From the beginning my goal for Blind Pig & The Acorn was to celebrate and preserve my Appalachian heritage and culture.
There’s often a cardboard cut out held up for what Appalachian lives are supposed to be like. I’ve always wanted to knock that piece of cardboard down and shine a light on the wonderful life one can have living in Appalachia. I’ve tried to accomplish that by sharing my family’s life with you all.
My recent video is the first in what I hope evolves into a series to show pieces of our lives as evidence of the goodness that abounds in Appalachia.
I hope you enjoyed the video!
Help me celebrate Appalachia by subscribing to my YouTube channel!
Here’s the recent Thankful November giveaway winners. Dee please email your mailing address to me at blindpigandtheacorn@gmail.com. Patti and Randy I have your email addresses and I’ll send the eBooks your way!
The winner of “Foxfire 2” is Dee who said: “I remember my Daddy telling me his Mother had two beehives by her garden and they always had honey to put on their biscuits.. As a young boy, he said he spent some days laying quietly under one watching the bees go and come. Wish I had known that when my Grandmother was still here as I would have so many questions. In later years, when we bought it Daddy loved to get it with the comb.”
The winner of the eBook “My Favorite Appalachian Recipes” is Patti Tappel who said: “Did you know the largest black walnut producer is Hammon walnuts in MISSOURI? It’s my blacksmith’s favor nut. He especially loves black walnut ice cream, which is easy to find here!
Happy thanksgiving”
The winner of the eBook “The Southern Wildlife Watcher” is Randy who said: “If someone will be in the woods or outside and sit very still and quiet at sun up he will see and hear animals he may not see at any other time. I used to see a lot of snake doctors at the creek I played in when growing up, but now I don’t see them. Something else we would see in the creeks were bright red minnows with yellow fins. They were called red horse minnows and said to be no good to use as fish bait. I am ashamed to say as a boy with a BB gun I would shoot at the snake doctors, but never hit many of them. I would enjoy reading the book.”
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
We love your videos. My husband was born and raised in Pine Knot, Kentucky. Your videos bring back lots of good memories of his childhood. I was raised in the city, but enjoy learning about Appalachia, especially the cooking segments. I got out my cast iron skillets that had been packed away and am going to start using them again. Thanks for all the good information.
Tipper,
Was that real butter? Also, I noticed no apron which used to be standard attire for our grandmothers?
Excellent presentation!
Sanford-yes real butter! I try to wear an apron but sometimes get in to big of a hurry to put it on 🙂
Best one yet! Loved the background music and content was outstanding.
Born & raised in Missouri & absolutely love & appreciate what you do & celebrate along with you. Keep up the great work! Appreciate it!
Valerie-thank you 🙂
The video was wonderful! I love sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast, especially when it is cold. Before I retired, I said I could teach all day on a breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits. My husband makes his own sausage and it is the best! He makes a mean biscuit, too. I can cook, but he likes to cook, so I let him have at it. And cast iron frying pans will last forever!
Tipper, you absolutely outdid yourself on that video. I agree with Margie Goldstein’s post in many ways, especially the part about you being such a great ambassador for our hill folk. We are different, but it is a wonderful different where we sometimes follow the old ways of our ancestors. Fortunately, recently it seems there is a surge to learn all the scratch cooking, canning, and prepping.
Imagine my annoyance when I went over to the video and YouTube would not let me comment. I refused to give up until I could comment. One Youtube video said it was possibly because they were forcing people to join Google plus, but this was not the case. I had bought a new phone, and found I could comment on it. Strange, but will get it figured out, as I must be supportive. You have wonderful dedicated readers, and now watchers. It was hard to watch that video and not put on an apron and make some homemade jelly. A+.
Tipper
I loved this video. It makes me miss my mom and dad who have gone on to glory. What was the song that was playing in the back ground?
You know the biscuit with the gravy? Well, we would break up the biscuit and pour coffee over it and then add the gravy. Try it!!
Carolyn-So glad you liked the video! The song is: Twilight Train by Dan Lebowitz.
This was a great video and I loved the music, my little one even commented on it and enjoyed it too. What was all the cut up tree for and what were you ladling into jars at the end?
