Foraging Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

In Eastern Kentucky, Whitney Johnson Forages For The TikTok Generation

Gathering wild foods has long been a way to put food on the table in the Appalachian mountains. In recent years, the practice has gone digital, with online communities devoted to foraging in the wild, springing up like wild mushrooms after a spring rain. One woman in eastern Kentucky is sharing what she knows (and some humor) with the TikTok generation through an account called “Appalachian Forager.”

This story originally aired in the May 26, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Whitney Johnson claims that her four-wheeler is a game changer.

The four-wheeler helps her cover more ground more quickly. She can look out over the land her family owns in eastern Kentucky and easily spot color — which just might be a mushroom.

“It’s a utopia for all things edible and wild,” she says.

For Johnson, “all things edible and wild” keeps her days busy. What was once a hobby that started in childhood is now a business thanks to the interest she’s generated on TikTok.

Johnson is known on Instagram and TikTok as @appalachian_forager. Her popularity has garnered her features on television news stations such as WSAZ in Huntington, West Virginia, and KET in Kentucky.

For as long as people have lived in Appalachia, they’ve gathered ramps, mushrooms, roots and berries to feed themselves and their families. Foraging for food is a skill that is often taught down generational lines. Foraging is sometimes a closely held practice, since some foragers don’t like to reveal their best spots. Now, though, some foragers are sharing their knowledge in the digital realm. Through the work of Johnson and other accounts like @blackforager — who forages in urban locales — the practice has gained popularity in recent years.

The Appeal Of The Instagram Reels

In 2020, Johnson started an Instagram account about her adventures in foraging in eastern Kentucky. Once she started showing the world how to collect mushrooms and poke, her following grew rapidly — to the tune of 845,000 followers. That old Instagram account flourished with the help of her TikTok presence, and she now has over 123,000 followers on that account, as well.

In one popular Instagram reel, Johnson cheers on her boyfriend, who’s attempting to knock a mushroom down from a tree with a stick.

“Yes, Daddy!” she says off-camera. “You know what Mommy likes in a mushroom stick. Look at that fork!”

In another, more fast-paced reel, she’s in her kitchen, cooking with pawpaws. She mixes the yellow pulp from this native fruit with sugar and pectin to make jam.

“Remove the baby from the heat,” she says in her reel, “because your girl runs hot. Real hot….”

Johnson’s reels are highly entertaining. They made me want to meet her IRL — internet lingo for “in real life.” So, I traveled to eastern Kentucky to spend a day with Johnson foraging for the wild fruit.

Finding Pawpaws With Appalachian Forager

It’s September, which is pawpaw season, so Johnson and I head out on her four-wheeler to find some. She takes us in the direction of the Big Sandy River, where we stop at a tree loaded with pawpaws.

Johnson finds pawpaws on her family’s property in eastern Kentucky.

*Photo Credit: Amanda Page/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

“We’ll get off here,” she says. “Look at that big cluster. Oh, my goodness!”

Johnson doesn’t shake the tree, or pick fruit from it. She only gathers pawpaws once they’ve fallen on the ground.

“They let you know when they’re ready. If you shake the tree, sometimes they’ll come off when they’re not quite ripe. And pawpaws are not ones that you can put in your windowsill and get them to be softer. They are what they are. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you shake the tree.”

We could have gone foraging deeper in the woods, but Johnson chose this section along the river for a reason.

“Riverbanks give you different stuff than, say, the woods would,” she says. “So, you’re going to have different types of soil, different types of trees, different types of terrain.”

By the river, she has a pretty good idea of what she’ll find. Along with pawpaws, this is where she forages for berries. But the woods are a little less predictable. Johnson says she’s never certain what she’ll find there.

It might just be that element of surprise that makes Johnson’s social media presence so appealing to her followers.

“I would post a picture of a mushroom and say this is a ‘blah blah blah,’ and you can eat it or it will kill you or whatever.”

But at first, her posts didn’t really catch on.

