of skill going into that, a lot of intention, the customers that I’ve had have been very excited to have that opportunity to say ‘yeah, let’s get those guys a drink’, when they’re done with their work, they can enjoy the fruits of their labors as well.
Lots of recipes get passed down and shared in Appalachia through handwritten note cards. Sometimes they’re stuffed in little tin boxes, others in loose leaf cookbooks. For the recipient of such a family heirloom, the recipes can be a way to connect with the past. But some of those old recipes don’t use exact measurements. So how do you know you’re getting it right? For Brenda Sandoval in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, it involved some trial and error, and a little help from a cousin.
This story originally aired in the March 26, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Lots of recipes get passed down and shared in Appalachia through handwritten note cards. Sometimes they’re stuffed in little tin boxes, others in loose leaf cookbooks. For the recipient of such a family heirloom, the recipes can be a way to connect with the past. But some of those old recipes don’t use exact measurements. So how do you know you’re getting it right? For Brenda Sandoval in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, it involved some trial and error, and a little help from a cousin.
A few years ago, Sandoval was gifted an old recipe book filled with family recipes, including her grandmother’s recipe for potato candy.
“It was [my grandmother’s] handwriting on a piece of paper, and it was P, period, candy. So the two P ingredients were the potato and the peanut butter…and the confectioner’s sugar, but she had a side note of things that she added, which were salt, milk and vanilla,” shared Sandoval.
Potato candy is a food icon across Appalachia. It became popular during the Great Depression because it was cheap and easy to make. This sugary sweet confection is usually comprised of just three inexpensive ingredients: peanut butter, powdered sugar and of course, potatoes. The candy looks like a reverse pumpkin log, with a brown swirl of peanut butter wrapped in the white pasty potato mix. When it is sliced, some people say the pieces look like pinwheels.
Sandoval testing the consistency of the potato mixture. Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Like many heirloom recipes, Sandoval’s family potato candy recipe did not use units like cups or teaspoons. Instead, her grandmother listed her additional ingredients as a dash of vanilla, a pinch of salt and four splashes of milk.
While Sandoval had never eaten her grandmother’s potato candy, she wanted to see if she could recreate the recipe. She was now on a mission to make her grandmother’s potato candy recipe taste like the real deal. And getting it right wasn’t easy.
Sandoval needed to convert her grandmother’s units of measurement into something she could understand and replicate. This took a lot of trial and error. At times, the process was frustrating. The potato candy kept missing the mark.
Sandoval was chasing a taste memory, and it kept evading her. Eventually she enlisted her cousin Valerie Bovee in the pursuit to get this family recipe right. Unlike Sandoval, Bovee actually tasted her grandmother’s potato candy. She remembers how it tasted when she ate it on Christmas Eve.
Sandoval and Bovee work together closely, with Bovee tasting each batch and Sandoval adjusting the ingredients based on Bovee’s feedback.
“As you’re testing it, you’re trying to match it to what grandma’s was. That’s the flavor you got to try to find…which is hard to explain exactly what that taste is, but it’s definitely that Grandma’s House Christmas Eve taste,” explains Bovee. “[Sandoval] trusts me that I know what it should taste like and when it is good.”
Sandoval with the splashes of milk and pinch of salt. Credit: Capri Cafaro/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Their collaboration worked. Sandoval’s determination and Bovee’s taste memory led to a breakthrough. Finally, Sandoval said that Bovee exclaimed, “This, this is right. Whatever you did, keep doing this.”
These days, Sandoval has mastered her family’s potato candy recipe. She had made it for a shop called True Treats in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia and now also sells the candy directly to the community. Yet, it is clear that potato candy is more than just a sweet treat to Sandoval. It’s about preserving tradition, and holding onto family memories.
Sandoval says making the candy can sometimes be an emotional experience for her as she reflects on her family while she’s going through the process, “I like to take my time and think about my grandmother or my ancestors as I’m baking it. And I think that’s coming from the heart.”
She also hopes people feel as nostalgic as she does when they eat her potato candy.
“I want people to taste it, remember it, think about your grandma or your aunt that’s no longer here that did it. Or maybe they are still here and you just don’t get to visit with them, but it’s something that would take them back,” Sandoval said.
