The cookbook Jim and I wrote continues to sell well and we are both very thankful. I’ve especially liked hearing from folks who are enjoying it. Over the weekend a friend texted me to say he loved it because it reminded him of himself and his family.
Last week’s book event for the Swain County Genealogical & Historical Society went very well. We enjoyed talking with folks who came out to listen to us chat about the cookbook. I recorded the event and hope to share the video later this week.
I shared with the audience at our recent event that I really like the Glossary of Southern Appalachian Food Terms at the beginning of the book.
Two of the entries came up in the last week.
Grabble—to dig out new potatoes gently without disturbing the entire hill.
The Deer Hunter was wondering if we could grabble out some taters to eat pretty soon because they’d be awful good with a cake of cornbread and some beans.
Larrup (or larruping)—Exceptionally tasty; sometimes used with the main ingredient: i.e., berry larrup.
A sweet lady bought a cookbook for her mother in law and asked me if I would sign it and write something using the word larruping.
You can pick up a book here.
Here’s a list of our upcoming events. We’d love to meet you if you’re able to make it to one of them!
Mast General Store Book Signing Events
- June 10, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Roanoke, VA
- June 17, 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Boone, NC
- June 17, 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. – Sugar Grove, NC
Other events
- July 1, 3:00 p.m. City Lights Bookstore – Sylva, NC
Last night’s video: Adding Mulch To The Garden, Bears, & Being a Test Dummy.
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Hi Tipper,
My wife is a big fan of your YouTube videos and I wanted to reach out to you hoping that I could purchase a signed copy of your cookbook for her birthday next month.
Please let me know if they are still available and the cost with shipping.
Thanks,
Rob
Rob-You can find the book here: https://blindpigandtheacorn.etsy.com/listing/1467868257/celebrating-southern-appalachian-food?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1695230574184 If you are unable to purchase online email me for details at blindpigandtheacorn@gmail.com 🙂 Thank you!
Rob-thank you! You can purchase a cookbook online here: https://blindpigandtheacorn.etsy.com/listing/1467868257/celebrating-southern-appalachian-food?utm_source=Copy&utm_medium=ListingManager&utm_campaign=Share&utm_term=so.lmsm&share_time=1695339971121 Just above the add to cart button is a line that says personalization. You can request the book be signed there 🙂
I watch your Celebrating Appalachia on YouTube and The Pressley
Girls Katie and Corie everyday!
I’m praying daily for Ms. Cindy, Matt and your whole family Tipper.
God Bless you all. I cried with Corie and Katie this morning giving the update on their Grandma and they’re right, they will see Ms. Cindy again if something happens. She’s in the Lord’s Hands and she will be well soon from what the Hospice nurse told Corey.
Praise the Lord for His Healing Grace!
Tipper please send me your info on your cookbook with your address and the total amount.
Thank you!
Tipper, I am such a fan of yours and your family. Your delivery in your posts and blogs reels us in, entertains, educates and endears us the readers! I wish I had discovered you years ago, especially during Covid. You are so genuine and relatable that I wish I were truly a part of your family or a near neighbor. THANK GOD for internet so I am able to “visit” you when I want to and go back to years past and try to catch up on all the goodness! I feel blessed to get to hear the quality music coming from your family. I am praying for Ms. Cindy and for all of you! I am happy for any success you get! May God bless you more as you bless others! Do you recall the old saying of having to EAT your words. In your case, yours would be larruping good! Also, in our area, it is called Noodling if you fish with your hands. Do you ever say “Borry” for borrow…. Sending love and appreciation.
Sandra-thank you for the kind words! So glad you enjoy what we do!! I sure do say borry for borrow 🙂
I say barrie.
Can we buy the book from Mast General in Roanoke, or do we need to purchase one ahead of time for you to sign
Shirley-they will have the book available to purchase 🙂
My theory about larrupin as it came to be used to describe good food is this. Larrupin means to beat something thoroughly, as in a fight or contest. A dish or meal that beats all other thoroughly would have to be larrupin good. Maybe, maybe not, but that’s my guess.
Tipper, I was reading your cookbook this morning and kept running into sorghum syrup. If a body can’t find sorghum syrup, what would you recommend as a substitute?
God’s Blessings to all . . .
Robert-molasses will work in place sorghum syrup 🙂 A lot of folks call sorghum syrup molasses. We always just called it syrup 🙂
Tipper,
I believe the word larrup or larruping could have come from the word lapping. Many times words were “invented” by what a person, who was being addressed, heard?
I’ve enjoyed the cookbook so much and I think one of my favorite parts of it is the glossary. Until I joined the Blind Pig here, I had never heard of larruping good, but I love it! So happy the book signings are going well for you and Mr. Jim. Robert and I were talking about the Mast general stores over the weekend, and he mentioned he thought the original one was the one you and Randy were talking about. Sure wish we had one close by here.
