Well, this article is leaps and bounds better than the one a couple of months ago exalting sable bagels made by some transplant from New Jersey and other similarly out of place nouveau-hipster noshes as Appalachian food but is still off the mark.
Almost by definition, food made by people consumed with the need to be seen as sophisticated for people willing to pay a premium for an "experience" apart from the food is not authentic rural food.
Seeking a reprieve from the news of the day, I came across this article. My eyes teared up with memories of my own family and I am grateful for this 'all American' story. Just wonderful and satisfying. Thanks especially to a young couple who represent the 'can do' of our country.
Richard
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I can never get used to the phrase "sorghum syrup" supposed food sophisticates use these days. It was always "sorghum molasses" when I was growing up, or, more often, just "molasses" or just "sorghum." We ate well and broadly in my house--steamed artichokes with melted butter and lemon, shrimp creole, spaghetti carbonara as well as the more standard southern staples--but I think I was thirty years old before I realized that, for most people, molasses came from sugar cane and not a sorghum plant.
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One day we were to take a hike to a remote location in West Virginia and we called at a ramshackle (aren't they all?) farmhouse at the beginning of the trek and ask the couple if we could park our car there for a few days. They graciously allowed us to. They then asked,"would you like some strawberry shortcake before you start?" We accepted - yet another favor, but these are good country folk for whom hospitality is a vocation. Well. The strawberries were just picked, the shortcake just baked and the cow just milked. Standing in the yard on a beautiful summer day it was one of the peak food experiences of my life. No updating, no refinement, no fusion, no external urban validation. Simply perfect food, unachievable in any restaurant. And they didn't know that or care.
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It's pure insanity that we don't encourage the protection and distribution of one of our country's greatest resources, Native Seeds.
It's our heritage. It tells the stories of our country and when the hybrid seeds fail we'll have and need them to feed the nation.
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Hopefully they already have them at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault where samples of virtually all other seeds are stored in the event of a calamity.
it's heartening to see the seed-saver movement grow, and to read about the cooperation between farmers, gatherers, and chefs - it's such an obvious and natural partnership, but it's been missing until within the last 15 years, and even then it was more of a novelty.
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I hope when Sanders and Warren share the White House as president and Vice President (it doesn’t matter who’s in which spot to me), this kind of of beautiful work and economics will be lifted up and the agribusiness that profits off its destruction will be put to rest. You can’t eat money. Capitalism seems to forget that fact.
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This is such a moving, empowering celebration of WV culture.I'm so grateful for their work and for this beautiful piece.
I grew up in WV in a family that stretched back many generations. My Mamaw Faye grew anything and everything, saving the seeds every season. Her gardening skills were magical. Grandma Bootie was a deputy sheriff, and a forager, filling us with dandelion greens, pintos, and cornbread with home-churned butter. If we were lucky there was some of her damson plum jam from the trees in the yard.
I left in my 20's. It's only now that I recognize the abundance that surrounded us in the midst of deep economic and environmental challenges. Thank you for honoring our true stories and complicated history.
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Thank you for this article.
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What a beautiful Story, and what a beautiful place !! Out here in the woodlands of S.W.Oregon, we ARE Farm-to-Table, but Mr. Costello and Ms. Dawson have certainly raised the bar. What clarity! What joy! Well done .
And, six generations on that Farm Land? That's a lot of Love going into that soil.
So, when is supper ? And, where's that Square Dance ?
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My grandfather was from a tiny town in West Virginia and I just finished reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (highly recommend). Loved this article. Now where can I buy some ramps??
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recipe for vinegar pie, please!
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I have a family connection to West Virginia and there really should be something between poverty and desperation and precious food that most cannot afford.
The point of farming is that it sustains life. This is just luxury lifestyle goods by another name.
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@Amv it's about illuminating a thing that people are doing. Beginning a conversation about traditional values, illuminating how traditions get corrupted & devalued. That beautiful passage about showing poverty as less of an individual failure and more of a result of mining and other extractive industries is brilliant. Education, conversation and integrity are steps forward. What these folks are doing is so much bigger than luxury.
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Thank you for sharing this story!
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Articles like these in the NY Times are why I keep my subscription. Thanks for a great article Amelia on why it's important to save seed and get future generations interested in the history and gourmet aspects of many types of plants. A good place for heirloom seed is Seed Savers Exchange in Deborah, Iowa, who have been savings seeds for years and have a great selection.
https://www.seedsavers.org
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Buckwheat pancakes with gravy was a specialty of my grandmother near Morgantown, WVA
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Our industrialized food industry has lost touch with flavor. We have benefited by lower prices and abundance at the expense of flavor, so it's not an easy solution to say return to the land. Appalachian lives were hard, my neighbor grew up in West Virginia, his father worked in the mines and he managed to escape a similar fate by joining the Air Force and getting an education. He doesn't romanticize it, outhouses and indoor temperatures in winter never exceeding 50 degrees. The joy was the community, sharing and eating whatever was available with others. It had nothing to do with the vintage, it was the company.
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Yeah, but how are their pepperoni rolls?
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Their pepperoni rolls are just dandy. I get mine from D’Annunzio’s, myself.
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@Toni Dorvitt Abruzzino's from Gypsy, WV are the best.
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I grew up eating ramps-delicious, but you may not want to be around anyone for a bit.
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@MH - Or THEY may not want to be around YOU. ;)
My WV mother-in-law talked about classrooms being segregated for a while each year - ramp eaters and ramp non-eaters. Ramps were the first fresh vegetable available in the spring.
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Remarkably thoughtful piece, Amelia Nierenberg. Please come back to the mountains any time.
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@Ronni Lundy The article raised a question for me. Is Asheville considered part of Appalachia or not?
@Diane We are considered Southern Appalachia.
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@Ronni Lundy, thank you for your kind words — I admire your work deeply. I'm honored. Thank you.
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"If we let ramps be sold for $2 a pound to someone who will sell them for $30 a pound?” Ms. Dawson said. “That’s the definition of an extractive industry.”
$30 a pound is cheap compared to what you'd pay for a mess of ramps plated at $30 to $100 per person.
I don't get it.
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@ pungo9nc North Carolina
The price jumps are not surprising, ramps are protected as an endangered species in Québec.
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@Tuvw Xyz
Not sure what is your point. Ramps are not an endangered species here. My point was Ms. Dawson flagellating local foragers selling out when she plates them for a fortune too.
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@pungo9nc I suspect Ms. Dawson buys directly from the forager & pays more than $2. a pound.
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Grits and meal ground from Bloody Butcher corn are available at some NYC Greenmarkets through the Regional Grains Project. (https://www.grownyc.org/grains/wheretobuy) If you are used to commercial grits and corn meal, their flavor is a revelation.
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