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The hillbilly stereotype is frequently used to shame mountain people, but there are gentler versions, like Snuffy Smith, the long-running comic strip character. Snuffy Smith originally started out as a supporting character in his comic strip, which first launched in 1919 when Billy DeBeck created Barney Google. Artist Fred Lasswell was brought in during the ‘30s to create Snuffy Smith and his friends. And now the strip is written and drawn by John Rose, who lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
This week on Inside Appalachia, we’re talking about food and some of the food we southern Appalachians are famous for.
We’ll travel to explore stories and the roots of some southern food, visit a historic salt mine in West Virginia that’s being revived and we’ll head over to a fried chicken festival in Virginia.
This show is sure to feed your appetite for stories about Appalachian food.
Across the coalfields, grocery stores are disappearing. McDowell County, West Virginia, just lost its Wal-Mart and people really don’t have a lot of options if they want to buy fresh food. It’s part of the reason why so many people in Appalachia get their food at gas stations — a lot of hot dogs, chips and Slim Jims. We know that’s Appalachian food too, but it’s nice to have options.
There’s an older kind of cooking that’s not quite as popular here in rural Appalachia and across the south. The simple comfort food our grandparents ate. Oddly enough, it’s these foods that are starting to get more popular in urban areas across the country. Everything from gravy and grits to ramps, beans and cornbread, these dishes seem to keep appearing in restaurants in cities like New York, Richmond and Louisville.
With the rise in food deserts in the region, we think it’s important to cover stories about food. We found a podcast that tackles some tough topics, in a smart way … with food. We invited some special guests onto our show this week: The producers of a podcast called Gravy by the Southern Foodways Alliance.
A Salt Story: West Virginia Siblings Mine the Past to Build a Future
Credit Courtesy: Southern Foodways Alliance
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While West Virginia may be known for resources like coal, the country once turned to this mountain state for a culinary staple: salt.
Salt production started in this part of the Appalachian mountains in the late 1700s. It was an industry built on the backs of slaves, and one that proved destructive to the region’s environment. Now, a seventh generation salt-making family is reviving the business.
In this episode of Gravy, Caleb Johnson and Irina Zhorov bring us the story of one family’s attempt to reconcile its salt-making past with a more environmentally and socially responsible future.
Fried Chicken: A Complicated Comfort Food
Credit Courtesy: Southern Foodways Alliance
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Melba Wilson owns her own chicken restaurant.
It’s easy to love fried chicken. The light crunch of a crisped wing or leg, followed by the moist meat of the interior; it’s understandably beloved. But there is more going on with this comfort food than you might think.
Fried chicken has both been the vehicle for the economic empowerment of a whole group of people — and the accessory to an ugly racial stereotype. How can something so delicious be both? In this episode of Gravy, Lauren Ober goes from a Virginia Fried Chicken Festival to a soul food restaurant in Harlem to find out.
Fluorspar is a little-known mineral used to make everything from steel, aluminum and gasoline to uranium fuel and batteries. For the Appalachia Mid-South Newsroom, WKMS’ Lily Burris reports the largest known deposit of the critical mineral in the U.S. is in western Kentucky – and its applications in artificial intelligence (AI) could reawaken the region’s mining industry.
The economy is everything we buy or sell and services we use. It can be a broad category and most of us struggle to understand what it all means. The show "Planet Money" from NPR dives into those topics and attempts to make sense of it. And now, the show has published a book called Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life. We speak with the author and one of the program's hosts.
"Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire" is a young adult novel set in Appalachia. Written by West Virginia native Don Martin, the book follows the story of a witch-in-training who uses her magic to help a forgotten mountain coal town. It was an instant New York Times bestseller after it was released last year. Inside Appalachia Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Martin about the book and his podcast "Head on Fire."
On this West Virginia Week, Gov. Patrick Morrisey vetoed 12 bills that made it through the legislative process. We also hear the latest in the battle over which vaccines are required for school attendance in the state. And, a growing interest in data centers has the attention of people around West Virginia – both for and against.
