What does a Cornbread Festival in Tennessee, a Paw Paw festival in Ohio and the Hatfield McCoy Moonshine Distillery in West Virginia all have in common? They’re among hundreds of destinations featured on a map called Bon Appétit Appalachia. The map features Appalachian restaurants, wineries, and festivals serving locally sourced food has just been updated with more listings by The Appalachian Regional Commission. The map has 62 regional food destinations in West Virginia.
The Bon Appétit Appalachia Map was first published in 2014. Since then, hundreds of new listings have been included on the map, featuring restaurants like the Dish Café in Raleigh County. Manager Rosy Corley says customers come for the locally raised beef and fresh veggies. “They’re just so excited to be able to eat what we call real food that’s not processed and I think that trend is becoming more and more popular.”
And that increasing popularity for authentic local food is driving other restaurants across Appalachia to buy food locally when possible, even if doing so can get expensive.
Map from the Appalachian Regional Commission features hundreds of regional food destinations across Appalachia
Another location on the map is Fish Hawk Acres farm and catering in Upshur County, a business that recently expanded, opening a new market and cafe in downtown Buckhannon. Debbie Hubert is a caterer with Fish Hawk Acres. She says the biggest challenge they face trying to buy more local ingredients is the time it takes to find the high quality food items they need on a consistent basis. “We buy as much local food as possible, but if we have to get product out of season, we get it from a bigger food source,” Hubert says.
The Appalachian Regional Commission hopes their Bon Appétit Appalachia map will help encourage more customers to visit small businesses across the region.
A local-food nonprofit based in the Northern Panhandle is busy this week reclaiming abandoned property.
“Once upon a time this was the Lincoln Home site,” said a founder of Grow Ohio Valley, Danny Swan. “There were three apartment buildings here with a parking lot. We’ve taken the parking lot and the three apartment buildings – which were torn down decades ago – and we’ve reclaimed those two terraces. Each are about 40 feet wide and about 200 or 300 feet long. And we plan to build greenhouses on them.”
Grow Ohio Valley’s nonprofit mission is to make Ohio Valley communities healthier by growing and providing more fresh, local food, and teaching how to grow and prepare that food. The group also hopes to boost the local economy through economic development initiatives.
Swan and others have cleared and flattened enough space here in a field of mud that overlooks downtown Wheeling, and the Ohio Valley, for six high-tunnel greenhouses. Two will go up during the next month with funding provided by the Catholic congregation at Saint Joseph’s. Grow Ohio Valley hopes to begin production in the spring, as well as programs about growing and preparing food.
Credit Grow Ohio Valley Facebook page
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Old blueprints of the Lincoln Home site were found, but Grow Ohio Valley hasn’t located any photographs of the site.
On the other side of the hill excavation is also ongoing at the site of the organization’s future urban orchard. Planting was scheduled for this spring but has been delayed for a year, anticipating the impending invasion of 17-year cicadas.
And atop the hill, there’s a small building that houses Grow Ohio Valley’s offices. The nonprofit won a $2,280 award this week at a community funding contest called Show of Hands that will enable them to begin to turn the space into a small grocery, Grandview Grocer.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.
Food deserts are a growing problem in West Virginia and across the country. The USDA defines a food desert as a part of the country where people don’t have access to fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods. Parts of more than 40 counties in West Virginia endure some sort of limited food access and the number is growing as more and more grocery stores close their doors. But when the grocery store in one Greenbrier County town closed, the community worked to find local resources with hopes of becoming self-sufficient.
After the IGA in Alderson in Greenbrier County closed last November, all the community had was basically a Dollar General store, some gas stations, and a tiny co-op in the corner of a local gift shop that sold things like beans, seeds and nuts. That co-op was part of the Alderson Community Food Hub. It’s a nonprofit that runs a community garden and a farmer’s market. Organizers had been thinking of expanding the co-op, but they didn’t expect that to happen for a while.
A Sense of Urgency
Anna Osborne has been involved with the Hub for about four years now.
“When the grocery store closed it started feeling more like an imperative,” Osborne said.
