This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society advancing the interests of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.

Thoughtful, functional, beautiful Berry Home Centers can design your dream kitchen, we focus on customer service so you can focus on what matters.

Serving Southwest Virginia for more than 50 years and now the New River and Roanoke Valleys.

[Jay Prater] Virginia's Appalachia, rich in culture and tradition, and largely misunderstood by outsiders.

The region is a bridge from the past to the present.

This series will explore local legend and lore, mixed with the science and skill you'll only find in Virginia's Appalachia.

Today, we explore Appalachian cooking, with four distinct flavors from each corner of the region.

We start at the very tip of the Commonwealth, with Travis Milton, head chef at Nicewonder Farm and Vineyards in Bristol, Virginia, for his spin on Appalachian cuisine.

Travis Milton, born and raised in Castlewood, Virginia, is head chef at Nicewonder's signature restaurant, Hickory, located in Bristol, Virginia.

His love for cooking started with shucking beans at his great-grandparents' motel restaurant, The Village, when he was nine years old.

He continued his passion for cooking, staging at different notable restaurants across the United States.

He specializes in enhancing Appalachian techniques and cuisines with his dishes.

Travis has become an advocate for Appalachian cuisine, the people, and the culture.

-I'm Travis Milton.

I am executive chef and culinary director at Nicewonder Properties, which includes Hickory Restaurant, where we are right now, Taste, and The Virginian across the street.

[♪♪♪♪♪] You know, for me, it's a cuisine that's really kind of ever-evolving and ever-creative, because it's a cuisine that's really, in a food way, that's really kind of born out of subsistence.

Kind of like the old adage of necessity is the mother of creativity, or invention, so goes subsistence, you know.

It's having to make do with what you have and, you know, make something really good out of it.

And that's kind of where Appalachian food kind of comes from and has evolved.

That combined with it's one of the first melting pots, historically, in the country.

It was the first kind of melding of so many different cultures, immigrant cultures, Indigenous cultures, slave cultures.

You know, it's really kind of started off pretty, an amazing, weird amalgamation, and it just kind of, the ball's kept rolling as it's gone along.

[♪♪♪♪♪] The beginnings of Appalachian foodways in general, and I guess cuisine as well, really kind of started with the melding of a bunch of different immigrant cultures.

And there's a little bit of a misconception of, you know, not that there wasn't a strong, or at least a presence of Scots-Irish, but like in Central Appalachia here, one of the predominant immigrant cultures is actually Eastern European, and with that comes a lot of influences that people don't realize that are actually rooted in Eastern European, German, or even Jewish cultures.

Mining and some of the more extractive industries kind of took over in Appalachia, really started to kind of snowball in different ways.

Like, Appalachia is a very, very diverse and large region, and it's-- there's another big misconception that it's kind of a monoculture, but if you look at how big it is, it stretches from, you know, parts of New York all the way down to the tips of Georgia and other parts of the South, and within that, you've got different terrains, different seasonality, different industries, and within that comes different levels of subsistence.

And here centrally, it was really kind of the melding of those cultures that I mentioned earlier.

One of the things I feel so strongly about with Appalachian food is that it's a way for us to kind of grasp our own narrative and tell the story from us.

Because not just has there been extractive industry, but there's been, you know, extractive storytelling where there's other outlets and other places telling our story for us, whether it be the New York Times or whoever-- I don't want to trash whatever, but it's always been somebody outside of Appalachia telling everyone what Appalachia is.

And, you know, these different foods are all intrinsically ours, and we can really kind of grasp our ability to control that narrative through our food.

It's like-- it's so rooted in the people and kind of the culture of Appalachia, which was very not monetary or thing-based.

It was very person-based.

It was, you know, so-and-so down the road is growing beans, and I'm going to grow a different bean, and we can swap seeds, and we can do this.

So there's always been this very kind of reliance on each other, and I think that shows through the food, especially when you look at some of the heirloom varietals that are so foundationally important to Appalachian foodways, or the techniques, you know.

These are things that are passed down through families, that you don't just learn these by picking up a cookbook.

And I think that's the thing that has always kept me very engaged, like being able to add my chapter to this book of what my family has done, you know, and the sacrifices that have been made to get to this point.

Like, I owe it to them to like honor and to carry it on, but also to not grasp their narrative, but to spotlight it and provide my own kind of point of view.

[Jay Prater] Food trucks are becoming a regular sight on Appalachian roads.

One in particular is a perfect example of the blending of cultures found in the region.

Meet Mohsin and Katlin, owners and operators of food truck The Pakalachian.

-So, The Pakalachian food truck started when Katlin and I were kind of brainstorming something entrepreneurial that we could do that would contribute to our community and kind of make it more vibrant.

And we ended up deciding on a food truck, a fusion food truck, that serves Pakistani and Appalachian food.