Both Sandoval and her cousin Bovee are committed to keeping their family’s potato candy taste memory alive by continuing to pass the recipe and it’s intangible feeling down to future generations.
Bovee says now that she and her cousin have managed to perfect the candy, she wants to make sure she “gets the recipe down pat” to pass along to her children and grandchildren. “I just want us to be able to all get together, have good scenery memories, have fun making it together and enjoying it together.”
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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.
The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.
ul Smith is one of two West Virginia chefs in the running for one of the most prestigious awards in the culinary world. Reporter Randy Yohe spoke with Smith, who said it’s a humbling honor just to be nominated.
Charleston Chef Paul Smith is one of two West Virginia chefs in the running for one of the most prestigious awards in the culinary world.
Reporter Randy Yohe spoke with Smith, who said it’s a humbling honor just to be nominated.
Yohe: Chef Paul, you’re a semifinalist for the 2023 James Beard Award. What does that recognize?
Smith: This is for the best chef of the southeast. The James Beard Foundation recognizes culinary expertise in numerous different areas, not only in the country, but also in different facets of the business. So this is Best Chef. It is South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. So it is a huge honor for us, as you know, my family of restaurants. So 1010 Bridge, The Pitch, Barcadas, Ellen’s Ice Cream. This is a win for all of us. It’s really a team effort. I get to be the window dressing for it, but it really is a huge honor for all of us.
Yohe: This award is selective and prestigious, isn’t it?
Smith: It absolutely is. I would say it’s the equivalent of the Academy Awards to the chef community. So for me, the nomination is the win. James Beard nominated chef, is basically saying Oscar nominated actor or Academy Award nominated actor. So for me and for our team, it’s great for the city. It’s great for the state. You know, I’ve already won as far as I’m concerned.
Yohe: There’s more to being a chef than just working at a cutting board, a stove or a grill, right?
Smith: Oh, absolutely. I usually go to the gym at about 5:30 in the morning. I’m at one of the restaurants, probably between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. It’s about setting yourself up for success. It’s about everything in place. It’s about not only your physical, but also your mental needs. It started when I was standing on the milk crate with my grandfather, probably about the same time I learned to walk – to stir in the Sunday gravy with him. That really has culminated in operating in these restaurants.
Yohe: They serve a wide variety of food at your restaurants to a variety of customers, tell me about that.
Smith: 1010 Bridge is mostly, we say, Appalachian cuisine with a little bit of a low country flair, but kind of nouveau Appalachia. It’s taking indigenous ingredients from this area and elevating it to a point where it’s fine dining, but it’s also approachable fine dining. We don’t have white tablecloths. The service and the drinks and the cocktails and the mixology and how we play it is all fine dining, but you can wear jeans and a T-shirt.
The Pitch is thoughtful Bar food. We source our ingredients locally from our area farmers. It’s still pizza, burgers, wings and fun appetizers, but it’s just done with that fine dining attention to detail. Barcadas is a Filipino restaurant. So you know that Filipino flavor profiles, the vinegars, the soy sauce, the ginger, the garlic, the scallions, but also making it approachable.
Chef Paul Smith giving a culinary arts demonstration at Charleston’s Capital Market. Courtesy Paul Smith
We’re in West Virginia, so we have to make it a little bit of something for everybody. So we’ve got burgers and wings, and kind of one of our favorite dishes is our Fili Cheesesteak, you know, Filipino. It’s got soy and a little bit of garlic and ginger, and calamansi, and it just kind of elevates it a little.
Ellen’s was a staple here in Charleston for 25 years, and she trusted us to keep the brand going. With all of our ice cream flavors, we’re thoughtful about it. We source locally, and we support local. I think it’s all about supporting the local community. If someone asks me what kind of chef I am, I say I really support the community and I’m the community chef. I’m not really farm to table, I’m not fine dining. I don’t have a specific genre of food that I like to cook. It’s about creating the experience for the guests.
Yohe: You’re known as a chef ambassador for West Virginia. I’m told that’s also something you take great pride in.
