Emily Hilliard Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Summer Reading Suggestions, Inside Appalachia

Inside Appalachia loves books and writers – and if you’re looking for summer book recommendations, we’ve got a bunch. This is our summer reading episode, featuring some of our favorite notable author interviews from over the past several months.

Inside Appalachia loves books and writers – and if you’re looking for summer book recommendations, we’ve got a bunch.

This is our summer reading episode, featuring some of our favorite notable author interviews from over the past several months.

You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

In This Episode:

Silas House Talks Climate Calamity With “Lark Ascending”
Barbara Kingsolver’s Appalachia Explored In “Demon Copperhead”
Frank X. Walker Talks Poetry And Affricachia
Hotdogs In The Hills With Emily Hilliard
Women Speak In Appalachia

Silas House Talks Climate Calamity With “Lark Ascending”

“Lark Ascending” is a post-apocalyptic story about the ravages of climate change.

Written by Kentucky’s Silas House, the novel racked up several awards including the 2023 Southern Book Prize and the 2023 Nautilus Book Award.

Mason Adams spoke with House following the release of “Lark Ascending,” last fall.

Kentucky poet laureate Silas House spoke to Mason Adams about his novel “Lark Ascending.”

*Courtesy*

Barbara Kingsolver’s Appalachia Explored In “Demon Copperhead”

A Pulitzer Prize winning novel is typically considered “a solid read,” and even before it took the honor, Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead” was attracting attention.

In 2022, Kingsolver was the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University in West Virginia.

WVPB’s Liz McCormick sat down with Kingsolver to talk about Appalachia and the book.

Author Barbara Kingsolver.

*Credit: Evan Kafka*

Frank X. Walker Talks Poetry and Affricachia

Thirty years ago, Kentucky poet Frank X. Walker rebelled against the definition of Appalachians as, “the white residents of the Appalachian mountains” and coined the phrase “Affrilachia.”

Walker’s latest is “A is for Affrilachia,” a children’s book.

It’s been called “an ode to Affrilachia.”

WVPB’s Eric Douglas spoke with Walker.

Cover art for Frank X. Walker’s children’s book, “A is for Affrilachia.”

*Courtesy*

Hotdogs In the Hills With Emily Hilliard

One of our favorite recent non-fiction books has been “Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia,” by folklorist Emily Hilliard.

It’s chock full of quirky Appalachian culture – from indie pro wrestling to the video game “Fallout 76” and more.

Folkways Reporter and resident foodie Zack Harold talked West Virginia hotdogs with Hilliard.

Emily Hilliard’s book relishes Appalachian culture.

*Courtesy*

Women Speak In Appalachia

For a sampling of women writers, especially poets, you might check out any of the eight volumes of “Women Speak,” an anthology series collecting the work of Appalachian women.

The books are edited by Kari Gunter-Seymour, Ohio’s poet laureate.

Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Gunter-Seymour about poetry, getting published, and Appalachian Ohio.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Del Mcoury, The Appalachian Road Show, Little Sparrow, Buck Owens and Tim Bing.

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.

You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.

You can find us on Instagram and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.

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Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

New Book Explores History Of West Virginia Hot Dogs

“Making Our Future” by former West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard dives deep into the niches of Mountain State culture, from songs of the labor movement to the history of hot dogs. The book was released on Nov. 22, 2022.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Harold: There’s so much that we could cover. I would like to talk about something that’s near and dear to my heart — your chapter on hot dogs. Can you tell me about how the craze began?

Hilliard: It’s linked to industry and immigration, popularization of mass culture, urbanization and European migration. There were a lot of instances where Greek and maybe Italian immigrants were setting up hot dog stands in West Virginia. And mostly, that was in major urban centers in industrial areas. I think that’s why we see the hot dog really being popular in West Virginia in the southern coalfields, the northern coalfields and then industrial cities like the Ohio river towns of Huntington and Parkersburg. Hot dogs really seemed to boom in the 1910s and 1920s in West Virginia.

Harold: I love the line in the book from a Fairmont newspaper that calls Charleston “one of the greatest places on earth for hot dog eaters.”

Hilliard: That was amazing to find. I found several articles about hot dogs in Charleston. I found that there were at least four hot dog stands in Charleston in the early 1920s. Three of four of them were owned by Greek immigrants. And there was this amazing stat in one of the articles. It said 22,000 dogs a day are sold out of those four hot dog stands at one point. That is about one for every two residents in Charleston at the time.

Harold: I have this highlighted in my copy. “If all the hot dogs consumed in a year in Charleston were strung together, the string could extend to Huntington and back and still have enough left to run down to St. Albans on one side of the road and back on the other.”

Hilliard: And then I think it goes on to say, “Or it could go all the way to Morgantown.”