Dana-the dump truck full of cut tree will be our heating wood for this winter. We don’t really have a place to cut wood for ourselves, but purchasing it before its split is a whole lot cheaper than buying wood that’s been split! At the end of the video-I was making apple jelly from peelings I had left over from drying apples 🙂 So glad you and your little one liked the video!! I had a lot of fun making it and am thrilled folks liked it…so I can make another one LOL!
oops. After I posted my comment I scrolled back up and found 2 books recommeended which I will check out. Sorry for the brain glitch!
I woulld like to ask Jim Casada if he, or anyone on this thread, can reccommend books by Appalachian authors which tell thee truth about the region as they see it. Thanks.
I loved the video. It was so soothing. Good breakfast–my brother & I would have crumbled up biscuits with gravy and sometimes he would sop it up with a biscuit. I still crumble my biscuit. Daddy would stir up his jelly, syrup, etc. with butter & I like it too!
Your marigolds are fantastic! I love that color. And I’m one of the strange ones who like how they smell.
We try for that peaceful life yall have. Guess I’m a throwback to a different time. Anyway, I sure did enjoy seeing yall this morning.
I certainly enjoyed the video! The apron you have on, the making gravy in the cast iron skillet, and the biscuit making brought back pictures in my mind of my Mother making breakfast in her kitchen. She had an apron that looked just like yours. We still fry bacon like that but prefer southern pork sausage made out into patties. That is just how we make our gravy too. Oh and thank you so much for the Foxfire 2 book!!
Tipper–I wonder if you or Shirl could provide the author of “Growing Up in a Holler in Appalachia”? I try to stay as fully abreast of the region’s literature as I possibly can, and this is a title I don’t know and I can’t locate it in searches.
Also, speaking of reading, I wonder if any of the extended Blind Pig gang have read Steven Stoll’s “Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia.” I haven’t but intend to do so. Sadly, I find that recent books dealing with the region, such as J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” and Elizabeth Catte’s purported counter to that book are so far removed from the reality of the region as I have known it, boy and man, that they are depressing. I think much of the problem is that many of these authors, though not all, are trying to understand a region and its folkways from an outside perspective. There’s a distinct difference between being IN Appalachia and being OF Appalachia. Mind you, there’s nothing new in this regard. Horace Kephart, Margaret Morley, and others failed to understand our ways a century ago, and that sin (to me, that’s what it is) continues today.
Sorry, I got off on a tangent but the region and its people hold my soul and I’m passionate about getting things right when it comes to my highland homeland. Hope you or Shirl can supply the author. Thanks.
Jim Casada
Jim-like you I was interested in the book! A quick google turned this one up: https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Holler-Mountains-Appalachian-Childhood/dp/053111452X not sure if that’s what Shirl was talking about, but hopefully we can find out!
Growing Up in a Holler in the Mountains: An Appalachian Childhood Hardcover – January 1, 1997
by Karen Gravelle (Author). This has been offered previously on Amazon but is currently unavailable.
Another place to look for books is AddAll, a book finder site that lists books from multiple online sites. It’s a great source, especially when you hit Amazon’s “Don’t know when it’ll be available” message. I found a copy for me there — https://www.addall.com/used/
Jim,
I enjoyed your “tangent” because it got me to thinking how outsiders were going to make everything so much better for the people of the Appalachia region when they cooked up the miserably failed “Great Society” program. If the program’s intent was to make more people dependent on government, it succeeded. Well, at least in my area it did.
I read Hillbilly Elegy and I thought it was sad, as the author and his family moved to Ohio and I remember a lot of drug problems in the family. I think it presents a one-sided view.
Like Jim and Jerry Clower said you flung a craving on me. Biscuits, fried fatback and gravy (my family called it hunky doo gravy) is my favorite food for breakfast or any other time I can get it. A heart doctor would have a fit unless he ate some and then he would be digging in with the rest of us. I also enjoyed the rest of the video, the flowers were real pretty. That load of wood is going to warm somebody more than one time when they split and burn it.
I located a used copy of the book I referenced earlier. I ordered it and will send it to Tipper after I read it.