Smith: So this is the inaugural for that designation. The governor and the West Virginia Department of Tourism announced the Chef Ambassador program. I represent the Metro Valley. It’s a huge, huge honor to work really closely with the governor’s office, the Department of Tourism, the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, to really spread the word and to utilize local but to really get the word out. We have some of the best culinarians in West Virginia. We have some of the best restaurants that I’ve ever been to in West Virginia, and to be able to showcase that and be a part of the fraternity of chefs and represent West Virginia to the best of my ability is huge.
Yohe: What have you learned, and where have you traveled, to know how to please a palate, if you will?
Smith: I started my culinary journey way back with my grandfather on Fridays at the Glen Ferris Inn helping him with the Italian nights. I think that’s where I got my start. I worked at Dutchess Bakery through high school, baking bread and honing my baking and pastry skills. I went to culinary school at the CIA in Hyde Park, New York – the Culinary Institute of America – for two years and then I continued my education in Napa Valley, studying pastry and wine and really getting, you know, immersing myself in the hospitality culture that is Napa. That’s kind of where everything clicked.
I was classically French trained. But everything was farm to table and all the resources were there, the fresh produce, the viticulture, the hospitality culture. It was just awesome. Then I was recruited as the pastry chef for the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. So I was a pastry chef at the Biltmore and went to work at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida, which was one of the most valuable experiences. Their culinary team was second to none. At that time, it was the best hotel in North America.
I learned a ton there and went to the Windsor Club in Vero Beach, Florida, which was huge. It’s a very small, but very prestigious club, so that was a valuable experience. Then, I went straight to the opposite. Not really the opposite as far as cuisine goes, but the opposite as far as paying attention to the food costs. I was the executive chef back home at the University of Charleston for three years. That allowed me to really learn the business side of it and pay attention to food costs and utilizing not just the rib eye, and the tenderloin and the strip, but the other cuts where you have to get very creative in what you’re doing.
And then I was a corporate chef at Buzz Food Service. I will say that Dickinson and Angela Gould really gave me the platform to really be who I am today. That’s when people really started calling me Chef Paul. And that’s when I represented Buzz, to the best of my ability, and helped them to get to that next level. I got to work with so many great chefs around the great state of West Virginia, and learn and teach and consult. And I was always preaching this rising tide. We all need to work together to raise all of our ships.
It’s just been a wild and fantastic journey, doing some consulting on a couple of different projects in Lewisburg and my philosophy is helping. So we’ve got to help each other. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel and learn and learn from some of the best chefs in the country. Now my job is to teach and help everybody to get to the level that they want to get to.
Yohe: The James Beard award finalists are announced next Wednesday. Then what happens?
Smith: They select five, and again, I’m not really under any delusion that I’m going to be going to Chicago to the gala. It would be exactly like the Oscars of the chef world. You get dressed up, there’s an award ceremony, and I get to rub elbows with the best chefs in the country, which just blows my mind. I mean, it’s funny when I was talking to friends, and to my wife, and people in the restaurant, and I’m naming off the chefs, the 20 chefs that are on the list, and I’ve been to a couple of their restaurants. I’m like, man, these guys are a big deal. And they’re like, dude, you’re on the list. You’re a big deal. I don’t really look at myself that way. I have to stay humble. Now is when the real hard work starts. You have got to bring your A game every day.
When people come to 1010, or they come to The Pitch, or Barcadas, or Ellen’s, they’re going to expect a higher level than they already did just because my name is attached to it. I just want to make sure that everybody knows that my teams in all of these restaurants and my partners and all of these ventures, they’re the ones that are doing all the heavy lifting, I get to be nominated as Best Chef in the Southeast, but it’s a huge team effort. West Virginia went from just an absolutely wonderful place to live to a food destination overnight. I’m honored to just be in the same sentence with some of these chefs around the country. I mean, it’s a huge, huge honor.
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Ramin Mirzakhani of Laury’s Restaurant in Charleston is also a James Beard Award semifinalist.
At Lost Creek Farm in Harrison County, West Virginia, husband-and-wife duo Mike Costello and Amy Dawson hone in on the stories behind recipes served at their famed farm-to-table dinners. Including a curious appetizer that's a mashup of two unassuming food traditions from their childhoods.