Katlin's from Russell County, Virginia, and my family's originally from Pakistan.

And when we got married, Katlin would feed me her food and kind of educate me on what Appalachian food was, and I would do the same with Pakistani food.

And what did we do from there?

[Katlin] From there, we put our leftovers together and started serving it to people who really enjoyed it.

We did a lot of test runs on our friends and family.

They were interested in what we were doing because we had this idea and we were like, "Okay, let's make it something."

And so, they got to trial run, and thus was born The Pakalachian food truck.

[Mohsin] Yeah.

-So we grow a portion of it and everything else is sourced locally to the best that we can, right.

So we have a goal, as a food truck, to source as much as possible locally.

Whether that's from local growers, our own garden, you know, we have-- we've always held that mentality because there is something very valuable about supporting people in your community.

It strengthens it.

It keeps the money that you're making here, which is invaluable in the long term.

[Mohsin] And then from a biodiversity perspective, Appalachia has so many heirloom vegetables and seeds that we can use in our food that almost makes the food much more personal and much more... it makes the food much more... [Katlin] It speaks to the cultural element of the truck, right?

The thing we're trying to also include is a little bit of both of our cultures in this.

Yes, we're serving it through food, but it's more than that, right?

And I think bringing those little pieces in is what gives people a glimpse of that.

[Mohsin] Yeah.

It's really important to mention that, you know, Pakistan and Appalachia, Punjab, the region my family's from, is they're both agricultural societies.

And I grew up watching my mother and father plant seeds that they brought from Pakistan that, you know, was from their neighborhood of squash and bitter gourd and different plants.

-[Katlin] Karela.

-[Mohsin] Yeah.

And Katlin's family did the same thing.

So it's just so wonderful to be able to combine those two regions in our garden, growing in that same soil.

In order for a dish on our food truck to be considered Pakalachian, it has to be 50 percent Pakistani and 50 percent Appalachian.

So a great example is the first dish we ever served, which is called Curry Me Down South.

That's a chicken curry, a tomato-based chicken curry piled on mashed potatoes.

In Pakistan, that's traditionally served with, you know, rice instead of potatoes, but it's just the perfect vessel to ride that flavor all the way through the food.

Another one I really enjoy is fried green tomato pakoras.

Pakora is like a rainy day dish that my mom would make.

She'd open up the fridge, see what was available, and throw it all together in a batter with chickpea flour.

Yeah.

-[Katlin] I love that dish.

-[Mohsin] And just being able to create a dish out of necessity because we don't want to waste is transcendent of both of our cultures.

Just not being wasteful.

-Absolutely.

We also have Born And Cornbread, which is a saag dish.

It's typically made with mustard greens, but we make it with collard because that's a traditional, you know, Southwest Virginia green.

And we put that with a creamy, really, no-cheese grits with cornbread on top.

So that's Born And Cornbread is a dish we serve.

We also serve Tikka My Senses.

It's a tikka marinated, probably in like, at this point, 30-plus spices and various things, that we marinate and we fry and serve as a sandwich, a fried chicken sandwich.

So tandoori chicken is traditionally, or tikka chicken, is typically barbecued, but we do it, you know, Southern style in like a fried chicken sandwich with seasoned fries.

And there's so much here, right?

There's so much, there's so many processes involved with Appalachian cooking, and I don't think we give that enough credit sometimes because we've, it's kind of transitioned over time what Appalachian cooking is versus what it maybe used to be.

So we really try to get back to what it used to be, more so than what it's kind of transitioned into over time.

So some of those processes that are involved in like old-school Appalachian cooking, we try to bring some of those back as we're making and creating these dishes.

You know, we have notebooks of ideas for this truck, but it's only so big.

You know, it's only ten-foot long, you can only put so many items in it.

But almost-- we were, we are so, we are always so surprised about how these two flavors come together so nicely, and almost seamlessly.

They tend to integrate into each other way easier than one might expect.

-You know, so while we try to support our local economy, we also try to support biodiversity, and we do that by trying to use as many heirloom seeds as possible.

A really fun part about growing up was watching my parents grow heirloom seeds from Pakistan.

And then seeing what Katlin's family grows at home is just exciting.

And what's the best part about growing heirloom seeds is that every seed contains genetic information that will be lost if it is not planted and made, if it's not planted and their life cycle is not completed.

So just by planting these seeds and saving one fruit every year to actually plant for the following year, we're protecting this genetic information, and we're protecting heritage and culture that has been supported for thousands of years.

So, just knowing that we're kind of paying homage to our ancestors and making sure that these flavors are preserved over time is something that I hope to pass on to our kids one day.

I tend to see different things in this culture, in this region, that I really wish I had growing up, and one of those things is community.

We kind of live in a time period where people are anxious to go outside and they're anxious to, you know, socialize in public and in different places for whatever reasons they may be.