Harold: To return to your point: I found it interesting that it was so tied to industry. Because it’s cheap. It’s portable. This is the perfect thing for people who are doing shift work.

Hilliard: I talked to the descendants of A.J. Valos, who was a Greek immigrant born in 1894. He had actually worked as an indentured servant in the hot dog industry in New York and then moved to Parkersburg and opened the Broadway Sandwich Shop, which is still open. He opened that in 1939. And his relatives were saying they thought much of the success of his shop was because it was right across the street from the Mountain State Steel Foundry. And it was also close to a high school. So they got students from the school coming for a snack or for a meal. And then there were some other companies right nearby, so factory workers would grab hot dog before and after shifts.

Harold: Let’s talk about the hot dog stand war of 1922 in Fairmont.

The book was published Nov. 22, 2022 by University of North Carolina Press.

Hilliard: This was also something I found through looking through historic newspapers. There was this flurry of activity in the Fairmont papers in 1922. City officials were upset with the clientele that these hot dog stands in Fairmont were attracting. Most of that seems like racist and classist resentment of the Greek and Italian immigrants who were running these hot dog stands and wagons, and also the clientele of high school students and workers. They equate them with dive bars and beer joints and attest that they are unsavory, and tried to shut down some of these joints.

Then there’s the counter response of someone writing in and saying “maybe the city officials could worry about more important things than just shutting down hot dog stands.” Then there’s another newsstand owner who writes in and he is incensed that people had been thinking his new stand was a hot dog stand. He writes into the paper to assert that is simply not true. “I don’t want to be affiliated with that kind of base business.”

Harold: First comes the hot dog and then comes the West Virginia hot dog. You get into the history a little bit, which seems a little murky. When did we start putting slaw on dogs?

Hilliard: The first mention of slaw that I could find was from a 1949 paper in Raleigh County, and it was about the jail. Incarcerated people in the jail liked slaw on their dogs because they could smuggle in a razor blade.

That was another instance where it’s like, is this a joke column? I think there was a little bit of humor to it. But it is kind of funny to think that is why people started putting slaw on hot dogs.

Stanton from the West Virginia Hot Dog Blog credits a Stopette advertisement in the paper from 1922 that says something like, “Everyone’s talking about the Stop-Ette’s new dog with slaw.” So it may have been popular in the state before that. We just don’t know. There were traditions of coleslaw and cabbage with German immigrants and Eastern European immigrants who were living in West Virginia at the time.

Harold: I don’t think I’ll ever look at a hot dog the same way again.

Hilliard: Well, hopefully that doesn’t mean that you won’t still enjoy it.

Harold: I love them even more. You’ve published a book and authors have to do a certain amount of self promotion — telling people about the book, letting them know they can pre-order it. You ran into a little bit of controversy on social media over hot dogs. Can you tell me what happened?

Hilliard: I posted a map that my friend Dan Davis from Kin Ship Goods made for the book. It’s of the hot dog joints that are included in the book — most of them, but not all of them. I think maybe people just didn’t read that’s what it was for. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t quite viral, but it had hundreds of retweets and responses. People were just so mad that their favorite hot dog joint was not on this map. And I ended up issuing the disclaimer and saying, “This is not a value statement of the best hot dog joints. It’s simply the hot dog joints, some of them, that are listed in the book. And it’s not exhaustive by any means, and neither is the book. But I would love to see your hot dog map.” Which I’m serious about. I would love to see a collection of people’s favorite hot dog joints in West Virginia, or the ones where they have memories. I think Dan is making some merch for it, which might inspire more controversy. But hopefully not.

Harold: Or hopefully so — because like you said, if we generate enough controversy, this will lead to the creation of rival hot dog maps and then we just have a whole other chapter in your next book.

Hilliard: Yeah, that would be fun.

Harold: I feel like the state of West Virginia owes you a profound debt of gratitude for the work and love that you’ve put into this book, whether we’re talking about your chapter on hot dogs or your chapter on the author Breece D’J Pancake, or the chapter on the teacher strike or the one on independent pro wrestling. What we’ve ended up with is a book that you could put in somebody’s hands and say, “This is why West Virginia is special. This is what makes us who we are.” And I’m just so glad that you’ve given that to us.

Hilliard: I really appreciate that. In a way, it’s a love letter back to the state in all its complexity.

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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 WestVirginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.

Weirton’s Serbian Heritage Is A Chicken Blast

Every summer Wednesday since 1969, members of the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church Men’s Club have gathered at the Serbian Picnic Grounds along King’s Creek outside of Weirton, West Virginia. In a long, cement block building, they mill about in the dawn light, eating donuts, drinking coffee, and reading the morning paper. They’re here for a weekly fundraiser they call a “Chicken Blast,” for which they roast 300-400 chickens and sell them to the Weirton community.