“And some of my buddies were like, ‘TikTok. You need to get a TikTok.’ And I was so anti-TikTok. But I got on there, and I made this poorly put-together intro video that was like, ‘I’m Whitney and these are the things that I plan to do on my TikTok. Follow me if that tickles your pickle.’”

Appalachian Forager took off. She’s now able to spend most of her time foraging and sharing her work with her enthusiastic followers.

Foraging For Improved Mental Health

Johnson doesn’t post for the clicks.

As a licensed mental health therapist, she says it’s important for her to illustrate to her followers the healing effects of spending time in nature.

“These go hand in hand for me. Because as a therapist, I preach self-care all day: ‘Make sure you’re doing what you love.’ ‘Make sure you’re taking care of yourself.’ And I get that through my relationship with nature.”

She says she doesn’t force advice. But she’s asked patients if they’ve considered going for a walk in nature, or taking photos and journaling.

“I suggest that because I know how much it helps me.”

She says eventually, she’d like to specialize in ecotherapy, where she’d encourage patients to go out in nature to improve their mental health.

“I want people to connect with Mama Nature,” she says. “The hills and the woods are my church, and if you can connect in that way and get that serotonin boost from it like I do, do it. And it’s nice to go out and get some free food too.”

After our time on the riverbank, we hang out on Johnson’s porch and have a pawpaw tasting. I had only tried them one other time. I tell her that this one is much better than the last one, which had a vague vomit taste.

“That’s because it wasn’t ripe,” she says. “This is why you want them to be almost rotten-looking because that’s when they taste the best.”

Appalachian Ingenuity

After we eat pawpaws, I ask Johnson about her earrings. I’ve been admiring them all day. She tells me they’re made with coyote teeth she found in a ditch.

Johnson models her coyote teeth earrings.

*Photo Credit: Amanda Page/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

“I like taking anything from the freaking woods, bringing it home and turning it into something beautiful and useful, because that’s just how I am. I think that’s how I was raised. Do what you can with what you have.”

That’s often how her meals come together, too.

“I always try to pull from old-timey, ‘Mamaw, Papaw,’ plate-breaking, gut-busting foods. Good garden foods like green beans, chicken and dumplings, just good, down-home food.”

She says she incorporates foods she finds in the woods with the dishes she ate growing up in eastern Kentucky.

“So it’s like taking the two and fusing it together — because I want to stay true to that part of me because that’s how I grew up,” she says. “That’s my favorite food that’s out there — throw some bacon grease in it and it’s gonna be good.”

She tells me about a mountain dish she shared with her followers called killed or kilt lettuce and onions.

A screenshot from Johnson’s TikTok video on how to make kilt lettuce and onions.

*Photo Credit: Courtesy/Appalachian Forager*

“Kilt lettuce and onions is pretty much just wild greens or lettuce with bacon grease poured on top of it. And I posted that video and so many people were like, ‘Oh my god, I haven’t had that in forever. I totally forgot that was something I loved as a kid.’ I like to revive those old dishes and have people in this day and age making those old, wholesome, down-home meals.”

Johnson’s bringing that revival of old dishes to hundreds of thousands of followers online. Her followers ask questions in the comments and share tips they’ve learned from making the recipes she shares. They’re doing what she’s doing. She’s foraging for the TikTok generation. And while her online presence brings buyers to her website, she says she won’t be changed by social media.

“I’m going to stay true to who I am. I don’t plan on doing anything crazy, selling out, becoming like, some crazy ‘boss babe’ thing. I’m just gonna stay in the holler and pick my mushrooms and make my little videos.”

We’ll be here to watch them.

——

This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia.

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.

The Appalachian Forager And Crosswinds, Inside Appalachia

The woman behind the popular TikTok account “Appalachian Forager” makes jam from wild pawpaws … and jewelry from coyote teeth. We also talk with the hosts of a new podcast that looks at coal dust exposure beyond the mines, affecting people far downstream from Appalachia. You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

This week, the woman behind the popular TikTok account “Appalachian Forager” makes jam from wild pawpaws … and jewelry from coyote teeth.

We also talk with the hosts of a new podcast that looks at coal dust exposure beyond the mines, affecting people far downstream from Appalachia.

