An Appalachian Visit

Folklore, Food & Fairytales

In this episode I talked with Aaron Bobick the host of Appalachian Folklore Podcast and Stories from the Cabin, a storytelling podcast within a podcast and we talked all things food, folklore and story.

Aaron is a brewer-turned-distiller by day. His undergraduate and graduate studies were in literature, bibliography, and textual editing where he gained a love for research; for finding the history of any given topic that interests him.

His research into UK folklore is what started his fascination with the history of Appalachian folklore: how the folk practices still seen today through various regions of Appalachia can be traced back to much older practices throughout Europe, and the world. The podcast takes a researched-based, academic-adjacent, look at the world of Appalachian folklore while making it approachable to all listeners.

You can find the podcast by following the link above or wherever you get your podcasts and his most recent episode explores one of the topics we discussed in much more detail: Ramp Harvesting, Festival Traditions, and Sustainability.

The links I mentioned in the episode:

The Cornish Pasty in Northern Michigan by William G Lockwood and Yvonne R Lockwood - Food in Motion, The Migration of Foodstuffs and Cookery Techniques – Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1983

Orange Chips - Vittles Article about Chippy Traditions

Fried Chicken - This is the Guardian article that I mentioned by Melissa Thompson where she discusses Fried Chicken and racism (my apologies to Melissa as I referenced Korean Fried Chicken in the episode but I should have said karaage from Japan) . Her new book, Motherland, is fabulous and is packed with excellent, mouth-watering recipes.

Interview with Robbie Armstrong - How Food Frames Stories

Green Bean Casserole - This is the book chapter Aaron references.

You can find also find the interviews in my newest interview series here: How Food Frames Stories. You can find my interviews with storytellers here: Vernacular Voices of the Storyteller

You can also subscribe (or just read) my free newsletter for further snippets of folklore, history, stories, vintage recipes, herblore & the occasional cocktail.

You can also find out more at Hestia's Kitchen which has all past episodes and the connected recipes on the blog. If you'd like to get in touch about the podcast you can find me here