The Wolf Creek Gallery Gift Shop owner agreed to move her gallery to make room for the new, expanded co-op. The Hub named the new store the Green Grocer. They bought refrigerators and wire shelving and stocked the shelves with a $25,000 grant from the One Foundation last year.
Now, you’ll find folks sitting at one of the tables by the windows eating lunch from the café while a steady flow of traffic strolls by shelves of oranges, bananas and apples. Osborne says the project is meant to provide healthy food to consumers and to provide a market for local farmers.
“Nothing against the grocery store but most of the produce that was carried there was from out of state or not local and our mission has always been to support the local economy,” Osborne said.
Re-Investing in Locals
Store manager Ann Knotts says the customers are creating more demand on the local farmers.
Credit Jessica Lilly
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Organizers of the Green Grocer have put up more signs to try and raise awareness of the fresh fruits available in the store.
“They’re a busy bunch of farmers,” Knotts said.
Knotts says the project is doing well financially. It got a second, $30,000 grant from the One Foundation this year. But its largest chunk of cash came from donors to an Indiegogo campaign. Knotts says folks from across the world sent a total of $31,000 to help the cause.
The co-op keeps its costs down by having volunteers on staff. Helping to run the register and the store today is volunteer Mari Moody. She moved to Monroe County in the 70’s as part of the back to the land movement.
“I feel like I’ve been very very fortunate in my life,” Moody said, “and it’s important to give back. I’m semiretired I have the time. I think this is especially special because of the local produce and meats that we buy.”
Volunteers also help with other odd jobs like cleaning. It helps to keep prices low for this small non-profit co-op.
Getting to Know Alderson
The space in the Green Grocer and cafe is limited. The store just started offering fresh meats in June. Knotts says the store won’t please everyone but is still getting to know the community’s needs. Folks can also leave suggestions or feedback in the suggestion box. But so far, Knotts says, business is good.
Credit Jessica Lilly
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“We see an increase all the time,” Knotts said. “We’re trying to get a lot more visibility we have a lot of people say we don’t know you’re here because we don’t have enough signage out front, so we’re working on that.”
“Word of mouth has been tremendous too as you can see it’s pretty steady and sometimes we’re swamped and that’s a good thing too.”
Organizers of the project hope it can serve as an example to other communities that are losing grocery stores sometimes because the population is falling, and sometimes because of competition from chain stores that don’t stock much fresh food.
“There certainly is a need for greater access to fresh food and communities like Alderson all over the country but certainly here,” President of the Board of Directors of the Alderson Community Food Hub Kevin Johnson said.
Johnson says folks in the community have been supportive of the project because losing the grocery store was such a big loss to the area.
“Food is such a fundamental part of what people’s daily lives that it’s almost like a service,” Johnson said.
Organizers are hoping the Green Grocer project will continue to grow and reach more members of the community. Currently the group distributes food to the senior center to help out people who don’t drive. They’ve just gotten donations to get a system to keep food cold while it’s on the road.
Chef Matt Welsch is a local boy who, after touring the country on a motorcycle (writing a travel-cuisine blog about being a vagabond chef), returned to his hometown and set up shop.
Matt and Katie Welsch own and operate The Vagabond Kitchen in the bottom of the McLure Hotel. Starting out catering events, they were attracted by the large kitchen that allows them to prepare foods they serve up from scratch. About a year in, they continue to cater and now they also serve lunch, Sunday brunch, and dinner.
COME TO JESUS
Matt Welsch, the Vagabond Chef, says he had a “Come to Jesus” moment several years ago when he realized that… he was going to have to work for the rest of his life. So he and his bride Katie decided to hone in on what they felt was a life worth living: cooking.
“I never thought it would work out so well in my hometown that I love, here in my home state that I love,” Matt said.
Life as a vagabond has taught him a lot about the value of time and life.
Vagabond goals:
Provide a fulfilling workplace for employees.
Hand-craft cuisine.
Live locally.
Serve Community.
As for the style of food, he calls it New American Cuisine.
“I think that’s generic enough that I can make it mean whatever I want,” he said with a laugh.
LIVE LOCAL
Matt grew up on a dairy farm in the area and has ties to other farmers throughout West Virginia. He’s working with these local producers to prepare the food they provide, because above any dietary trends or food fashions, local food is of paramount importance to him. Whatever farmers produce, they’ll serve. Matt said he and his team are flexible, creative and they welcome culinary challenges.