And, in some places, slavery continued in different forms well after the end of the Civil War. A new marker in Western North Carolina acknowledges that history and commemorates a disaster that killed 19 Black prisoners.

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

In This Episode:

Appalachian Forager Found In TikTok
Let’s Talking About Taxidermy
Downstream Dangers Of Coal Dust
Remembering The Continuation Of Slavery
The Last Of The Ramps

Appalachian Forager Found In TikTok

The Appalachian Forager brings native know-how to TikTok with a side of silly.

*Photo Credit: Amanda Page/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

One woman in eastern Kentucky is sharing what she knows (and some humor) with the TikTok generation through an account called “Appalachian Forager.”

Folkways Reporter Amanda Page has the story.

Let’s Talking About Taxidermy

Taxidermist Amy Ritchie is sharing the love of her craft with other enthusiasts.

*Photo Credit: Margaret McLeod Leef/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

A lot of folks are fascinated by the results of taxidermy. The preservation and mounting of dead animals has been around since at least the middle ages.

In 2023, Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef visited a modern practitioner in Yadkin County, North Carolina.

Downstream Dangers Of Coal Dust

The Dominion terminal and coal storage facility in Newport News, Virginia, where residents in nearby neighborhoods have complained of blowing coal dust.

*Photo Credit: Adrian Wood*

Appalachia plays an important part in the world economy. The region produces less coal than it used to — but it’s still a hot commodity for steel makers. That demand creates problems for people living near the terminals where coal is moved from train to ship, to then be carried overseas. Residents of Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia, say airborne coal dust from export terminals is coating their cars and houses — and getting into their lungs.

A new podcast called Crosswinds links that fight on the coast to communities in West Virginia.

Host Mason Adams spoke with spoke with Crosswinds producer Adrian Wood, and Lathaniel Kirts, a pastor and activist in one of the affected communities.

Remembering The Continuation Of Slavery

No known photographs remain of the convict labor crew that the Cowee 19 worked on, but historians say this crew working on the Western North Carolina Railroad in the late 1800s was similar.

*Photo Credit: Hunter Library Special Collections, Western Carolina University*

North Carolina is unveiling a roadside historical marker that officially acknowledges the 1882 Cowee Tunnel disaster. Nineteen prisoners were drowned when their boat capsized in a river west of Asheville.

The marker also acknowledges a form of de facto slavery, used for decades following the Civil War. We heard from Jay Price at WUNC.

The Last Of The Ramps

Toward the end of the season, ramp leaves begin to shrivel and die off.

*Photo Credit: Bill Lynch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Ramp season is winding down in central Appalachia, but before the last ramp was picked, Producer Bill Lynch followed a friend out for a late harvest at her secret ramp patch.

——

Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, Bob Thompson, Dinosaur Burps 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. We had help this week from folkways editor Jennifer Goren.

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

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

Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!

Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Harvesting Ramps At The End Of The Season

Ramps are celebrated in Appalachia as a special delicacy — one that has caught the attention of chefs in major metropolitan cities as well. But they still have to be dug up by hand.
Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch went into the woods with a friend to bring us this first-person story about ramp harvesting.

Editor’s Note: Ramps are celebrated in Appalachia as a special delicacy — one that has caught the attention of chefs in major metropolitan cities as well. But they still have to be dug up by hand.

Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch went into the woods with a friend to bring us this first-person story about ramp harvesting.

It’s a dry day at the end of April and I’m in a location that can’t be disclosed. Partly, this is because we’re gathering ramps and foragers like my friend Jamie keep these places secret.

Foragers will sometimes even keep the fact that they hunt for wild foods (mostly) a secret to keep from being asked to share. So to protect my friend from having to answer awkward questions at parties and to discourage strange men from following her into the woods, we’re not using Jamie’s last name.

And partly I can’t disclose the location because I don’t know exactly where we are – except to say somewhere in Kanawha County. Probably.

This is my second time gathering ramps. I went out a couple years ago and brought home a shopping bag full of the garlicky smelling things. I cooked some of them with beans and ham, but gave most of them away to whoever would take them.