Disregard that last, I’m so sorry! I usually have it on automatically & watching it on youtube I see them, they didn’t pop up in the player here for some reason.
I’m enjoying this, your day looks a lot like mine too! I enjoy watching videos of life all over the world & I offer as a suggestion subtitles. Other english speaking people mightn’t be able to get all of your words as they typically learn through British english. Some African, Slavic & Indian youtubers I enjoy & though they speak English I need their subtitles, not to mention the deaf community is usually appreciative. I dehydrated my cushaw as I remembered you mentioning that, their necks are perfect for little rings to snap in half to fit in the dehydrator.
I just finished reading “Growing Up In A Holler In Appalachia”, a book that described our way of life exactly like your video did. The writer wrote about a film crew coming from NY and searching for the poorest and least educated family to do a story about. They passed by the college educated folks who live up the holler by choice. There’s no happier place on earth than a place where you can walk on the same ground your ancestors did. Thank you for sharing a peek into your life that is filled with knowledge and talent.
The Chambers Creek pumpkins have, as you say, an excellent flavor. I don’t know the full provenance, but our mutual friend Christine Cole Proctor gave me seeds for them. I’ll have to ask her to be sure, but I suspect that they came from her husband Troy’s family. Troy grew up near Chambers Creek. His folks lived in what they called Frogtown. It’s what you might call an elevated bottomland, if that’s not an oxymoron, east of Chambers Creek. Part of that bottom is sort of boggy, which no doubt was a favorite hangout for the local frog population.
We enjoyed a Chambers Creek chiffon pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. That pie is one that Mama made every year for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we continue the tradition.
Very enjoyable watching!
I loved this video! As a kid I had and still have daily breakfasts varying slightly every day. Sometimes we’d have red eye gravy when we had country fried ham. I don’t usually make it too often though. We’ll have molasses and butter sometimes to change things up a bit. We had nearby family that made molasses every year. Sometimes it would be homemade blackberry jam that grew wild in the pastures. Thanks for sharing but Now I’ve gotta go make breakfast. You just made me hungry. Lol
Loved this video, you make gravy just like Mom did with one exception, she always used a fork to stir it I guess that is the reason I like to use a fork to mix almost everything, I have always heard marigolds help keep bugs out of the garden, I have put them all throughout my garden and seems to help.
I loved this video! I had and still have daily breakfasts varying slightly every day. Sometimes we’d have red eye gravy when we had ham. I don’t usually make it too often though. We’ll have molasses and butter sometimes to change things up a bit. We had nearby family that made molasses every year. Now I’ve gotta go make breakfast. You just made me hungry. Lol
Tipper,
This brought back memories of my Dear Mother “fixin” breakfast for seven children plus she and Dad. Early on in life I remember her doing all this cooking on a wood fired cook stove. It had to be a labor of love!
Are those home grown eggs? They looked pretty large.
Thank you for sharing.
Sandford-yes homegrown eggs 🙂
I loved the video as it provided a glimpse at your hardworking and motivated lifestyle in Appalachia day to day life. I think you’re a dandy ambassador of hill folk of Appalachia! As for me, I never gave much thought to others negative comments about hillbillies like we are interbred, dumb and all moonshiners with no shoes and going dirty in shoddy clothes beating on each other. I figure what others think is on them. In my older years I hold onto what I know because me knowing and others THINKING they know can only HELP ME!!! Hang around about an hour and you’ll see I’m a force to be reckoned with. Jesus and me work together and this sheeple don’t just “ go along” with the crowd… I don’t care what anybody thinks about me… take it to the bank!
As Jerry Clower used to say, “you done flung a craving on me” with the lead few minutes making breakfast. Only one egg though for all that work lying ahead? Of course I reckon the two biscuits, one decorated with gravy and the other with honey and butter (I think it was honey but I guess light sorghum syrup was possible) had a pretty solid caloric count. Mind you, by the time Matt gets all that load of wood worked up he’ll need plenty of calories.
Really enjoyed it.
Jim Casada
Tipper, I love that video, it’s so real and the background music is perfect. It’s a peek into real life Appalachia!
Congratulations, you have beautifully captured our world!