Southern Appalachian Farm Cooking

Book excerpt: Part cookbook and part memoir, Southern Appalachian Farm Cooking blends staples of farm-fresh, Appalachian cuisine with stories of life on a large farm in East Tennessee, where homemade biscuits and harvest vegetables were the fruits of hard work and meager earnings. Robert G. Netherland begins with the family farm: a sprawling sixty acres of fertile, rolling hills located in the small town of Surgoinsville, Tennessee, situated between bends in the Holston River. From there, Netherland guides the reader through threshing wheat, churning butter, sharecroppers and country doctors, hunting and hog killing, and all the while sharing updated versions of his family’s recipes for authentic farm-to-table food. From biscuits to cornbread, freshly shelled beans to red-ripe tomatoes, and savory meats to the sweetest cherry pies, Southern Appalachian Farm Cooking provides the home cook with recipes and historical asides to turn any trip to the farmer’s market into a delicious family affair. In sharing his experiences, Netherland reminds us of a time when prepackaged and plastic-wrapped food didn’t line our counters and fill our cabinets, but in its place were baskets of seasonal fruit, canned vegetables, fresh baked breads, and hot-from-the-oven cobblers. Southern Appalachian Farm Cooking is more than just a nostalgic memoir of farming and food, it’s also filled with healthy, simple, everyday eats for the modern cook.