Country Cooking
Due to their isolation from the commercial, world, the Appalachian family obtained food by hunting wild game, collecting indigenous plants, cultivating crops, and raising chickens, hogs, and cattle. They preserved their food for the winter by salting, smoking, pickling, drying, and even burying some vegetables. They hand ground their corn and wheat into meal and flour. They cooked their food in the fireplace using forks for meat, covering nuts and vegetables in the hot coals, baking bread and heating stew and soups in iron pots. Later the wood stove would accommodate cast iron skillets for frying and a "Dutch" cast iron oven for roasting meats and baking bread. Jams and jellies were made from wild berries, and honey was harvested from the bees. Recipes were developed of herbs, peppers, and vinegar to spice, cure, or marinate meat, and family secrets were handed down from one generation to the next, the best cooks known far and wide.
Old Fashioned Country Recipes
Let's have some fun with tasty recipes from the good ol' days. In character with life in the hills, these recipes use common, natural ingredients, and don't require scientific measurements.
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3 cups tomato sauce
4 tsp. celery seed
1 chopped onion
2 tsp. sugar
6 tbsp. vinegar
Garlic salt & tabasco
Mix and simmer ingredients 20 min. Add garlic salt and tabasco sauce to taste. Add water to thin for marinade.
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(Cooked in a Dutch Oven)
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 cup shortening
1-1/2 cup milk or water
Combine dry ingredients. Work in shortening and add milk gradually. Knead and pinch off desired amount and place in greased Dutch oven and bake 15-20 minutes on hot coals.
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12 large cucumbers
6 small onions
1/2 quart vinegar
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup salt
1 tbs. each of celery seed, ginger root, and mustard seed
Slice pickles and onions and add salt. Let stand for one hour. Add the balance of ingredients and boil for 5 minutes. Can and seal while hot.
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1 egg
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups of milk
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 cups of cornmeal
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Mix egg and milk well in bowl. Shake dry ingredients into paper bag. Dip catfish filets in milk mixture then add to bag and shake well. Fry in hot grease until golden brown.
For just the right utensil click here: 12" cast iron skillet.
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1/2 cup grits
4 eggs
2 tbsp. milk
1 cup grated cheese
Add grits and salt to 1-1/2 cups boiling water, cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Beat eggs with milk and add cheese, add to grits and stir over low heat until eggs are cooked and cheese melted. Serves 2-4.
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2 cups flour
3 tbsp. baking powder
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp. lard or Crisco
1 egg beaten
1 tsp. salt
1 chicken
Boil a quartered chicken until the bones can be removed easily. Mix up dumplin' dough ingredients and spoon into boiling chicken pot liquor. Cover pot and shift to cooler eye. Let cool 20 min. and serve.
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2 cups self-rising cornmeal
1 egg
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup shortening
Melt shortening in 10-1/4 skillet while preheating oven. Mix milk and egg with self rising stone ground corn meal. Pour melted shortening into batter and then batter into hot greased Lodge cast iron skillet and bake at 400º until browned.
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8" skillet of cornbread*
20 biscuits
3 eggs
3-4 cups broth
3 cups celery
3 tbs. poultry seasoning
1 large onion
1 stick butter
1 tsp. pepper
Saute chopped celery and onion in butter and add to crumbled cornbread and biscuits. Add beaten eggs, broth, and other ingredients and mix well. Bake at 350º F covered for about 30 minutes, test for moistness (add water if necessary), and then brown on top.
*One 6 oz. package of Martha White cornbead mix.
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3 cups cornmeal
3 tbsp. lard
2-3 cups boiling water
3 tsp. salt
Melt fat in 9" baking pan to coat. Pour remaining fat into other ingredients and mix. Bake at 350º F about 50 min. or until golden brown.
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(Cooked on a Wood Stove)
1 recipe biscuit dough
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup milk
Handful of flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
Line a small pie pan with plain biscuit dough rolled thin. In a separate bowl, mix together all remaining ingredients and pour it into the crust, using just a little wood so the fire won't be too hot. Bake it slowly until it "sets." It will "blubber up", or bubble, and then the bubbles will settle.
