Patricia Mitchell has just released a new book, Mountain Foodways: Flavors of Old Europe on the Southern Frontier. The book surveys foods of the Appalachians and Ozarks, and links them to the European origins of the groups who brought them.
Especially noted are cooking techniques and preferences which can be traced to Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland prior to the emigrations of the early 1700's. These emigrations were eventually the major sources of population for Appalachian and Ozark regions.
"Factors of geography and history in the Southern highlands have uniquely preserved early American (and therefore old European) cultural elements to an extent seen nowhere else in the United States, with the possible exception of Acadian Louisiana," writes Patricia.
The 36-page book contains 28 recipes, 139 research notes, and numerous anecdotes. It is the fifty-first in print of Patricia's "Inkling Series."
Copyright © 2000 Patricia B. Mitchell.