Spring is Here! And So Is Appalachian Cooking

The vernal equinox has arrived at last, and although we have snow flurries in the local forecast, the evidence of spring is everywhere around us in pink, white and yellow.

Today is also the release date for Appalachian Cooking. For those who pre-ordered online, your book should ship today. The book is widely available, so please pick up a copy and start enjoying the simple and delicious cooking of the mountain South.

In the garden, you still have plenty of time to plant spring greens of all kinds, along with peas, cabbage family, onions, garlic, beets, carrots and turnips. If you grow members of the cabbage family, make sure to protect them from the white cabbage butterfly, or its larvae will ruin your crop.

It is too early yet for summer vegetables, although plants are appearing in the stores. Tomatoes, peppers or other warm season crops are likely just to sit there if you plant them now. The traditional time to plant is around Mother's Day, which is some weeks away yet. If you wait until the soil is fully warmed up, you will get a larger harvest and avoid disease problems that may occur with transplants that go out too early.

Let's Talk Seeds

Spring unfolds in all its glory, with each new day in East Tennessee bringing another wonder. If it isn't the parade of flowers in the woods and along the roadside, it is the way the spinach seems to grow, getting visibly larger by the hour. After a snowy winter, we are being rewarded with nearly perfect growing conditions this spring.

If you are not planting a food garden now, you should be. There is still time for heat tolerant lettuces, beets, carrots, and all members of the onion family. Beans of all types should be planted now. You can try planting tomatoes, peppers or eggplant this early, but if you can bear to wait three more weeks you will likely have fewer problems with these crops. Wait another week or two to plant sweet corn, also. Brave souls may go ahead and plant corn now.

Thinking of corn and beans leads me to think about seeds, as well. Seeds seldom get the media attention they deserve, unless perhaps if they are GMO seeds. Nevertheless, gardeners should always remember that our backyard vegetable gardens would not be possible without a vast network of growers, brokers and retailers who produce and sell seeds. For you and me, the end result of all their efforts is the ability to step inside any big box store, garden center or specialty shop, and chances are we will find a varied selection of seeds. Amazingly, they are cheap, too. Seldom is a seed packet more than three dollars.

I write about seed catalogs a lot during the winter months. It is fun to pore over them and pick out likely candidates for the spring and summer garden envisioned for six months in the future. This year, however, I took a different approach. I decided to find all our seeds locally. As it turns out, this has proven much simpler than I would have thought.

If we broaden the term "local" to include businesses in Virginia and North Carolina, we have two suppliers of heirloom and organic seeds just over the mountains. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Virginia and Sow True Seed in Asheville, NC, were at one time both mail order-only operations. These days, you can find their seed racks at Three Rivers Market.

The big surprise was that two genuinely local, Knoxville-based, family-owned seed companies between them have all the seeds we needed for our vegetable garden. Knoxville Seed and Greenhouse Supply on Rutledge Pike caters to professional growers as well as the general public. In addition to an extensive selection of seeds under their own brand label, all in reasonably price one ounce envelopes, Knoxville Seed displays racks for several specialty suppliers. Bean, pea and corn seeds, along with some other crops popular with market growers, are available in half pound or full pound quantities. (Be prepared for sticker shock if you are purchasing corn. This crop is the exception to the "seeds are cheap" rule.)

I have been impressed with the extensive selection of heirloom vegetables offered by Knoxville Seed. Cherokee Purple tomatoes, dipper gourds, Cherry Belle radishes, and more. I have not counted, but the selection includes well over 100 varieties.

Our other great seed resource is Mayo Seed Co., which has for several decades operated Mayo Garden Centers around the area. The core business, however, has been seeds. The company was founded in 1878 and is still run by members of the Mayo family. In addition to a huge selection of vegetable seeds, Mayo offers flower seeds, many of them "old-fashioned" cultivars that were popular generations ago. Mayo can always be counted on to carry seeds of vegetables that only a few people still grow, including parsnips, New Zealand spinach, and salsify.

Because they have long been focused upon plant varieties that perform well in the Tennessee Valley region, Mayo can be counted upon to carry seeds that gardeners have relied upon for over 100 years. Examples are Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Mayo's own generic varieties of romaine lettuce and leeks, and White Icicle radishes that make roots the size of carrots.

Next time you think about seeds, think about all the work it took to get them on the shelves, and reward our local seedsmen and their network of suppliers. Those heirloom varieties may have been the work of only one small farm, the owners of which took a great risk to devote part of their land and labor to the seed crop. Think about that, also, as you enjoy those Cherokee Purples in August.

