Jerry and Donna Hartsell of The Bean Barn in Greeneville, Tennessee, serve their signature dish, "Beans All the Way," with cornbread.

In the highland mists of Appalachia, food is family; relatives are known by their recipes; and in times of joy and sorrow, all bring their best flavors to a communal table. This gathering around the table at the home of Mark Sohn, a professor at Pikeville College in Pikeville, Kentucky, feels like a family. All are friends who brought dishes just to give this Texan a taste of mountain cooking--ham, chicken, beans, beets, potatoes, gravy, and cornbread cooked in cast iron. Mark, who is writing his second book on Appalachian cooking, asks for definitions of the ever-changing mountain fare.

Seasoned With Pride
"I think of comfort and tradition when I think of Appalachian cooking," says Mary Ann Sisco, student-development specialist at Pikeville College.

"There's always lots of food," adds her husband, Eugene, who is an attorney. "In small communities you say, 'So-and-so is going to bring her sweet potato pie.' People are known by their dishes."

Reed Potter, Jr., a financial advisor, spoons out a second helping of shuck beans prepared by his mother, Lorene Potter. Shuck beans, also called "leather britches," are dried on strings to a golden crisp. "Whether you're mourning or celebrating, you're eating," he says.

Before they could even begin to think of meal preparation, however, early cooks had to string beans, dry apples, cure ham, dig potatoes, and grind corn. In these soaring highlands that tie Kentucky to Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, food was first work, then festivity. Now it's a source of family pride, treasured like tattered recipes. They love their fine dining in this region, but their hearts still hunger for a taste of home.

Left: Friends gather at the Pikeville, Kentucky, home of Mark Sohn for supper. Right: Mark keeps plenty of cast iron skillets on hand.

A Pinch of Elegance
Of course, food changes with time and techniques, Mark reminds us. "It's the fast food up and down U.S. 23, and the packaged food that comes out of Wal-Mart. That's Appalachian too," he says.

So are local dishes that are decked out for a night on the town at Wellington's, the elegant restaurant at the Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City, Tennessee. Food and beverage director Bobby Smith and executive chef Scott Phillips are both area natives. Their domestic lamb chops, grilled Appalachian style, combine sweet potatoes, bourbon, braised cabbage, and cider vinegar.

Back to Basics
After work, however, these folks still long for familiar flavors such as soup beans--pintos seasoned with salt pork and served in a broth with chopped onions and cornbread.

Left: At Wellington's in the Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City, Tennessee, fried green tomatoes are served with lump crab rémoulade. Right: "Beans All the Way," with cornbread, from The Bean Barn.

"People in the mountains of the South pronounce soup beans and cornbread as if they were one word," says Fred Sauceman, executive assistant to the president for university relations at East Tennessee State University. Fred, who writes about Appalachian foods, often lunches at The Bean Barn in his native Greeneville, Tennessee. Original proprietor Romie Britt mixed beef stew and soup beans to create "Beans All the Way." Current owners Donna and Jerry Hartsell continue to serve the dish with cornbread and buttermilk or some of Donna's iced tea.

Family Treasures
Some dishes are brought out only for special occasions. Each Christmas, Fred's wife, Jill, prepares her grandmother's apple stack cake. She dries apples, cooks them down into a sauce, and spreads the sauce between seven thin scalloped cake layers.

Allan Benton spends weeks slow-curing hams at Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams in Madisonville, Tennessee.

Take a taste of the region with you. Vendors at the Western North Carolina Farmers Market in Asheville stock shuck beans. In Madisonville, Tennessee, Allan Benton slow-cures hams that he sells whole and sliced at Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams.

Long ago in these highlands, American Indians, Scots-Irish, English, Germans, and Africans blended their foods and families into a new culture and cuisine--American. With the marriage of cornmeal and cast iron, they formed a more perfect food union.

This article is from the Favorites 2005 issue of Southern Living.