Grew up on larraping good after a particularly fine southern meal in the summertime.
Hi Tipper,
I’m enjoying the cookbook. I live at 5000 ft. and working on adapting your cornbread recipe. Mine comes out dry and crumbly, after research I am going to try more liquid. Trial and error or should say trial and success! Suggestions if anyone has any. What size skillet do you use?
Pat-wonderful! So glad you are enjoying the book! The pan is 10 inches 🙂
Try two eggs and/or buttermilk.
Not only taters but I’ve don’t some grabbling for fish. You feel up under rock ledges and bank overhangs in the river where fish are bedding. I never had any luck at grabbling fish. Even if you happen to find one you have to be able to hang on to it. If you can get one in its mouth or gill you might have a chance but the odds are against you. Catfish can sting you too. The fins right behind the gills are sharp and barbed. They fight by sworping their heads back and forth. They can bury those fins up to the hilt in you.
I remember one night we had a trotline in up near the Macon County line. We had some catfish laid out on the ground. Cousin Clayton DeHart wasn’t watching where he was going and stepped right in the middle of them. One of those catfish curled its head sideways and buried its fin in Clayton’s foot. Right through a rubber boot he was wearing. It hurts like you been hornet stung when you get finned. Clayton was jumping up and down, yelling for help and trying to get that fish off him all at the same time. The fin was caught in the boot but he couldn’t pull it off because part of it was in his foot.
First we had to catch Clayton and hold him still. We had to get the catfish off of him which wasn’t easy. First somebody cut the fin off the fish then find some pliers and pull it out. Clayton was yelling “PULL IT OUT” and “NO! DON’T! STOP!” all at the same. It could have been a comical scene but I’ve been stung by catfish and there ain’t nothing funny about it.
Grabbling and trotlining go hand in hand so to speak. Or, hand over hand in the case of trotlining but you’d have to have done it to understand it and I don’t have time to explain it today.
So, I reckon I’ll stick to tater grabblin! Taters ain’t slimy and they don’t sting!
Interesting post~ We in our area in KY call hand fishing noodling. My son did it as a teen and was pretty good at it. Knowing my luck, if I stuck my hand up under in a rock in a creek, I’d come out holding a water mocassian… That is likely not spelled correctly.
I love this! The food you talk about and the words and terms you use take me back home to Mama and Daddy and my brother!
They’ve all gone to heaven. But the things you share takes me back to simpler times when I was still had my family.
Tipper,
So glad yours & Mr. Jim’s cookbooks are selling well. We hoped they would. Haven’t got to order yet, but plan on it. Dealing with health issues at the moment.
Ok.. now to the word larruping. Around our parts my husband and I both heard all our lives and continue to hear the word larruping used, however a bit differently than your area. When something is especially tasty, we say DEEEE-larruping with a long emphasis on the DEE part..like DEEEE-Larruping. I don’t know why the DEE part is emphasized, but it is. My husband uses that word almost daily. He is the house expert on fine southern cooking which we eat on a daily basis. When we hear Ms. Lorie or Mr. Brown from Whippoorwill Holler say larruping.. my husband will out loud say DEEE-larruping. I guess the DEE part really emphasizes how larruping good the dish is.
We continue daily to pray for Miss Cindy, Matt, you, and the girls. May God richly bless you all.
The way we say the word sounds like “dee-lairpin” same as hairpin, not pronouncing the “u” sound at all.
Some of the older folks said it like dee-larpin when we were kids. Our kinfolks have always said dee-lairpin. I believe it’s the same word as you described, as it has the exact same meaning and similar sound. Great word with a delicious meaning. One that should be passed along to the next generation for sure.
God bless you friends of Jesus, say a word for my sister Anne, neck surgery for spine and removing thyroid for cancer on the 7th, God bless you and your family in Jesus name, God bless you Tipper , God bless your family
My father would often say that something that was especially good was larrupin. A cook couldn’t be paid a higher compliment.
I’m happy for you and Jim with the success of y’all’s cookbook. Larruping is one I’ve not heard before. I’m always learning something new or reminded of words I hadn’t heard since childhood. Either way it’s always fun and a blessing. Thank you for sharing so much with us!
I am quite familiar with larruping but not as a word in and unto itself. It must be associated with good. Larruping good is a phrase I’ve heard all my life. When you think of something so good you want to lick the plate even when people are looking, that’s larruping good.
Would love to get y’all at the new bookstore in 5 Points in Columbia, SC!
