TennesseeFarmTable.com

Today, we are setting the table with Bluegrass music and food associated with Easter.

We visit with three guests:

- Evie Andrus, Founder of the East TN Bluegrass Association. She will let us know about this association, and also the 3rd annual College Bluegrass Band Showcase at the Pellissippi State Community College - Strawberry Plains Campus - Saturday, April 26th, beginning at 11 am. A Free Event with college bluegrass ensembles from Pellissippi State Community College and the University of Tennessee. Admission is free and they will have food trucks and activities for children. Bring a folding chair. In the event inclement weather the performances will move indoors.

- We also hear from Karen Zorio on the topic of hot cross buns and she will share her recipe.

- And Aliceson Bales of Bales Farm on Greeneville Tennessee shares some history on the deviled egg and her Mother’s deviled egg recipe.

Our first guest is Beth Nelson. She and her husband David own and operate Hoof and Harness (located in Jefferson County) a nonprofit organization that provides therapeutic equine experiences for special needs individuals. Hoof and Harness are hosting a “Cowboy Carnival” April 12, 11- 3 p.m.

Our second guest is Vicki Baumgartner, Trails and Gardens Program Manager for Dogwood Arts. Vicki shares the 70 year history of the Dogwood Trails in Knoxville and Dogwood Arts Bazillion Blooms campaign that keeps the Dogwoods blooming.

John Coykendall on Starting a Spring Garden and Planning for Tomato Sandwiches

Today, we are setting the table with the spring garden and planning for tomato sandwiches.

My guest is Master Gardener, seed, and story saver John Coykendall. We discuss when to put our plants out, a word about the last frost in East TN, ways of planting, and the best seeds to select for our future Tomato sandwiches.

In the second half of the show, John discusses rotating crops and adding nutrition to our garden soil – practicing good stewardship. He also discusses how to grow our crops to avoid cross-pollination and what happens when the varieties cross. I also ask him about how to save tomato and cucumber seeds when the season is over.

John is also an artist and has a pile of journals in which he has written stories in the dialect of people he writes about, along with pencil drawings on the pages of those journals that reflect the stories he writes. There may be a drawing of a method of root vegetable storage under a pile of straw and dirt to stay fresh through the winter from back in the early part of the 20th C. He might have a drawing of a structure that used to stand on his farm in Bybee, TN. Landscapes of places he has visited, drawings of root vegetables and seeds…all sorts of interesting drawings and recordings of people’s lives, wisdom, and dialect. I have added some pictures of John and his drawings from his journals seen in this post.

Today, we are setting the table with a traditional food of Appalachia, “Apple Butter.” Each year in the fall time of the Mountain South, you can find pockets of people who get together, and cook down bushels of apples, sugar, and sometimes cinnamon into this biscuit-slathering favorite. It is one of those old-fashioned foods that is still a favorite on dinner tables near and far and makes a favorite gift for the holidays. Almost as important as the final product is the sense of community and preservation of culinary traditions that these “Apple Butter makings” preserve.

Our featured guest is Derek Blankenship, an Orthopaedic Therapist at an East Tennessee long-term health and health care facility. Derrick and his family keep a family tradition of making apple butter each year at this time of year in Fall Branch, TN. The recipe that they use dates back to 1905.

Fred Sauceman - Professor of Appalachian Studies, ETSU, Johnson City, Tennessee with a 
And also Amy shares a recipe for “Apple Butter Pork Roast” by way of “All Recipes”.

And I (Amy Campbell) also share a recipe for “Apple Butter Pork Roast”, and Fred Sauceman shares a segment of Apple Butter making in the Mountain South, and a recipe for sausage balls with apple butter.

Today we are setting the table with the pig. We visit with Dr. Tom Gallaher of Knoxville. He and his wife Caryn are well-known doctors in Knoxville - and he is also a farmer - and he and his family are hosting the Third Annual Hog Creek Cotillion in Waynesboro TN Saturday, November 9th with an all-day whole hog roast, BBQ, and all the fixings, and live music which benefits two non-profit organizations: Southern Foodways Alliance and the Tunnels to Towers Foundation.

 

And back by popular demand - we also hear from Barry and Aliceson Bales of Bales Farm in Mosheim TN and how Barry smokes his pork shoulder and makes his BBQ Sauce.

Our guests are Rick Riddle of the Winery at Seven Springs Farm, and JD Dalton, Vineyard Manager of Tsali Notch Vineyard, in Monroe County, TN. They will let us know of the history, taste, and the nutritional properties of this ingegenous grape to the South East and both Rick Riddle and JD Dalton will both speak on the topic of Muscadine wine.

I (Amy Campbell) share Minnie Pearl’s recipes for Curry Pickles and Mustard Pickles from her cookbook Minnie Pearl Cooks.

-Fred Sauceman shares a pickle recipe from Distiller Jack Daniel’s great, great, gran niece, Lynne Tolley.

-Who was John Egerton? Elizabeth Simms lets us know who this man was & Robert Gipe tells a humorous story of his days working in a pickle factory. Amy recorded Elizabeth & Robert at the Appalachian Food Summit in September of 2016.

Today, we are setting the table with a discussion about land. Agricultural land, and the problem of the fast disappearance of this land across our country.

Our guest is Brooks Lamb, Author of Love for the Land, Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place. Published through Yale University Press. This book is deeply related to Tennessee, Southern, and American agriculture.

At its core, Love for the Land shares the power and potential of people-place relationships. To do so, the book explores why some small and midsize farmers continue to care for their land, even in the face of tremendous adversity. In terms of adversity, he pays particular attention to farmland loss from sprawl and haphazard development, agricultural consolidation, and, for farmers of color, injustices in the past and present.

Despite these challenges, some small and midsized farmers persevere. In dozens of interviews with farmers in two Tennessee counties, which serve as microcosms of agrarian communities across the country, Brooks found that love for the land and devotion to place -- virtues that align with Wendell Berry's writings on imagination, affection, and fidelity -- fuel their persistence and stewardship. Brooks writes that we need to better support these farmers -- and that we all have something to learn from them, no matter where we live.

Corn, Corn Relish, and Corn Cob Jelly recipes with Rachel Abbott Davis of J and R Farms, plus a beautiful audio essay on corn from author and gardener Kelly Smith Trimble.

Aaron Goss, Founder of the Carolina Malt House located in Cleveland North Carolina. Aaron works with local farmers within 10 miles of the Malt House who grow grains that the Carolina Malt House then makes into different styles of malted grains for breweries. Aaron also works with a Tennessee Farmer in Coffee County Tennessee who grows a specific barley for the Carolina Malt House named Tennessee 2 Row. Several award-winning Tennessee breweries use malts from the Carolina Malt House such as Blackberry Farm Brewery,Tennessee Brew Works, Common John, Yee Haw, and more.