“Guys get down here usually around 5:30 in the morning, and they start the process of what we have to do—cleaning the poles up, getting the chickens out, and more or less getting preparations to start the day. I start the fire,” said John Kosanovich, a Men’s Club member.

Kosanovich is nonchalant about the process, but it’s a lot of work. Each member knows their role, and they work together like a well-oiled machine, tending the fires, adding salt and pepper to the chickens, tying 25 to a pole, rotating the poles so each is evenly roasted, checking the chickens for doneness, and then wrapping them in tinfoil to stay hot for customers. When the afternoon rolls around, they take breaks to eat or have a beer from the on-site bar.

The roasting operation is impressive. Four open-air hearths hold three to four poles stacked on top of one another, with about 25 chickens each. A geared machine rotates each pole over the wood fire, burning at about 800 degrees. The chickens on top drip fat on the chickens below, naturally basting them. Other than that, the recipe is deceptively simple.

“They taste terrific!” said Chicken Blast volunteer Jon Greiner. “I think some people say it’s the best chickens that they’ve ever had. A lot of people think there’s a secret recipe—there’s no secret to it at all. It’s just salt and pepper and we make sure they’re cooked.”

A Community of Steel Workers

This complex spit design, an industrial brick oven, and walk-in coolers were built just for this purpose by members of the Men’s Club, who worked at Weirton Steel. They used the specialized skills they developed at work as pipefitters, bricklayers, and machinists to help design and build these hearths.

Their ancestors settled in the Upper Ohio Valley at the turn of the 20th century, establishing the church and picnic grounds.

While the Serbian population has shrunk in recent years with the decline of coal and steel jobs, the community remains an important presence in the Weirton and Steubenville, Ohio communities. In the early days, the customer base was largely steel mill workers and their families.

“Most guys that worked in the mill, they were looking for lunches after work or took a chicken to work for their lunch. And the more the word spread around in the mill about this being available, more people took the opportunity to make themselves available for it,” Kosanovich said.

They chose their roasting day to coincide with the mill workers’ Wednesday payday.

As steel jobs declined in Weirton, the number of chickens the Club sells per week has declined with it. In the early ‘80s, the Club could sell 600-700 chickens a week. Now they average about 350.

“I started in the mill in 1966. And we had 14,000 workers in there. And when I retired in 2003, we had a little over 2,000. So we had a big drop-off,” Kosanovich said.

Still, the men cook about 5,000 chickens over the course of the summer, usually selling out each week in a matter of two and a half hours. Some regular customers have standing weekly orders and come down to the picnic grounds early to stake out their favorite picnic table for their evening chicken dinner.

A Taste of Serbia

The survival of the tradition can be attributed not only to how the weekly Blast fostered community among steel workers but also connects families to their Serbian heritage. Many of the men remember roasting meat in their backyards with their families growing up.

“I lived next to my grandmother and grandfather, and they used to do pigs for Christmas. And we didn’t have electric spits, we had by hand. We were kids. We’d go up there and turn the spit. It would take hours, but we didn’t care. It was cold in January, but we were by that warm fire. You just knew you were helping for the day, and it was a lot of fun,” Kosanovich remembered.

It’s that connection that keeps him coming down at dawn, to stand over a hot fire, every week in the heat of summer.

“Why do I do it?” he asked. “My basic word is tradition. You know, it’s something that you see it done every day, every week, you want to get involved with it.”

The money raised from the Chicken Blasts help the Men’s Club maintain the Picnic Grounds, which are used for graduations, weddings, and other church celebrations, like the Annual Serbian Picnic. The Picnic is like a larger version of the Chicken Blast and serves as a homecoming for those who have moved away from the Weirton area. As usual, the Men’s Club roast hundreds of chickens and a few lambs. The church sells other Serbian fare such as pogacha (a type of Serbian bread), haluski or cabbage and noodles, cevaps (a pork, lamb, and beef sausage), strudel, and nut rolls. Attendees eat, drink beer and Slivovitz, dance to traditional Serbian music, and catch up with family and old friends.

The Chicken Blasts run from the last weekend in May to the last weekend in August at the Serbian Picnic Grounds in Weirton, WV. To order a chicken, call 1-304-748-9866 the Wednesday morning of the Blast. Make sure to start calling at 6:00am the morning of the blast; they’re usually sold out by 8:30am. For more information, visit Serbian Picnic Grounds on Facebook.

Emily Hilliard is the West Virginia State Folklorist with the West Virginia Humanities Council. Learn more about the West Virginia Folklife Program, a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council, at wvfolklife.org.