The West Virginia center’s exhibit presents a history of mountain foodways.
What makes local cuisine so special is the number of sources from which people in the southern Appalachians learned to cook. The Beverly Heritage Center in Beverly, West Virginia, captures many of those, including family traditions of the frontier age, the despair of the Civil War, and from “new” technologies now a century old. A few highlights, as documented in the center’s Appalachian Foodways exhibit:
- The frontier years likely saw the advent of salt rising, which is similar to a sourdough, and uses a wild, safe-to-eat bacteria that grows in hot temperatures.
- Hardships of the Civil War included a shortage of coffee, which led to a brewed beverage imitating the taste from whatever was on hand, including chickory. Gingerbread, also considered a luxury, was sold with beer in the streets of Beverly in the antebellum period.
- With the coming of the railroad and refrigeration, more foods were more accessible to everyday families. New recipes like icebox cookies were developed around the 1920s. Gelatin desserts—once something only for elite households—now became a common fixture.
- While serving as an AmeriCorps Member with the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area, Jennifer Bravener interviewed several people about local traditions of food and cooking in West Virginia. One of her starting points was “Beverly’s Favorite Recipes,” a cookbook compiled by the women of the town’s Presbyterian Church, originally printed in 1950, with an updated version in 1988.
The end result of Bravener’s work is the exhibit at the Beverly Heritage Center documenting the history of culinary culture in the region.
This Black Walnut Cake recipe, dating to the Civil War era, is from the book:
- 4 cups black walnuts
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 cups flour
- 1/3 lb. butter
- 1 ½ lb. raisins
- 6 eggs, beaten separately
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 sherbet glass grape juice
- 1 nutmeg, grated
Mix as fruit cake, adding floured fruit and stiffly beaten egg whites last. Bake 3 hours in a very slow oven.
The Beverly Heritage Center is at 4 Court Street, Beverly, WV 26253. 304-637-7424; beverlyheritagecenter.org.
—Chris Mielke, Executive Director, Beverly Heritage Center
The story above appears in our March/April 2021 issue.