This time, I’m just following along with Jamie while she collects some for friends and her mom.

“That little ridge over there. Is it easier for you to go first or me?” Jamie asked.

“I dunno,” I said.

From the car, we hike for about 15 minutes until we get to the patch. We’re not far from the road and other people have been here before.

Sandwich and chip wrappers, plastic cups and a flattened Monster energy drink litter the ground. The steep hillside seems like a weird place to have a picnic.

Jamie tells me she’s been foraging for about 10 years. She’s self-taught. Ramps were kind of a gateway into the world of finding wild food.

“They’re one of the easiest things to start foraging in West Virginia,” Jamie said. “Before that, I’d pay $20 a bag at whatever roadside swap meet I could find.”

This is not unusual.

Ramps have always had admirers.

For generations, they were often a nutritious (if smelly) staple for people who hadn’t seen edible leafy greens all winter.

In recent years, the wild leeks have become must-haves for foodies and locavores who appreciate seasonal foods.

Ramps are picked and eaten throughout the eastern part of the United States and Canada. In West Virginia, the season for ramps usually runs during the cool, damp of spring, from around the end of March until the early part of May.

Throughout April, ramp dinners are held all over the state and a few local restaurants will add them to their menus for a limited time.

To the uninitiated, ramps look like another leafy weed in the woods, but you can’t miss the sharp smell of onions and garlic.

The ramp patch Jamie takes me to is huge. Ramps cover the side of the hill in great clumps, but they’re not all that easy to get to, particularly if you’re carrying a microphone and wearing boots that are made more for hiking to a coffee shop than going out in the woods.

So, I stand by a tree while Jamie climbs down the side of the hill with a bag and a gardening trowel. She digs out a few bunches here and there and leaves the rest.

Just taking some of the ramps is being responsible. She wants them to come back. Besides, not all of the ramps are worth taking. The season is coming to an end.

“How do you tell when these things are done?” I asked.

“When they disappear,” she said. “They won’t be here in two weeks. They’re just gone.”

Jamie explained the life cycle of the ramp.

“They’ll put up a little stick,” she said. “And it has these little bulbs on it. The seeds come in little clusters and there’s one little runner up, like an onion.”

She didn’t see any runners, but the ramps were ready to come out of the ground, which was different than the ramps she harvested a few weeks ago.

“There was a lot of digging involved with the babies I got at the start of the season,” Jamie said. “This time there wasn’t anything to it. Just give it a little scoop and they just pull from the soil.”

These ramps, she promised, would be much more pungent and have a stronger flavor, but they were also dying.

“Did you see how the leaves are turning yellow?” Jamie asked. “You’re getting what looks like brown spots on your houseplants. They’re done. They’re just getting old, like how things will dry out in your fridge.”

Jamie fills up her grocery bag. Then she leads me out of the woods and back to the car. We put the bag in the trunk and then start towards Charleston.

Driving back to the city for a dinner I promised, I noticed the smell.

“I can really smell it now,” I said. “Driving around I can really smell it.”

Jamie rolled down her window.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “That’s why we’re going to stop at the house on the way out to eat. We’re not doing this.”

Violets Make Medicine, Munchies And Memories

Every spring, violets bloom across Appalachia, a carpet of purple, white and yellow. These unassuming flowers do everything from spruce up a cocktail to fight cancer. Here are a few of the ways herbalists use them for food and medicine.

This story originally aired in the April 14, 2024 episode of Inside Appalachia.

Brandy McCann is a self-taught herbalist from Blacksburg, Virginia, who considers violets a personal gift. She was born in late April, when the flowers typically bloom.

It has always delighted McCann that she was born on Earth Day. When her mother went into the hospital, things were a bit dark and dreary, but when she emerged a week later, violets were in bloom.

“So that’s always been a very special thing to me, when I see the violets blooming, every spring around my birthday, I just feel like it’s such a gift from Mother Nature,” McCann says.

McCann enjoys reciprocating the gift of violets by using them to make presents for friends and family. In her sunny kitchen with a view of the flowers growing in her yard, she demonstrates how to make skin toner.