Less Than Fifty Days Away

Spring arrives officially on March 20, so we are less than fifty days away! We have had some pleasant days during January, but hopefully it has not been warm enough long enough to bring plants out of dormancy. Snowdrops are blooming in some gardens by now, and the early Crocus chrysanthus blooms will be along shortly.

Now is the time to get your seed orders in, or to visit your favorite garden center's seed rack, in order to be assured of the best selection. All indications are that the hot items this year will be heirloom vegetables, especially tomatoes, and compact-growing varieties suitable for container or small space vegetable gardens. This is unsurprising given the trend toward home food gardening.

Time is running out if you are starting leeks or celery from seeds for spring transplant.

It is now time to start broccoli, cabbage and other brassicas for spring transplants. To spread out the harvest, start only one or two plants per week for the next several weeks. Wait a couple more weeks before starting lettuce, unless you are betting on an early spring, or can cover your transplants if frost arrives.

Hold off on starting any warm season plants, however. We are still roughly 80 days from the frost date. Despite the undeniable urge to get things growing, you will have more success if you wait until March 15 or after to start tomatoes. Bell and chili peppers should be started even later, around the first of April, and must be kept warm during their early development. Otherwise, they may not ever reach their full potential.

Now is a great time to start seeds indoors for cool season flowers. Calendula is an old favorite, and the petals are edible. Another edible flower, Dianthus or annual pinks, thrives in spring, but starts looking ratty after the weather really heats up.

For an early season pleasure that is definitely NOT edible, start seeds of sweet peas, Lathyrus, in small pots. They will need something to climb on if you cannot get them outside before they begin to climb. Start seeds around February 20 for transplant around March 20. This should give the sweet peas enough time to grow and bloom before the succumb to summer heat. The large, colorful, and exquisitely fragrant flowers are worth all the trouble, and they make good cut flowers, too.

Our Living Deck Canopy

Way back in 2011, we bought one of those deck canopies with the nylon roof and mosquito netting all around from a big box retailer for whom one of us worked at the time. With employee and other discounts, I think the cost was about $200. The very first winter, we left the nylon roof in place and it was destroyed by snow load. Such is life. We should have taken it down, as the instructions warned us.

So the following year, we searched and searched and searched for the replacement roof. We still had the mosquito netting curtains, and we were certainly not going to toss out the steel frame. We managed to find a less-than-satisfactory replacement roof. It fit, kind of, and would keep us from getting wet. Trouble is, the replacement roof was not treated to withstand ultraviolet light, as the first one had been. Thus, by fall, it was looking faded and had begun to develop small tears here and there. We had to toss it, and by this time the cats had taken a toll on the curtains, too We were left with only the black steel skeleton. We tried hanging baskets and shelves full of potted plants during 2013, and darn near ruined our deck with all the watering and fertilizer.

Faced with the prospect of having to dismantle and discard the entire thing, we decided to give it one last chance. Jerry made a string trellis by attaching sisal twine to the edges of the deck, and running it up to the top of the canopy frame. He also criss-crossed the roof supports with twine. This was done back in April. As soon as the weather was warm and settled, in early May, I planted seeds of two types of gourds in the soil at the edges of the deck. Along one side I planted three hills of "martin" gourds. These make a pear-shaped fruit just right for conversion to a purple martin house by cutting a hole in one side. Along the other side, I placed two hills of luffa gourds. These are the source of the all-natural luffa bath "sponge."  The accompanying photos show the "roof" from above and below, last Friday. The foliage is dense enough to prevent light rain from hitting us, and the shade is dense, cool and perfect for the miserable, muggy July weather around here. You can see, if you look closely, that fruits are beginning to form. They will hang down inside the canopy like Chinese lanterns. So far, we have had no luffa gourds, although their bright yellow male flowers have appeared in abundance. As you can see from the photo, the martin gourd flowers are white. The majority of the flowers open at night, leading us to suspect they are pollinated by moths, as well as the small bees we see on them during the daytime.

The gourds have made such an interesting and beautiful canopy, we plan to try other vines next year. It would be unwise to grow gourds repeatedly in the same spot, so next year we will try runner beans and/or hyacinth beans, to help restore the soil fertility. Gourds need heat, water, and rich soil to create that huge mass of foliage. For the earliest possible start on the season, plant the seeds indoors in peat pots. They will need about 30 days after germination to get large enough to transplant. The plants should go in the ground in early to mid-May, when the soil is warm and the weather is settled. Leave them until frost kills the vines, at which time the ripened gourds can be harvested. Martin gourds will keep all winter in a warm, dry location, and can be used for all sorts of craft projects, not just birdhouses.

