Note: This is part of a series of articles on traditional foodways in southern Appalachia and pairs with a display on the 2^nd floor of the Transylvania County Library.

Early Appalachian settlers were reliant on forests and rivers for food, medicine, building materials, and more.

WILD GAME

Wild game like deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, raccoons, groundhogs, and wild turkeys were hunted by the Cherokee long before European settlers came to the area. Once those Europeans arrived, they adapted to hunting the available game in the New World forests. Cows, pigs, and chickens were not native to the Americas, only arriving in the 1500s with the first European visitors. These domesticated animals were part of European survival, but not part of the traditional Cherokee diet in these mountains.

Animals were needed for food, but their fur pelts were also a valuable commodity that could be traded for currency. Money was needed for taxes so that farms could continue to run year after year. That extra income also could buy salt, sugar, shoes, and thread. Many items couldn’t be made conveniently by settlers, so these store-bought items were part of survival in early Appalachia. Cash was a buffer for bad crop years, acting as an insurance policy against the unpredictable. Additionally many hunters made a living or extra income by fur trapping. Dogs were often their hunting assistants, helpful for chasing and treeing animals. They also helped to herd and protect livestock from wild animal predators that resided in the forests.

WILD PLANTS

Forests provided wild foods such as nuts, roots, leafy plants, and berries. Other plants provided medicine– healing wounds, treating diseases, and building health. Appalachians learned about the uses of these wild plants by applying prior knowledge about similar European plants, learning from the Native Americans, and trial and error. Both the Cherokee and European settlers saw that the form of a plant could teach about its uses in an approach to botany called the Doctrine of Signatures, which operates under the assumption that a plant’s color, shape, and location are a result of its medicinal properties. For example, a plant growing next to water with a straight tall shape that is narrow at the base and which spreads out at the top might be good for helping the body to expel “dampness”, or congestion.

Wild plant foods were vital in the spring, because they appeared to provide green things into the diet before the first crops arrived. Dandelion, mustard, and creasy greens graced early spring plates of Appalachians, along with chickweed, violet, wood sorrel, greenbrier, red clover, and ramps. Mushrooms provided nutritious flavor to meals, as well as medicine. Warm season fruits like pawpaw, elderberry, passionfruit, fox grapes, persimmon, and strawberries are all native to the region. Nut trees dotted the hills with walnuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, and hickory nuts.

One plant lives on in the legend of Appalachia, a reputation larger than its presence in modern times: ginseng. This plant was prized as a panacea, a heal-all plant “good for what ails ya”. ‘Sangin, or hunting for ginseng roots, was a source of supplemental income for many early Appalachians, who would look for the slow-growing plant in forests and sell the collected roots by the pound which would eventually be sent overseas to Asia. Like furs, the income from these medicinal plants would help to supplement the meager income of a subsistence farm.

WATERWAYS

Rivers meant life in Appalachia. Trout, bass, and catfish were commonly caught in the many rivers, streams, and lakes, but also crawfish, turtles, and frogs. Water is one of the most essential needs for food, whether drinking, cooking, or cleaning. In addition to providing food and water, rivers were needed for trading routes to swap abundance for wanted items or food, and for hydropower possible through the building of grist mills, which allowed for grinding grain into meal.

The forest provided building materials like wood and stone, which were needed to create the buildings on a working farm such as the smokehouse, barn, or corn crib. Food storage containers were needed long before Tupperware was a household name, and so the forests and rivers provided oak for barrels, reeds for weaving baskets, and clay for pottery. Without these materials, it would have been tedious to gather and harvest food, and food storage through the winter would not have been possible.

Appalachians have long been intertwined with the forest and rivers here for their sustenance and prosperity. Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Sperry. Sources available upon request. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at [email protected] or 828-884-1820.