“I have a jar full of dried violets and I harvested them probably a couple of weeks ago. I let them air dry on a towel and put them in the jar,” McCann says. “And then I have here some jojoba oil, or you can use olive oil, any kind of carrier oil that’s good for the skin. And then I pour the oil and fill the jar, leaving just a tiny bit of headspace and then set a lid on it, and give her a good shake out every day.”

For a month or so, McCann says to keep the infused oil in a clean glass jar away from light, heat and dampness. Then strain out the plant material and keep the oil.

Brandy McCann makes skin toner from violets and jojoba oil. She has made gifts from violets for more than a decade.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

That’s one fun project people may want to try with violets, but there are many uses for these flowers. Nica Fraser studied at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. She teaches her daughters herbalism as part of their homeschool curriculum. One of their projects is making violet lavender sugar.

Tastes differ, but Fraser suggests one to two tablespoons of culinary dried lavender combined with two cups of sugar is a good base. To this you can add a fourth- to a half-cup or so of dried violets — leaf and flower, not roots. Start with less and add as you go, then blend the mixture until smooth. Taste, then add anything you think it needs more of.

A blender can be used to make violet sugar. A mortar and pestle will also work.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Learning with violets can be fun, and Fraser particularly likes that the violets add vitamins to the sugar all children love.

“I think per gram, you get about double the dose of vitamin C in a gram of a violet leaf than you do in a gram of an orange. They’re also rich in vitamin A, they’ve got great magnesium content, and they’ve even got calcium in them,” Fraser says.

Fraser’s youngest fills a flower bowl for processing back at the house. Fraser has taught her daughters to forage for spring violets, along with other edible flowers.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

That high vitamin content is also why Fraser likes to watch her daughters pick flowers during playtime — and consume them.

Of her oldest daughter, she says, “One of her favorite things to do is to know that she can just be walking outside playing, take a break, eat some flowers and keep going.”

Fraser learned to love foraging from her grandmother, who taught her as a child to hunt morels.

“She was actually the person who planted that seed in me, that you could find nourishment out in nature.”

It is a seed Fraser delights to see growing in her children as they forage on the family homestead in southeastern Ohio.

“I get to take my two daughters out into the woods, and I teach them what I know, and they are so very interested,” Fraser says. “They light up … they love taking this in and they retain it. They apply it, they ask questions, and it’s just really, really enjoyable to watch these little budding herbalists run around in the yard every day with their inquisitive minds.”

Those minds have retained a great deal of information, even at their tender ages. Fraser asks her kids whether they should eat violets that grow near poison ivy, and they come up with excellent information.

Violets are versatile and vibrant.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

Fraser’s daughters head toward a favorite foraging spot. They have been learning about plants during home school lessons with their mother.

*Photo Credit: Nica Fraser*

“We definitely don’t want to pick it because it will put the oils on from the poison ivy,” the girls reply, more or less in chorus. They add not to pick near busy roads where car exhaust would saturate the petals and leaves, or in a barnyard pasture, because — poop.

Keeping all those caveats in mind, violets are still one of the safest flowers for new foragers because they’re so easy to identify.

Dr. Beth Shuler and a patient at Powell Valley Animal Hospital. Shuler studied herbal medicine for animals as a supplement to her licensed veterinary practice.

*Photo Credit: Powell Valley Animal Hospital*

Dr. Beth Shuler, a veterinarian who studied at Purple Moon Herbs and Studies, loves violets.

“They just make me smile. I like that they’re gentle, they’re easy to find,” Shuler says. “It’s so safe and easy to use that you can put it in your cocktail or your salad, but at the same time it’s very strong and powerful enough to help cure cancer.”

Shuler owns Powell Valley Animal Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and often uses violets in her practice. She says they’re a good herb for breast care in dogs and people.

“Most of the dogs that we would use violets for are dealing with breast cancer, mammary cancer or mastitis,” Shuler says. “We would do a combination of oral treatment with a tincture.”