We are learning about luffa and will have more to day about this gourd as our experience increases.

One of the best things about this canopy is the cost. The ill-fitting replaccement roof we ordered was about $75. Two packets of gourd seed set us back less than three bucks, and I still have seeds left for next year.

Late Spring Harvest

June is a great time in the food garden. We have potatoes, peas, and tarragon in abundance, so all we need is a protein, and dinner is done. Parsley and mint are both thriving right now, too, as the oregano prepares to bloom and its flavor becomes harsh and unpleasant. We have also permitted ourselves to pluck a few sprigs of basil, although the plants remain small. Fresh basil is just too good to resist. Although we have been pulling a few for the kitchen, our sweet red onions are not yet ready to harvest. Some of them are already as large as softballs. We have plenty of green onions from our late March planting of Evergreen White Bunching seeds from Mayo Seed Company, Knoxville.

Straw Bale Update
All the bales are planted, and everything looks really good. We had a couple of bales that collapsed, but the plants in them are still looking healthy. It is too early to tell about harvest amounts or quality, but so far the plants in the bales are behaving much like plants elsewhere in the garden. We will have more to say on straw bale gardening as summer progresses.

Elsewhere in the Garden
From the appearance of our Lazy Wife Greasy beans, we will soon be canning them to enjoy later in the year. The vigorous vines are hanging full of beautiful beans. Greasy beans are Southern heirlooms that lack hairs on the pods, giving them an oiled appearance. The "lazy wife" part of the name is because the beans are stringless. They can be cooked whole or simply broken in pieces without stringing, a boon to any lazy wife (or husband) who finds stringing beans a chore.

The Tromboncino summer squash vines threaten the entire neighborhood, they are so vigorous! This is the only summer squash cultivar that is ignored by squash vine borers, a pest that in some areas makes squash production nearly impossible without extraordinary measures to prevent the insects's gaining access to the plants. We have ours confined to a trellis, but this is not really a plant for a small space garden.

We grew Irish Cobbler potatoes this year, and despite them being attacked repeatedly by flea beetles, we are going to have a decent harvest. This old fashioned cultivar, said to have been developed in New England in the Nineteenth Century by Irish immigrants, bears both red and white tubers on the same plant. The potatoes have rather deep eyes, making them a little trouble to peel. However, this is their only drawback. The flavor is superb, and they are good keepers. They also have the perfect texture for potato salad, a required side dish at every summer barbecue and picnic. At the end of this post I have included a recipe for Southern Style Potato Salad. Mine is based on a recipe from the restaurant at the Soul Food Museum in Atlanta. I have changed a few things to reflect the way potato salad was made in my family. It is important for the eggs and vegetables to be chopped into dice about 1/4 inch or a little smaller. This must be done by hand. Using a food processor will produce a mushy texture.

Southern Style Potato Salad

1 pound Irish Cobbler potatoes

3 eggs

2 tablespoons yellow mustard

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup finely diced onion

1/2 cup finely diced celery

1/2 cup finely diced sweet pickles (not sweet pickle relish)

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon finely minced fresh parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook potatoes until they offer only slight resistance when pierced with the point of a knife. Drain in a colander, and when cool enough to handle peel and cut them into small dice. Reserve the potatoes in a large bowl.

Place the eggs in a saucepan and add cold water to cover them by one inch. Bring slowly to a boil, remove from the heat, cover the pan, and let stand 20 minutes. Drain, fill the pan with cold water, and let stand until the eggs are cool. This may require two changes of cold water. Peel the eggs, and cut them into small dice like the potatoes. Add to the bowl with the reserved potatoes. Stir gently to combine.

To the bowl add the mustard, vinegar, sugar, mayonnaise, onion, celery and sweet pickle. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add more mustard and/or mayonnaise, if desired, for a creamier salad. Chill overnight to blend the flavors. Garnish with paprika and parsley just before serving.

New Directions for the New Year

I have decided this blog would be more generally helpful if it were more focused. Therefore, in 2014 I plan to fill more space with words about food gardening and cooking, with the emphasis on Southern-style food. Last year friends mourned the passing of John Egerton, a Nashville author who in 1987 produced the first really definitive work on the subject, Southern Food: At home, on the road, and in history. In over 200 restaurant reviews and a similar number of recipes, Egerton sought to explain and explore Southern food in the hope of preserving some of our best traditions for future generations. Throughout this entertaining and well-written narrative, we read the words of cooks and restaurant owners from all over the South, lamenting that "this kind of cooking" is dying out, or that, "not many people do it this way, anymore."

