molly mooching 77litical debate insistently poses economic success and environmental
health as enemies, permanently at odds. Loggers or owls? People or green
spaces? The presumed antagonism between “Man” and “Nature” is deeply
rooted in our politics, culture, bedtime stories (Red Riding Hood’s
grandma, or the wolf?), and maybe even our genes. But farming at its best
optimizes both economic and environmental health at the same time. A
strategy that maximizes either one at the cost of the other is a fair working
defi nition of bad farming. The recent popularity of agriculture that dam-
ages soil fertility still does not change the truth: what every farmer’s fam-
ily needs is sustainability, the capacity to coax productiveness out of the
same plot of ground year after year. Successful partnerships between peo-
ple and their habitats were once the hallmark of a healthy culture. After
a profoundly land- altering hiatus, the idea may be regaining its former
shine.
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The people of southern Appalachia have a long folk tradition of using
our woodlands creatively and knowing them intimately. The most carica-
tured livelihood, of course, is the moonshine still hidden deep in the hol-
low, but that is not so much about the woodlands as the farms; whiskey
was once the most practical way to store, transport, and add value to the
small corn crops that were grown here.
These hills have other secrets. One of them is a small, feisty cousin of
garlic known as the ramp. Appalachian mothers used to regard these little
bulbs as a precious spring tonic—one that schoolboys took willingly be-
cause it rendered them so odoriferous, they’d likely get barred from the
schoolhouse for several days. For reasons not entirely clear to the out-
sider, ramps are still prized by those who know where to find them in the
earliest days of spring. The emergence of ramps elicits joyous, stinky ramp
festivals throughout the region.
Ginseng, another Appalachian botanical curiosity, is hunted and dug
up for its roots, which sell for enormous prices to consumers on the other
side of the world. “Sang” hunters know where to look, and tend to keep
their secrets. So do Molly Mooch hunters, and if you think you’ve never
heard of such, you just don’t know the code. A Molly Mooch is a morel.