And I really, I think that when we park the food truck, we're trying to give people an excuse to just get together.

We want waiting in line to be exciting and fun and have people talk to each other about what they're doing, how they're doing.

I'd like to live in a community, and I'd like to live with all sorts of people in that community and know what's going on, and just be able to wave and say hi.

And I think as long as we can preserve that part of Appalachian culture, and really that part of rural culture.

[Katlin] And there's a genuineness to that, right?

We want people to come to our truck.

We don't want it to feel like it's a commercialized, you know, venture.

We really feel like the people in this area are special in that they are unique and they really, if they ask you how you're doing, it's because they care about how you're doing.

Not because it's, you know, this cordial response to seeing you in public, I think.

And I have always tried to, we have always tried to embody that on our food truck as well.

That genuineness that we love about this place, we want to put that on four wheels, you know, driving down the road and then parking at an event.

We want people to feel that when they come to the truck, and it incorporates that community element.

-Absolutely.

And just honoring traditions, right?

So if someone comes and says, "I have a case of quail eggs, would you be willing to trade?"

[Katlin] He's saying that because we've done that.

We've also traded for turmeric.

We've traded for tickets to events.

Like, we can name off the barter system that we've implemented.

-[Mohsin] Yeah, it's truly-- -[Katlin] It's wild.

-We try to run our business.

We try to run our business in a way that makes people feel comfortable.

And it's not always about money.

It's sometimes about having a good story and making a good connection and making a trade.

Because sometimes people grow things and that's their currency.

And we are big supporters of that.

And just making sure people feel comfortable to walk up to the truck and ask you anything.

And I think that openness is what Appalachia is all about.

It's what spreading your immigrant culture is all about.

And it's just we got really lucky that the Pakalachian was a vessel to express that.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [Jay Prater] Our next stop, Cuz's Uptown Barbecue in Cedar Bluff, Virginia.

We sat down with Yvonne to learn how she and her late husband created a top-notch barbecue joint that also blends Appalachian and Chinese cuisine.

But as far as the recipes go... -I'm Yvonne Thompson.

My Chinese name is Qiu Yi Thompson.

I'm the owner of Cuz's.

I do everything from running the restaurant to baking, cooking, shopping, all the good stuff.

It was 1979.

My husband Mike and I decided to open a little restaurant, a little barbecue restaurant.

Back then, it wasn't the most popular thing to do.

But we converted a gas tank, an oil tank, into the barbecue pit and bought some used equipment and started in the milk bottling plant of the barn.

And we had four tables, and people started coming and lining up on the weekends.

So then we expanded a couple years later into the barn, cleaned up all the hay, cleaned up the silo, and put tables over, and we've been in business since 1979.

It all grew organically.

We didn't plan this.

Our first menu had barbecue sandwiches and grits, country ham and red-eye gravy.

Back then, it was like $1.25 for a sandwich.

But then we decided we would throw in something different, and I made egg rolls.

I made 40 egg rolls a week.

Now we're making 500 egg rolls a week.

And through the years the menu just changed and grew as we ate all over the world, and customers would grow with us.

And so we started doing seafood, making crab cakes.

And like today's menu, our specials this week is shrimp and grits and Pad Thai with chicken.

So it's just whatever we want to make.

We're very fortunate to have a very appreciative customer base.

They love it, and they would try anything we make.

I remember when we first brought filet satays on the menu, people didn't even know what are satays.

It's a Thai dish, and we had it in Thailand and loved it, then came back and we put our own little twist to it.

We used filet instead of just any kind of beef, and made it really tender and have a really good seasoning that we put on the satays.

And people, they didn't know what a satay was and now they say, "We want some of this, satay, satay."

[laughs] My husband did a lot of the original cooking recipes, you know, the crab cakes.

I had the egg roll recipe that I learned from my uncle's Chinese restaurant in St. Louis when I first came to this country.

So we just developed them through the years.

Sometimes it's what we ate and really liked, and if you have that idea of what it should taste like and you try to reach that taste.

So it's kind of tricky, but then it's also very easy.

Nothing's new under the sun.

I'm sure all the recipes have been tried and tried everywhere before.

But sometimes, we put a little new twist on it.

At the front door, there's a sign that my husband painted and it says, "We ain't got no recipe."

[laughs] And we don't-- I remember we won a-- one of our recipes for the creamy crab soup was in a magazine.

And to get that recipe, we actually had to learn over and cut it down, cut down the proportion and figure out what do we-- how much do we really put in there?

We don't know.

It's usually a little dash of that and a little drop of this, so.

But a lot of it is just based on good taste and whatever tastes good, it doesn't matter what country it's from, what region it's from, people are going to love it and it will take off.

There's a draw about this area that makes you just love it.

But through the years, I grew more and more fond of the place.

So now, I don't think I'll ever move back to the city.

The people are just so nice and kind and there's such a spirit around here.