Upon Egerton's well laid groundwork, I hope to spend this year discovering to what extent those predictions have come true, and (hopefully) to learn that not only have the old Southern food traditions not expired, but rather they are, like an elderly maiden aunt when you visit her after a long absence, unexpectedly robust.

Besides re-visiting some of the restaurants that Egerton visited and researching and cooking some of the foods we Southerners treasure, I also plan to spend some time digging up, if you will pardon the pun, information on the vegetable varieties that have traditionally been used to create those memorable Southern dishes. We already know about Hickory King corn and Cherokee Purple tomatoes, but I think it will be fun to explore the flavors of older varieties of peas, okra, and beans, also.

On the recipe front, it is encouraging to note that dozens of Southern-style cookbooks have appeared just in the last three years. If from these we subtract those from Emeril, Paula, Duck Dynasty, Southern Living and similar celebrity authors, we are left with a remarkable selection of serious work about serious Southern food. Rather than dying out, it would appear that our distinctive regional cuisine is more widely popular than ever.

With gardeners and farmers here in the Tennessee Valley and throughout the South becoming ever more skilled and successful at growing food, we are in a great position to lead a "return to the roots of Southern food" movement. In future posts, I will talk about cooking some of the recipes I have found in my research, and about growing some heirloom vegetable varieties in my garden this year.

Here is a list of a few of the great new Southern cookbooks published in the last two years, and some that are coming out this year.

Vienneau, Nancy (2014) The Third Thursday Community Potluck Cookbook: Recipes and Stories to Celebrate the Bounty of the Moment. Thomas Nelson.

Gabriel, Johnnie (2014) How to Cook Like a Southerner: Classic Recipes from the South's Best Down-Home Cooks. Thomas Nelson.

van Beuren, Alexe and Dixie Grimes. (2014)  The B.T.C. Old-Fashioned Grocery Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Southern Revival. Crown Publishing Group.

Little, Stacey. (2014) The Southern Bite Cookbook: 150 Irresistible Dishes from 4 Generations of My Family's Kitchen. Thomas Nelson.

Link, Donald and Paula Disbrowe. (2014) Down South: Bourbon, Pork, Gulf Shrimp & Second Helpings of Everything. Crown Publishing Group.

Fowler, Damon Lee (2013) Essentials of Southern Cooking: Techniques and Flavors of a Classic American Cuisine. The Lyons Press.

Currence, John. (2013) Pickles, Pigs & Whiskey: Recipes from My Three Favorite Food Groups and Then Some. Andrews McMeel.

Randolph, Mary. (2013) The Virginia Housewife: Or, Methodical Cook. Reprint of an 1824 volume considered to be the first Southern cookbook. Andrews McMeel.

Van Dyke, Louis and Billie Van Dyke (2013) The Blue Willow Inn Bible of Southern Cooking: 450 Essential Recipes Southerners Have Enjoyed for Generations. Thomas Nelson.

Walsh, Robb (2013) Barbecue Crossroads: Notes and Recipes from a Southern Odyssey. Austin, University of Texas Press.

Tolley, Lynne and Mindy Merrell. (2012) Jack Daniel's Cookbook: Stories and Kitchen Secrets from Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House. Thomas Nelson.

Dupree, Nathalie  and Cynthia Graubart (2012) Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking. Smith, Gibbs Publisher.

Beall, Sam. (2012) The Foothills Cuisine of Blackberry Farm: Recipes and Wisdom from Our Artisans, Chefs, and Smoky Mountain Ancestors. Crown Publishing Group.

Thompson, Fred. (2012) Fred Thompson’s Southern Sides: 250 Dishes That Really Make the Plate. Greensboro, The University of North Carolina Press.

Fox, Minnie C. (2012) The Blue Grass Cook Book. (Reprint of 1904 edition). University Press of Kentucky.

Caldwell, Patsy and Amy Lyles Wilson. (2012) You Be Sweet: Sharing Your Heart One Down-Home Dessert at a Time. Thomas Nelson.

Savor the South Cookbook Series, University of North Carolina Press, Okra (2014), Pickles and Preserves (2014), Bourbon (2013), Biscuits (2013),  Peaches (2013), Tomatoes (2013), Pecans (2012), Buttermilk (2012).

All of the above titles are hardcover releases. Some may also be available in other formats. Books with less comprehensive coverage tend to be released in digital format only these days. One e-book that readers may want to explore is this one:

Kellner, Hank. (2013) The Taste of Appalachia: A Collection of Traditional Recipes Still in Use Today. Smashwords.