At Lost Creek Farm in Harrison County, West Virginia, husband-and-wife duo Mike Costello and Amy Dawson hone in on the stories behind recipes served at their famed farm-to-table dinners. The foods served are rooted in Appalachian traditions.
Recently semi-finalists for the prestigious James Beard Award, Lost Creek Farm was an outlier in a category typically reserved for conventional restaurants.
Lost Creek Farm isn’t a restaurant. Costello and Dawson aren’t hosts and waiters as much as they are stewards and storytellers.
Folks come from all over for a taste of their cuisine and knowledge, including Yo-Yo Ma and the late Anthony Bourdain. But it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from because dinners at Lost Creek Farm are about connecting with community.
In fact, two community experiences from Costello and Dawson’s childhood inspire their work at Lost Creek Farm. Costello and Dawson typically kick off dinner events with a curious appetizer that’s a mashup of two unassuming food traditions from their childhoods: communion wafers topped with apple butter. The combo is symbolic of the farm-to-table dinners themselves.
Lost Creek Farm Archive
James Beard Award semi-finalists chefs and storytellers Mike Costello and Amy Dawson welcome guests at a dinner event.
Memories Of Making Food As A Community
As I arrived at Lost Creek Farm the birds were chirping and the sun was shining over the rolling meadows. After being greeted by Costello and Dawson, they took me on a tour of the farm.
While visiting the chickens, Costello told me about some of the projects they’re working on.
“We’re building a fruit orchard,” Costello said. “There were some apple trees here on the farm when we moved in, some pear trees. A lot of wild fruit. A lot of wild blackberries, elderberries, raspberries, those kinds of things.”
Costello and Dawson have lived on this land for six years. But it has been in Dawson’s family for close to 150 years. Dawson learned a lot about working a farm when she visited her grandparents.
“Growing up, my family always had a big garden. And we always would can. And so most of my summers were spent essentially doing food prep,” Dawson said. “If you live on a farm, you just do food prep all the time, and food preservation.”
When Costello and Dawson inherited the farm, it had been neglected for years. They devoted themselves to getting the farm back in working order. The couple raise meat rabbits and laying hens. They forage for foods in the surrounding woods. They raise vegetables from heirloom seeds entrusted to them by community members. And they’ve got their fruit orchard.
Costello took me below the vegetable garden and chicken yard to the orchard. “A lot of these trees that we have down here are regional varieties,” Costello said. “Apples we grafted yesterday — we grafted 21 trees that will go into the orchard — we’ll plant them later this year.”
The couple will use these apples for a few different things, including apple butter. Dawson described the apple butter as caramelized and tastes sweet. Costello likes to play around with flavors and often adds bourbon and sage to hit some fiery and herby notes.
For Dawson, making apple butter takes her back to her childhood. “Apple butter is one of the first memories that I had, like, as a family — it being kind of a community, like it wasn’t just my family that did it,” Dawson said. “It was friends and, you know, extended family would come and make the apple butter in the fall.”
Courtesy Scott Goldman
Places are set and ready for dinner at Lost Creek Farm where heritage-inspired Appalachian cuisine will soon be served. As folks dig in, chef Mike Costello will talk to guests about the stories and cultural significance behind each recipe.
The seasonal ritual of making apple butter helped Dawson understand the connection between food and community. It’s a daunting task to peel, core, and chop bushels of apples, and then stir them for hours over heat before canning.
If ever an event called for community effort, it is one like this one. Time spent cooking with large groups of neighbors and friends is as social as it is productive.
Dawson isn’t the only one of the couple to grow up with memories of cooking in community.
Costello grew up in Elkview, West Virginia, and he often accompanied his grandmother to Emmanuel Baptist Church to make communion wafers. “I have a lot of fond memories of when I was a kid, my grandmother and the other elderly women in the church making communion wafers on Thursday and Friday mornings for Sunday service,” Costello said. “She would take my brother and I down there on those mornings, and we would sort of watch all these women rolling out these big sheets of dough and making these communion wafers.”
As an adult, Costello had put the wafers out of his mind, until he discovered his grandmother’s recipe. “When my grandma died, I got her recipe collection. And I found this recipe in there for those communion wafers,” Costello said.