In addition to the local food, Matt and Katie have local artists filling their walls with art, and local musicians filling the restaurant with sound.
SERVE COMMUNITY
“If we weren’t as passionate about helping Wheeling reinvent itself,” Matt said, “I don’t think we would be as successful as we are.”
There’s new enthusiasm in Wheeling that Matt said he’s never experienced in his years growing up in the area.
“There are still people who are kind of negative and stuck in the past, but there’s an active minority of really positive, excited people. And that’s the train that we want to get on board and help fuel.”
Matt says that new-found enthusiasm in Wheeling is making businesses like his possible. He’s hopeful that a spirit of collaboration will continue to grow.
Eight Appalachian Communities are Winners in a Local Foods, Local Places Grant Competition.
Twenty-six communities were chosen from over 300 applicants in the Local Foods, Local Places grant competition designed to encourage creative economic development. Six federal agencies have invested over $750,000 to help revitalize struggling downtowns and preserve farms and undeveloped land.
Those agencies include:
Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC),
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT),
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
Delta Regional Authority (DRA)
Wheeling is among the chosen communities and will receive planning and financial support from the federal agencies. Grow Ohio Valley together with the Wheeling National Heritage Area Corporation and the group Reinvent Wheeling teamed together in their application which describes a project to install an urban apple orchard and several organic teaching gardens on the hills overlooking downtown Wheeling. Grow OV’s Ken Peralta says there’s a lot of excitement over the infusion of help implementing their plans.
Other Appalachian communities awarded:
• Wheeling, WV was selected for its plan to develop historic Vineyard Hill into a productive public asset, along with wider plans to transform Wheeling into a regional hub for local food.
• Youngstown, OH was selected for its interest in integrating its local food movement into the larger neighborhood revitalization efforts currently underway in the city.
• Williamson, WV was selected for its project to establish a Health Innovation Hub, a holistic strategy to build a culture of health from the bottom up.
• Hazard, KY was selected for a project to establish and sustain The Eastern Kentucky Food and Farm Hub, a local food aggregation and distribution center located in downtown Hazard that will serve the area within a 50-mile radius.
• Barbourville, KY was selected for its project to expand its current farmers’ market operation into a permanent facility for local farmers, gardeners, crafters, entrepreneurs, and consumers to interact and for local community organizations to use as a meeting area.
• Forest County, PA was selected for its interest in connecting its downtown revitalization efforts in Tionesta and Marienville with its rich agricultural heritage.
• Grundy County (Tracy City), TN was selected for its interest in developing a comprehensive, cohesive regional plan of economic stability that connects organizations and stakeholders involved in the region’s local food economy.
• Tuskegee, AL was selected for its project to pursue a synergistic plan of economic development and food security goals through downtown revitalization and regional marketing initiatives.
The phrase “food-desert” might sound like a landscape of sagebrush and armadillos, but it’s really a place where SlimJims, chicken nuggets and Slurpies count as dinner. A food desert can happen anywhere- we’ve all seen them. People who live in a food desert may be surrounded by food—fast food or convenient store hotdogs, instead of fresh, healthy food.
Even in rural West Virginia, where small farms still dot the roadside, fresh food isn’t available to all people. In some places it can take over an hour just to reach the next grocery store. Reawakening some of the old, small farm traditions– and bringing a new local food movement to West Virginia– is the work of five non-profits that were highlighted by the James Beard Foundation. Groups were chosen based on their work to bring healthy, local food to more people.
“We focus on helping people connect with each other so they can educate each other and be stronger together,” said Spellman.
The coalition trains farmers and advocates for statewide policies that help nurture small farmers.
Spellman says that because West Virginia has the highest number of small farms per capita in the country, there is a unique opportunity here to help transform the local food economy.
Credit Roxy TOdd
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Children with a YMCA camp helping find harlequin beetles in the West Side Community Garden Project in Charleston
“Yeah, and we’re uniquely positioned to show what a small farm state can do because we don’t really have that many large farms. We’re mostly small farms. And people relying on each other and working together.”
