A Soup Recipe: Questions and Interpretive Instructions for a Present Process and Future Meal

By Emily Hilliard and Rebecca Wright

In several springtimes past, we taught together and ran the communal kitchen at a literature program in the woods of New England. Every night, with a group of college students, we cooked for sixty students and teachers. This interpretive recipe is based on that experience: teaching students cooking skills that they could apply not just to that night’s meal, but to all future meals. The hope was that cooking might become for them what it is for us: a mindful and sensory process for the cook that engenders a future offering for a collective; the power to make something that was not there before, and to share it.

Read on via Ecotone

The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables

Hilliard’s chapter “‘The Reason We Make These Deep Fat-Fried Treats:’ In Conversation with the Rosettes of Helvetia, West Virginia,” is included in the new collection, The Food We Eat, The Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables, edited by Elizabeth Engelhardt and Lora Smith and published by Ohio University Press.

Related Events:

Keynote with Courtney Balestier, Emily Hilliard, and Lora Smith at Hindman Settlement School’s Dumplin’s and Dancin’, Hindman, KY, November 2, 2019

Reading and Dinner at Holly Hill Inn with Elizabeth Engelhardt, Robert Gipe, Emily Hilliard, and Lora Smith, Midway, KY, November 15, 2019

Reading at Taylor Books with Courtney Balestier, Emily Hilliard, and Lora Smith , Charleston, WV, December 5, 2019

Related Media:

Elizabeth Engelhardt and Emily Hilliard on WEKU’s Eastern Standard

Order a copy via Ohio University Press

Need to Know: West Virginia

A West Virginia reading list & selection of favorite sites by Courtney Balestier, Mike Costello & Emily Hilliard

Read on via Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown

Helvetia, a Traditional Swiss Village in the Hills of West Virginia →

"It’s not that Helvetia is inauthentic or fake—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. And to say that the presence of a Swiss community in the remote mountains of West Virginia is unlikely would deny the history and impact of the waves of immigration and relocation to central Appalachia by diverse cultural groups (there were several Swiss settlements scattered across the region in the late nineteenth century). But what makes Helvetia unusual resides not only in the cultural, historical, and social preservation of the nearly 150-year-old village but in something less tangible. There is an enchantment about the place that exudes from the hand-painted signs of coats of arms, Swiss phrases, historical markers, and the public buildings and homes adorned in Alpine gingerbread and bright floral patterns. It’s a magic that exists in the intimacy of a community whose families have been neighbors, friends, and colleagues for generations."

Read more via HUMANITIES Magazine

One Year In Helvetia →

Welcome to Helvetia, population 59. In a high mountain valley “an hour from anywhere,” the little town sustains the traditions of the Swiss immigrants who settled there in 1869. West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard spent 2016 documenting Helvetia’s seasonal celebrations to understand how this isolated community draws strength from its land, its history, and its people.

Read on via Bitter Southerner

Slaw Abiding Citizens: A Quest for the West Virginia Hot Dog →

We arrived at the small country store at dusk, giddy for our first hot dog. The hand-painted sign outside Buddy B’s in Sissonville, West Virginia, advertised fresh produce, pinto beans and cornbread, and “Best In Town Hot Dogs.” Inside, bulk seeds, bags of peanuts, and jars of penny candy lined the red gingham–papered walls, and a cash register and food counter stood on either side of the door. We gawked like tourists at the hot dog clock and hand-painted hot dog sign, outlined by the triple-underlined text, try our hot dogs they are go-o-o-o-d. As the cashier-cook prepared our dogs, we surreptitiously took pictures.

Read on in Gravy

Remember the Summer Mulberry, Red or White →

This piece originally appeared on the now defunct site Gilt Taste, edited by Francis Lam.

There’s a recording I came across one day while browsing the archives of the American Folklife Center. The tape is not old—it was recorded in 1995—but if you didn’t know that, you could guess that it was from any time, really. There’s a slight tape hiss and the West Virginia accents from Kenny and Martha Pettry are thick. They’re talking about berry pies that Kenny’s mother used to make, and he lists them off in a cadence, pausing between each one. “Yea, my mother made pies out of mulberries. Blueberries. Blackberries. Huckleberries.” Then Martha interjects, “I just never did care for no mulberries.” The two talk over each other for a bit until she finally exclaims, “The mulberry’s the worst berry there ever was!”

Read on via Paste

The State Folklorist's Notebook: What Is Folklore? →

In our Spring issue, we introduced West Virginia’s new state folklorist, Emily Hilliard. Emily will be writing a regular column for GOLDENSEAL about her discoveries in West Virginia folklore.

Whenever someone asks me what I do for work, the conversation often goes something like this: I say, “I’m a folklorist.”

The questioner usually replies with something to the effect of “That’s so cool!” Then there’s a beat while he or she stops to ponder and works up the courage to ask sheepishly, “Now . . . what is that exactly?”

Read on in Goldenseal

Ramp Fingerprints: Field Notes from the Helvetia Ramp Supper →

The last Friday in April, I drove along the Buckhannon River through the village of Helvetia, West Virginia to the coat of arms-adorned community hall in the center of town. Though I’ve been visiting the Swiss-German community for five years now— first as a tourist, then as a journalist, and now as a folklorist— this was my first time here in the spring. Having previously contended with whiteout blizzards just to make it to the 59-resident town perched in a high mountain valley, I was struck by how lush and alive everything seemed. Spring ephemerals dotted the roadsides, locals were out walking and doing yard work, and the distinctively pungent smell of ramps wafted out from the kitchen of the hall.

Read on via the Southern Foodways Alliance blog

Pop Culture: Southern Soda Vinegars →

Travis Milton greets me at the door of his Richmond, Virginia, house, bearded and burly in a plaid shirt, horn-rimmed glasses, and a “Virginia is for lovers” ball cap. Peeking out from his rolled-up shirt sleeve is a tattoo of his great-grandfather’s farm logo surrounded by vegetables. He offers me whiskey before I’m through the door, and I spy his collection of Star Wars and Ghostbusters action figures in the next room. As we cross the hall, he reverently points out his grandmother’s last written recipe hanging in a small wooden frame among family photos and album covers—Rick James, Hank Williams, and Thin Lizzy.

In the living room, he’s piled at least a dozen notebooks of varying sizes on the coffee table, their open pages revealing scrawled handwriting and sketches of kitchen layouts. I’ve heard about these notebooks before. When I first met Travis at Comfort, where he was executive chef, he told me that he keeps 19 journals in various locations—restaurant kitchen, home kitchen, glove compartment, and nightstand. When ideas strike, he records them before they flit away.

Read on in Gravy