Violets are also a great cleanser for infected wounds. Shuler’s youngest dog, Sirrus, is about to get a special treat because Shuler wanted the flower power working inside of him. He had cut his foot on some ice, and it was a little bit swollen.

Or, as Shuler puts it, “he’s got mild lymphatic inflammation up in his axillary lymph node draining from that injured toe. So I’m placing some tincture, violet tincture in ethanol, on a corner of a piece of toast.”

Sirrus chows down. Shuler’s pleased by that, adding that giving dogs toast is not a common thing in her household, since bread is not good for dogs as part of a daily diet.

“But it does act as a very nice absorptive sponge for tinctures to go down easily. And less mess,”

Schuler explains that humans and dogs have multiple lymph nodes; think of them as internal trash cans trying to keep the garbage away. When people get sick, lymph nodes under our arms sometimes swell up and ache. But lymph nodes have no pump. Violets are excellent at breaking up and dispelling lymph from our bodies. Just another reason to love it, in Shuler’s opinion. But also a reason to treat it with respect and not eat too many of them at once.

“The violet is very powerful and easy to find. But again it is not a simple herb,” Shuler says.

In other words, don’t go eat a bunch of violets — or rub them on your dog’s feet — and expect either one of you to feel better right away. Shuler’s dog Sirrus got a few days of tincture toast.

Sirrus, the youngest of the Shuler/Tester family dogs, is happy to have eaten violet toast live on the radio. He had a mild cut that became inflamed, so Shuler treated him for a few days with violet tincture.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

“It’s not a one dose and done,” Shuler says. “These are built up in the body as repetitive use, it’s not an overnight fix.”

Literally safe enough for small children to swallow as a snack, violets can clean wounds, fight cancer or spruce up a gin and tonic. Violets are nothing if not versatile.

Violet gin fizzes are wonderful drinks. Shuler made two for drinking in her back garden, as a celebration of violet versatility.

*Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Dr. Beth Shuler and her husband Dr. Brandon Tester both took classes held on the North Carolina coast from Purple Moon Herbs and Studies. She is a veterinarian; he is a chiropractor.

*Photo Credit: Brandon Tester*

For a fun list of things to do with violets, check out Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine. Remember, never try a new unidentified plant or medicine without first consulting an expert.

——

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.

Encore: The Love Of Competition, Inside Appalachia

Appalachians love to compete. Whether it’s recreational league softball, a turkey calling contest or workplace chili cook offs, Mountain folks are in it to win it. But there’s more to competing than just winning or losing. In this show, we’ll meet competitors who are also keepers of beloved Appalachian traditions.

Appalachians love to compete. Whether it’s recreational league softball, a turkey calling contest or workplace chili cook offs, Mountain folks are in it to win it.

But there’s more to competing than just winning or losing.

In this show, we’ll meet competitors who are also keepers of beloved Appalachian traditions.

In This Episode:

Musgrave Reports From The Mountain Mushroom Festival

Tina Caroland shows off a morel mushroom at the Mountain Mushroom Festival in Irvine, Kentucky. Caroland has demonstrated how to fry morels at the festival for about 15 years. She purchased morels for a recent year’s cooking demonstration because Caroland and her family were slow to find morels at the start of the season.

*Credit: Nicole Musgrave/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Each spring, people take to the woods in search of morels, a seasonal favorite throughout Appalachia, and they inspire all kinds of competition.

Folkways Reporter Nicole Musgrave went to the Mountain Mushroom Festival in Irvine, Kentucky and found people looking for the most mushrooms — the biggest mushrooms — and the tastiest way to eat mushrooms.

An Accident Of Appalachian History Led To A New Style of Pizza

In Wheeling, West Virginia, people are passionate about their pizza. People there say that an accident of history led to a new style of pizza – Appalachia’s contribution to America’s great regional pizza traditions. Folkways Reporter Zack Harold visited DiCarlo’s Famous Pizza to find out more.

*Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Ever live in a place where there’s a competition between two restaurants, and people sort of decide which team they’re on?

