As a kid, I delighted in grossing out my elementary school classmates with details of how my lower-income, Middle Tennessee family ate squirrel meat. My grandfather would go out with a hunting rifle and get a mess of squirrels from the woods on our property. Then we’d fry up the […]

Traditional Appalachian pull candy — sometimes called cream pull candy or Kentucky pull candy — is known for two things: its buttery, melt-in-your-mouth flavor and the painstaking process required to make the stuff. The candy must include exact ratios of all the ingredients. It has to be cooked to an […]

When Mary Lou Estler married her late husband Bob in 1960, it wasn’t long before she was introduced to a priceless family heirloom — an heirloom tomato. “They had beautiful dinners,” Mary Lou said. “And Mrs. Estler owned a Blenko piece of glass. All the way around would be these […]

A decade after the Civil War, the Grand Army of the Republic started enticing veterans to gather for beans, hardtack and coffee. In southeast Ohio, the beans are still boiling, and so is the debate over which bean dinner is the oldest. For the past 47 years, Gary and Bob […]

This piece was originally published by Ohio Valley ReSource. It’s a sweltering hot Monday in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and the kitchen at Community Agricultural Nutritional Enterprises, or CANE, is buzzing with activity. In an industrial kitchen that was once a high school cafeteria, Brandon Fleming is chopping onions and sliding them into […]