Food and Recipes of the Smokies
Saturday, May 1st, 2010Published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, Food and Recipes of the Smokies features the food and recipes common and popular in the Great Smoky Mountains before the national park was created in 1934. It covers the time from the Cherokee Indians, through the nineteenth and into the mid-twentieth centuries. Nearly everything mountain people ate – both animal and vegetable- was by necessity gathered or raised by their own hands. In the words of Beuna Winchester, of Bryson City, North Carolina, it was this simple: “You ate what you raised and you raised what you ate”.
“My old hen, she clucks a lot. Next time she clucks, she’s cluckin’ in the pot. My old hen, she clucks a lot. Next time she clucks, she’s cluckin in the pot.”
It is the recipes from the 1920’s, ‘30’s and ‘40’s that I find most appealing. A couple of examples for dinner on Sunday’s are:
Chicken & Dumplings – Mrs. Ollie Lawhern, Maryville-Alcoa Times
One hen
Salt and pepper
Catch an old hen that is contrary about laying. Chop off her head, dress her, cut her up, and place her in a pot. Just cover her with water and place her on to simmer. When tender, season with salt and pepper to taste. You can leave her with the meat on the bones or take the meat off. Into the boiling pot liquor, drop dumpling dough a spoonful at a time.
Dumpling Dough
2 cups flour
3 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 Tbsp lard or vegetavle shortening
1 well-beaten egg
1 cup whole milk
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in lard or shortening and mix in egg and milk. Drop into pot liquor that cooked the chicken in. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.
Fried Chicken – Bonnie Myers, Townsend, TN
Young fryer, about two pounds
Grease
Salted flour
Slaughter chicken by wringing and breaking neck. Hold chicken upside down by the legs and pour scalding water over it. Pluck feathers. Hold chicken over a burning newspaper to singe thin growth of hairy feathers. Cut up chicken. Roll in salted four and place in hot grease in heavy fryer pan. Fry slowly, turning once or twice to brown evenly.
Whenever I visit our mountain lake lodge, I always try to eat at least once at Happ’s Place Restaurant in Glenville where the meals expertly prepared by Kathy in traditional southern ways take advantage of the fresh bounty of local garden produce and fish from nearby mountain rivers and streams.