Tipper, I made Mr. CASADA’S Banana bread last night and it is beautiful to look at as well as plumb tasty! I love my cookbook and I reckon I might have to whoop somebody if they “was” to try and take it! Everything I look at or try in there is appealing and welcoming home! I gave you 5 stars because they didn’t have 10! I love you, I adore you. Give Miss Cindy and Granny a big hug and kiss for us all! You ladies are the bees knees!!! I see these cookbooks as gifts for ladies who like to cook and are trying to entice a good man into marriage. This might just get you the man of your dreams if he loves to eat and work like a worthy lady friend who’s a ‘lookin’ for wedded bliss. It takes 2 mules to pull a cart and they have to pull TOGETHER.
Never heard the word larrup. If my wife was still living, we would come to one of the signings. She loved cookbooks. Is Sugar Grove the location of the original or first Mast Store.? Without looking it up, I can’t spell the name but it is something like this Valle Cruz. I have been to this store and loved it, the old post office that was still being used , the huge stove and and the other old time furnishings. It brought back a lot of memories. The scene from the back porch in mid to late October when Fall was at it’s best was one of beautiful sights in nature that I can remember. I have already prayed this morning for Miss Cindy and her family.
Randy- I think it is but I’m not sure 🙂
It’s Valle Crucis. Means Vale of the Cross in Latin. The Original Mast General Store is still there but they now have bought up their competitor 2/10 of a mile away and opened a Mast General Store Annex there. I don’t know which building will have the book signing but I hope it is the Original.
Ed, my wife and I have went to both of the stores you mentioned but it was about 20 years ago. I liked the original better than some other Mast stores (Greenville, SC and Hendersonville) . I have been to, just because of old furnishings on the inside. As far as what is being now sold now, they are all the stores are the same. I think the original store building was built in the 1890’s. by someone beside the Mast store owners.
The Original Mast General Store is on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Park Service helps to preserve it in its original. The owners get a tax credit to help keep it that way.
Interestingly, no dictionary I’ve checked connects larrup, larruped or larruping with food or eating. They all say it denotes beating or flogging; trouncing convincingly. Those dictionaries need to catch up with rest of us!
My goodness! I haven’t heard someone say larruping in a month of Sundays! My family used to say it all the time when the meal was especially good – “Lawsy! This supper is larruping good!!!” Thanks for bringing back a good memory.
All these years I thought we were graveling taters. Larrup is a new one to me. I got my cookbook in the mail on a day it was so hot I didn’t want to cook and heat the kitchen. I’m ready to try all the recipes as soon as it cools off a bit! God bless Miss Cindy.
My late father-in-law used larruping all the time. After a good meal, he’d say something like, “Man, that was larruping!” He was the only person I ever heard use that word.
I have a theory about larruping that is purely guess. I think when something tastes exceptionally good, it could be said it’s slurping good. Like drinking something good that makes you slurp it. If you say it’s slurping good – the ‘s’ gets mingled with the ‘s’ in ‘it’s’ so it sounds like lurping good. I think it just got used a lot as slurping good until it became it’s own name of ‘lurping’ and eventually larruping good. I don’t think anyone has ever discovered how it came to be and mine is only a guess. It intrigued me so from the beginning that no one knew where it came from that I just had to say it over and over thinking it would sound like something I recognized. Sure is a wonderful word.
We use grabbe some but mostly say scratch up some taters.
Still praying for Ms. Cindy.
During my childhood, my parents (one grew up in Oklahoma, the other in Louisiana) used two terms to say something they were eating was especially delicious:
“larruping” and “so good it’d make ya slap your daddy” — both were highly complimentary!
I now have a friend from Pennsylvania whose supreme compliment is that the food is “barely fit to eat.” That always brings a laugh!
I heard someone somewhere say a dish was so good it would “make you swallow your tongue.”
Such a great video with the ‘mulching’ I do wish we had composing and mulching to be obtained by the truckload. We can and do purchase mulch at the big box stores, but it would be nice to be able to buy locally. Keeping Ms Cindy and you guys in my prayers, God give you strength for the upcoming days. I do wish I was closer to attend your book signings. I have be cherishing the one I have and am trying to not read it all at once. God Bless
My Daddy would say “now that was a larruping good meal” and I agree with Matt those grabble potatoes would be good with a fresh mess of green beans and cornbread.
Thank you so much for jogging my memory with your stories and especially the one about Dorie. That one is special to me!
So glad the cookbook sales are still going strong for you and Jim
Miss Cindy and your family are in my daily prayers.
Good morning
Not familiar with larrup. Dictionary.com has it originating in the Western U.S. Could it be of Indian origin?
Starting the day here at 61 degrees and had a good shower last evening.
Glad the cookbooks are selling so well for you and Mr. Jim. I know it’s got to be a lot fun meeting all the fine folks you guys are getting to meet at the book signings. Hope the books continue to sell and these other signing go well and draws a big crowd.
I’ve never heard the term “larruping,” a new one for me. Love to you all, and God bless Miss Cindy.