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There are many ways to fry country salt-cured ham. Fry it up straight in its own fat or add a little grease, or a little water. What we like to do is fry up Clifty Farm center slices in a half and half mixture of water and 7Up in a Lodge 12" skillet, turning often, and leaving the drippings for red eye gravy.
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4 green tomatoes, sliced
Salt, pepper, or cayenne
1 cup white cornmeal
1 cup flour
Salt and pepper 1/4" tomato slices. Coat both sides of your tomato in flour/cornmeal mixture and saute over medium heat in a cast iron skillet til brown.
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1 cup self-rising flour
1 egg beaten
1 cup self-rising cornmeal
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
Combine dry ingredients. Add egg, onions, and 1/2 cup buttermilk to flour/cornmeal mixture. Gradually add remainig buttermilk until batter is well mixed, but not runny. Drop spoonfuls of batter into a Lodge fry kettle and fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
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1-1/2 lbs. of ground beef
1 egg
1 cup bread crumbs
8 oz. tomato paste
1 small onion
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Mix beef, 1/2 of tomato sauce, and the remaining ingredients thoroughly. Spread into lighly greased Lodge loaf pan.
Top with remaining tomato sauce (and brown sugar, if desired) and bake at 350º for 75 minutes.
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Moonshine, or untaxed liquor, is made from fermented corn mash distilled in a cooker. It derives its name from the term "moonlighter" used in England to describe the night time runners that smuggled brandy from France. After World War I, agricultural prices dropped, so during Prohibition, many American farmers turned to whiskey making to support their families.
A typical mountain still uses a stone furnace for heat, a metal still for fermenting and heating the mash, and barrels for collecting steam and condensing the alcohol. It was located near a mountain stream where cold water could be piped in to condense the steam from the liquor.
50 lbs. cornmeal
10 lbs. bran (optional)
200 lbs. sugar
12 oz. yeast
200 gal. water
Makes 36 gallons.
To boiled corn meal add the yeast and sugar (lots of sugar! -- that's how the sneaky "revenuers" would identify moonshiners for prosecution) to ferment the mash. When the mash quits bubbling, it is cooked in the still and the steam is captured in a barrel filled with water (the "thump"). From the thump, the steam is allowed to cool and condense by running it through a long copper coil (the "worm") submerged in another barrel (the "flakestand") that is constantly cooled with water troughed in from a nearby stream. Condensed, the clear liquor drips from the bottom of the flakestand into a catch can or 1/2 gallon glass jars. The liquor is tested for alcohol content, or "proof," by adding gunpowder to it and igniting the mixture. If it burns, its "proof" is established at somewhere between 100 and 200 proof or 50% to 100% pure alcohol.
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1 cup mashed potatoes
1 tbsp. butter
2 cups flour
1 tbsp. honey
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. brown sugar
Mix ingredients and roll out on wax paper. Cut biscuits and bake at 400º F until golden brown.
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Add water (or black coffee) to fried ham drippings in a hot pan. Let sizzle and stir. Serve with country cured fried ham slices, biscuits, and honey.
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Ham, sausage, or bacon grease
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp. flour
Water
Milk
Add flour to the grease in hot pan to brown. Thin the mixture with a little water and add milk, salt and pepper. Stir until thick. Add crumbled fried sausage for a real treat. Serve over home made biscuits.
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1 chicken
1 cup flour
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp salt
Prepare flour mixture by mixing dry ingredients. Prepare milk and egg mixture, and add 1 tablespoon of flour to the mixture. Dip chicken in egg mixture, again in flour mixture, repeat, and shake well. Fry in hot grease, with chicken pieces half covered in Crisco, and well spaced, until brown, then turn. Cover with lid for 7-8 minutes on low heat, and then brown on higher heat. Drain on paper towels. For just the right utensil click here: 5 qt. chicken fryer.