For him, the significance of this recipe has little to do with religion. “We did not go to church with my grandma on Sundays,” Costello said. “I never had any sort of idea of the religious significance of them, I just thought they were this tasty kind of snack. I kind of had forgotten about them.”
Discovering the recipe brought back memories for Costello. “What came to mind for me was, you know, that image of all those women making those communion wafers, and how it sort of represented to me, the first memory that I have of people, here or anywhere else, making food as a community,” Costello said.
Lost Creek Farm Archive
Mike Costello and Amy Dawson top communion wafer crackers with homemade apple butter for a dinner event. The couple serves story-rich, heritage-inspired cuisine at their dinner events, including these two recipes.
Two Food Traditions Merge
In their work today, Costello and Dawson have merged these two traditions and are sharing them with others. Last year, they made an online video tutorial of how to make the wafers. In a playful exchange, they note how curious people think it is that the two snack on communion wafers.
But the wafers are more than a simple snack. In the video, Costello and Dawson explain the significance of the wafers.
“People who know us or are familiar with our work know we like to hone in on the stories behind the food that we make. That’s what makes these communion wafers so special to us,” Dawson said in the video.
In the recipes for both the apple butter and wafers, there is one ingredient that isn’t tangible but is just as important as the others.
It’s the group effort aspect of these recipes — the shared ritual of making food together. For Costello, this is especially true for the communion wafers. “I love to put those crackers on a plate, to open our events,” Costello said as we walked. He later explained more as we wrapped up the farm tour.
“When you can consume that at the dinner table and can consume the story that goes along with it, you know… you’re connecting with people,” he said. “And you’re connecting with thousands of years of history of that being in all the hands and all of the communities that it has passed through to get to that point.”
Courtesy Scott Goldman
String lights illuminate the communal table at Lost Creek Farm in preparation for hungry dinner guests.
Lost Creek Farm Inspires And Creates Community
The apple butter and communion wafers are symbolic of the dinner events themselves, a place where people come together around Appalachian foods and traditions.
Arriving at the farm, guests are greeted with music and a warm fire burning outside. Under string lights and bright stars, folks are seated around the communal table, some meeting for the first time. Some of the foods served are simple, like apple butter and communion wafers. But there is more to it than that.
“If you just look at the ingredients, you look at the recipes, apple butter and crackers, not that big of a deal, right? But, there’s so much meaning packed into it,” Costello said.
Part of that meaning is the communities of people who have shaped these two food traditions. And the new communities Costello and Dawson are creating at Lost Creek Farm.
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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.
The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
A tree planting for a food forest is scheduled this weekend at Shepherd University’s Tabler Farm, where volunteers can help plant edible species native to Appalachia.
A tree planting for a food forest is scheduled this weekend at Shepherd University’s Tabler Farm, where volunteers can help plant edible species native to Appalachia.
“This region that we live in, Appalachia, is a really unique region in the world. It’s very, very highly biodiverse. And it is filled with edible species for humans,” Tabler Farm Coordinator Madison Hale said. “Food forests are really popular right now, but I was specifically wanting to focus on native trees just to highlight the unique ecosystem here.”
A food forest is a created ecosystem of edible plants for food production, mirroring how the plants are found in nature. They act as alternatives to annual crop production that are seen as more ecologically healthy and easier to maintain.
Hale oversees programs at the farm through the school’s environmental studies department, which helps train farmers in sustainable agriculture practices. This particular food forest program comes from a grant from the Cacapon Institute, an ecological conservation group.
Some of the species set to be planted at the forest include sugar maple, witch-hazel, hackberry and spicebush. Persimmons, serviceberries and redbuds were planted during last year’s event.
“There’s a wide range, there’s probably about 20 species that I know of that we could potentially incorporate into this food forest,” Hale said. “And we’re really just receiving whatever is available through the nurseries that Cacapon Institute works with.”
Hale said food forests aren’t just environmentally friendly. The act of planting them gives locals the chance to learn about native tree species and how they fit into the regional culture.
“I think by working with native species, you’re just helping foster that connection with people to the natural world,” Hale said.
The planting event runs Saturday, Oct. 8 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Tabler Farm in Shepherdstown. Information on how to sign up is available on the school’s event website.
