“Appalachian Food Studies: A Tale of Belgian Waffles and Cast Iron Fried Chicken”

• In Event: The Invention of Authenticity: Troubling Narratives of the “Real” Southern Foodways

Abstract

The foods and food cultures of the mountain south struggle for visibility and respectability. Despite food journalists and devotees intent on scouring every corner of the south in search of long forgotten food practices, one rarely finds genuine forays into Appalachia for such stories. The big book on Appalachian food studies remains unwritten. If Appalachia appears, the results are predictable. Moonshine and other small batch grain liquors occasionally step forward. Undomesticated, wild ramps and other rare plants are shipped out of the region to chefs’ kitchens for “reinterpretation.” Rather than retread arguments about how the particularly inescapable stereotypes of Appalachian hillbillies lead to the same old stories of uncivilized and vaguely illegal backwardness (only this time in terms of food), this presentation explores a different tale. Appalachian chicken and waffles challenge notions of authenticity, accuracy in food studies, and the coherence of southern and mountain cultures.
In western North Carolina in the early 1970s, summer Saturday nights brought out the square dancers, cloggers, and barn dancers. Well before “contra” dancing, absent of specialized shoes, the dancers only needed a big open barn space, a bluegrass band, a caller, and an even number of couples to take the floor. A young Belgian man from Wisconsin who had grown up on polkas and had come to the mountains as an engineer for a new industrial plant discovered the dances. The band learned “Roll Out the Barrel” and the man learned every complicated figure the caller doled out. He met a woman there whose family had lived in the mountains since the 1780s, married her, had a daughter, and together they attended all summer long every year. Arriving home at 1am, everyone put on pajamas while he pulled out his waffle maker, and before bed he made a breakfast feast for all. Were they Belgian waffles? They were not what is marketed under the name today—not thick, not covered with whipped cream, not made on a machine stamped with the word. Buttermilk, some cornmeal, and fresh butter helped turn out crispy, light, and perfectly thin waffles that restored body and soul after a long night of Appalachian culture.
For Christmas mornings, the same family would go to the woman’s mother’s house for country breakfast. The stove next to the door had a cast iron skillet or dutch oven on almost every eye, one with eggs scrambling, one with bacon crackling, one with grits simmering, and one with chicken frying. The heat wafting from the stove collided with the cold mountain air streaming from the porch. The chicken was store-bought and the stove was electric in the 1970s, but little else had changed in the dish. Was it southern fried chicken? It was not thickly coated in crunchy layers, not always divided into perfectly sized pieces, not what one finds in restaurants or cookbooks today. Yet buttermilk, a little cornmeal, and lard helped turn out crispy, juicy, and perfectly cooked pieces that celebrated the season as thoroughly as the tree, stockings, and hymns.

Author

• Elizabeth Engelhardt, University of Texas, Austin (TX)