There's the culture of raising your own food, the beautiful mountains, the green pastures.

It's just really pretty.

And sometimes I don't appreciate it enough until when we have people stay in the cabins and they come to this area for the first time in Southwest Virginia and just brag and brag about how beautiful the area is.

This is a generational restaurant.

We had seen these people come in as children, and now they are bringing their children and even grandchildren.

It's hard to believe.

I guess we're just an institution.

And it would be hard to say, "Oh, I want to retire and close it down."

I mean, that would be, it's like, you don't close a museum down.

I mean, I don't want to brag about ourselves like that, but it's steadfast and it's important to the community now.

[Jay Prater] About 75 miles up the road, Castlewood, Virginia, is where we find Linda Skeens, an Appalachian grandma who's been cooking for the people she loves and taking home the highest honors from country fairs for decades.

- Hi, my name's Linda Skeens and I live in Castlewood, Virginia.

And I was actually born in Dante, Virginia, a little coal mining town.

And my dad was a coal miner.

There were seven kids in our family.

And the Appalachian cooking came from my mother and my mother-in-law.

Now they had to grow a garden and can all their stuff that they fed the kids with.

And we ate a lot of that stuff out of the garden, and it was really good stuff.

And I've been married almost 59 years to my husband, Frank.

We have three kids.

We have six grandkids and two great-grandkids.

And we've been just, I enjoy cooking for my family.

I've been doing it for years, and I have me a new cookbook out now.

It's called Linda Skeens Blue Ribbon Kitchen .

And I'd always wanted to do a cookbook and never had a chance.

And it's been exciting.

The last year has been very exciting.

And I've got to meet a lot of nice people.

Got to do a lot of-- cook a lot of foods for a lot of things, and I've really enjoyed it.

And today, I'm going to do a cornbread salad for you.

And it's in my cookbook.

And I've already got the cornbread made because it takes 30 minutes to bake and I wanted to get it done before you guys got here.

And you just take your cornbread and crumble it up like this right here.

And cornbread was part of my life.

My mom, we had cornbread and biscuits every day, and we had gravy almost every day.

Because that was just part of the food back then.

Now to make this you take, put part of your cornbread right in here.

And all of my recipes in my cookbook are good food but they're simple, easy to make, and you can go to the store and find anything you need to make them.

After you put your layer of cornbread, gotta spread your layer of soup beans across here.

These are just Luck's Pinto canned beans.

You can cook them if you want, but these are just as easy and they're just as good.

And it takes three cans of them.

Then you put a layer of green onions chopped up.

Layer a large green pepper chopped.

And a cucumber.

This one's fresh out of the garden, the cucumber.

Someone gave it to me, so it makes it even more better.

I love fresh stuff.

Then you do a fresh tomato, a big one, chopped up.

A 15-ounce can of corn, whole kernel corn, and you drain it.

Sprinkle your corn right on here like this here.

I like all my stuff to be easy but still taste good.

And the next thing we do, we put another layer of cornbread, because you make two layers.

And then we take some more soup beans.

And most people raised in the South know what soup beans my mama used to cook them with.

She'd either have ham or salt pork.

And you know what salt pork is; most people do anyway.

It's like fatback, I call it fatback.

But it's that.

Then we're going to put the rest of our green onions.

Spread them on there.

This is like a whole meal really in a meal because you have everything in it.

You have your bread, your beans, and your vegetables, and it's like-- I love it best when it's chilled for about an hour though.

But you could eat it straight here.

It's done, it's ready to eat, you know.

If you wanted to, you could.

I like to put it in the fridge and chill it for just a little.

Oops, dropped one.

Rest of our corn.

Can't go wrong with corn.

I think corn's a good dessert-- or a good vegetable.

Next, we take Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing.

Get it open we will.

I like to use a generous-- somebody told me once I used too much ranch dressing, but I don't think there's no such thing.

You want enough of it to saturate your cornbread, and just go in there and give it a good.... Then, two cups of cheddar cheese, just a mild cheddar cheese, goes on the top.

[♪♪♪♪♪] And our cornbread salad is done.

And this is what it looks like.

And it's very easy, very tasty, and it makes a big batch.

I used to make them for church, for potluck dinners.

So I grew up on food like that, and I love it.

And I hope the cookbook will encourage more people to get back into cooking stuff like this, and canning and things because I think, I'm 75 and I think with my generation, when we're gone, I don't think people's going to know how to do it if it's not taught to people or younger people like you guys.

[♪♪♪♪♪] [music fades out] This program is brought to you by the generous support of The Secular Society advancing the interests of women in the arts in Virginia and beyond.

Thoughtful, functional, beautiful Berry Home Centers can design your dream kitchen, we focus on customer service so you can focus on what matters.

Serving Southwest Virginia for more than 50 years and now the New River and Roanoke Valleys.