Southern Cast Iron – September 2019

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2019 60

“

ThInKiNg bAcK oN hIsToRy, ApPaLaChIa wAsN’t aN eAsY pLaCe tO lIvE.

I tHiNk pEoPlE mAdE dO wItH wHaT tHeY hAd aNd mAdE tHe bEsT oF iT.

”

—Appalachian native Karl Worley

D

riving through Appalachia in the wee morning hours of

a crisp October day is like stepping back in time. Rolling

fi elds of golden sorghum stalks await their harvest while

time-worn, paint-chipped barns and a patchwork of farms dot

the lush ruby-hued autumnal landscape. In this beautiful corner

of the country, life is slower and days seem longer, and it’s the
present-day pioneers who inhabit the spacious land who keep

the pace.

The Appalachian Regional Commission defi nes Appalachia as

420 counties in 13 states spanning as far north as southern parts of

New York and as far south as portions of Alabama and Mississippi.
But ask most locals and they’ll give you varying answers on what

the region entails; because with its trying history and diverse

population, Appalachia is, in truth, hard to defi ne.

The area was fi rst inhabited by Native Americans who were
mainly split into two groups—the Iroquois and the Cherokees.

It’s believed that Hernando de Soto or his fellow explorers

named the Appalachian Mountain range on an expedition during

the 1500s. In search of back country to grow their settlements
and trade businesses, Europeans began arriving in the area,

bombarding the land that Native Americans had inhabited and

hunted for generations. Confl ict arose as Europeans forced these

tribes out of their homes, beginning the Cherokee War in 1758.
By 1761, outmanned and outgunned, the Native Americans were

defeated by the British and expelled from the land they’d always

known. This continued for decades with the signing of the Indian

Removal Act and consequently, the Trail of Tears. Without the

knowledge of how Native Americans lived sustainably off the

land, the European settlers had to learn how to live in a new

foreign frontier.

Back then, self-suffi ciency and community were the only ways

to survive.

“Thinking back on history, Appalachia wasn’t an easy place to

live,” says Karl Worley, Appalachian native and owner of Nashville

restaurant Biscuit Love. “I think people made do with what they

had and made the best of it. They focused on things that could

travel well and feed the family.”

Families had livestock they would butcher for meat and

gardens that grew every fruit and vegetable that fi lled their

supper plates. At this time, this lifestyle was common in

settlements across the United States, but in Appalachia, it would

remain like this for much longer.

Cookbook author, chef, and musician Susi Gott Séguret’s

parents moved to Appalachia in 1961 when the region was in

another period of transition. Large-scale supermarkets hadn’t

quite made an appearance, but their time was soon approaching.

And as stores began to emerge across the country, home gardens

and self-reliance started to take a back seat. People began taking

jobs in cities and soon turned to grocery stores to supply the

foods they once grew. But given Appalachia's isolated areas,

urbanization was a much slower process there.