Edible Blue Ridge Fall 2022

one pitched in to do the considerable amount of work that was required. People spoke fond ly of the resulting foods; their words and the expressions on their faces at the memory of taste and gathering assured me that the work of keeping and butchering the hogs was well worth the effort. In a way, Butchering Day seemed a kind of linchpin that kept the fam ily fed, not just in body, but in spirit as well. The practice of working together to celebrate and make available the energy of the earth –– that, to me, sounds like the best kind of Thanks-giving. Pon hoss is the lesser-known, southern cousin of scrapple –– a Pennsylvania-Dutch delicacy of pork bits and cornmeal. There are very few people who still make pon hoss these days, and in Highland County Fern and Glen Heatwole might be the only ones. So special a food is it that Glen Heatwole told me a story of an old man who called him up at their store (Sugar Tree Country Store & Sugarhouse, McDowell, VA) one day: “I heard you still make a good pon hoss and I want to order some by mail,” he said. “Could you send it to where I live now in Florida?” He was 94 years old and had heard from the doctor that he only had so much longer to live. He said that the only thing he wanted to make sure he had before he died was a taste of good old pon hoss, the real thing. So Heat wole wrapped him up a few precious loaves and sent them off to Florida. The man called back, thoroughly happy and complimentary of the pon hoss. Heatwole heard that he passed away not long after. To make pon hoss is to also butcher a hog. The process cannot really be done in dependently if the product is to be the true thing, worthy of an old Highland County man’s memory-infused taste. The various stages of making pon hoss correspond with the stages of butchering and it is therefore a day-long process. Pon hoss is made in a large copper kettle, like apple butter. As you butcher the hog, all the bones that you remove are tossed into the kettle with water to boil. Throughout the day, bones are added and the pot boils away, extracting the meat, grease and flavor and creating a strong stock. At the end of the day, the bones and bits are strained out.

Any remaining meat is stripped off the bones and set aside for “puddings”* (to make scrap ple, this meat would be put back into the mixture; pon hoss does not include the meat bits, only the leftover stock). In the remaining stock, add a mixture of 2 parts cornmeal and 1 part flour and stir constantly until it thick ens to a cake batter-like consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into bread pans and freeze. Later, cut the loaves into slices and pan fry them in lard or but ter. Delicious with apple butter, applesauce or maple syrup on top.

My own small home batch of sauerkraut is not ready yet. Soon, we will taste it, and when we do, we’ll be eating the spring, eating the late days of winter in which I seeded the cab bage, eating alongside the spirits of the folks who taught me this recipe. These stories and recipes were originally collected as part of a project completed dur ing a fellowship with the Allegheny Mountain Institute. Thank you to the beautiful, wise folks who shared their traditions with me, and gave me permission to reproduce them for this article. Thanks especially to Cappie Hull, my mentor and community connector in the collection process.

* “Puddings meat” is made with these leftover meat bits, lard and salt and pepper.

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