Folkways Reporter Zack Harold says people in Wheeling, West Virginia are passionate about their pizza. That’s because an accident of history led to a new style and who’s better/who’s best contest that’s been going on for decades.

Brave Kids Continue Eisteddfod Tradition

Eisteddfod is probably not a word that rolls off the tongue of everyone in Appalachia. But in Wales, it refers to a traditional music competition that goes back nearly 1,000 years. Immigrants brought the tradition to southern Ohio, where it has endured for generations. Thanks in part to some brave kids.

Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro has this story.

Playing To Eat And Eating To Play

Jared Kaplan holds the game he designed with Chris Kincaid.

*Credit: Clara Haizlett/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Another competitive tradition that’s endured for generations is weekly board game night. Whether with family or friends, we play Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, and sometimes even Candyland.

Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett reported on a board game that matches West Virginia’s favorite cryptids with some of its favorite places to eat.

A Southern Ohio Town Honors The Appalachian Connection To The NFL

Appalachia’s connection to professional football has always been a little loose. Lots of pro players have come out of Appalachia, but there’s really only one Appalachian NFL team — the Pittsburgh Steelers, or two if you count the Atlanta Falcons, as a listener recently argued we should.

It turns out, at least one other professional team has Appalachian DNA — the Detroit Lions. That franchise began as the Portsmouth Spartans in Portsmouth, Ohio, just across the river from Kentucky.

Sports fan and WVPB Reporter Randy Yohe has this story.

——

What about you? What kind of competitions are happening in your neck of the woods? Maybe you know about a sport or contest we’ve never heard about. Or someone there makes pizza like nobody else. Tell us about it. Email us at InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.

Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Charlie McCoy, The Steel Drivers, Larry Groce, David Mayfield, and Dean Martin.

Bill Lynch is our producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.

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

Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!

Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Mushroom Mania, Soul Food And Aunt Jeanie, Inside Appalachia

This week on Inside Appalachia, we head to the woods and take a master class in foraging for wild mushrooms. We also break bread and talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby. And we’ll hear about old-time music legend Aunt Jeannie Wilson.

This week, we head to the woods and take a master class in foraging for wild mushrooms.

We also break bread and talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who is passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece, Brooklynn.

And we’ll hear about old-time music legend Aunt Jeannie Wilson. A marker has been set near the place where people used to hear her play.

These stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.

In This Episode:

Fun With Foraging For Fungi

These chanterelles are about to be turned into a tasty treat. They were harvested the day before an unsuccessful mushroom hunt, and turned into a topper for vanilla ice cream.

*Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Mushroom hunting has always been a part of Appalachian culture, but in recent years especially, mushrooms have been having a moment.

Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch spent time with foragers in Virginia and West Virginia to learn more.

Sharing 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.

*Credit: Vanessa Peña/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Soul food is associated with Black communities in the deep south, but the cooking style is traditional to Appalachia, too. Folkways Fellow Vanessa Peña talked with Xavier Oglesby, a master artist in soul food cooking from Beckley, West Virginia.

A full interview with Xavier and Brooklynn Oglesby by Jennie Williams is archived at West Virginia University Libraries.

Aunt Jeanie Gets Her Due

West Virginia recently paid tribute to one of its traditional music greats. Aunt Jeanie Wilson was a clawhammer banjo player who performed for governors and presidents. She helped to keep mountain music alive through the 20th century during the rise of jazz, rock n’ roll and electric music.

WVPB’s Briana Heaney went to a ceremony honoring Wilson at Chief Logan State Park in Logan County.

Jayne Anne Phillip’s “Night Watch”

The career of author Jayne Anne Phillips spans nearly 50 years. Her home state of West Virginia has often figured into her books, giving a glimpse of the different decades of Appalachian life. Her latest novel is Night Watch, which takes readers to the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the town of Weston several years after the end of the Civil War.

Bill Lynch spoke with Phillips about her book and growing up near the old asylum.

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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Town Mountain, Noam Pikelny, Justice & Jarvis, Jesse Milnes, Mary Hott and Little Sparrow.

This week, producer Bill Lynch filled in for host Mason Adams. 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.

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Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.