Appalachian Word of the Week -- WHATTY-NOTTIES

Whether you call them WHATTY-NOTTIES or whatnots, trinkets, collectibles or even chachkies, every Appalachian home seems to have a generous supply.

A WHATTY-NOTTY is any item you stick on a shelf, in a cabinet, in the corner, on a table, or anywhere else you can find a spot large enough to stuff it and it has no purpose than to sit there and collect dust.

I will never forget my mother getting out on Friday and Saturday mornings to scrounge up and down the hollers to find yard sales so she could acquire more of her precious WHATTY-NOTTIES. No stop was complete unless she found a new treasure. The good news is that they rarely cost more than 25 cents. Although, I did see her spending much more for a particularly fabulous find. Fabulous in her eyes, that is.

One of the benefits of always having a huge supply of WHATTY-NOTTIES is that you have available pickings for a quick gift for a friend or relative.

Whenever we visited Great Aunt Mamie in Lafollette, Tennessee, Mom had to work her way through the house searching for just the right WHATTY-NOTTY to take to her as a gift. From the looks of Aunt Mamie’s house, she had a lot of visitors.

In Mom’s latter years, she attempted to filter out some of the less loved WHATTY-NOTTIES from her minuscule apartment. Problem is, just as she gifted twenty or thirty WHATTY-NOTTIES to friends, or took them to the senior center to be used as Bingo prizes, she would have the opportunity to visit a yard sale or flea market and the shelves would bulge again.

I don’t know if it’s a regional thing that Appalachian women must fill their homes with items most people consider ugly, senseless, and worthless or if it’s a result of being in an economically depressed area. Of course, it could be because women need “things” to feel worthwhile.

Whatever the reason, WHATTY-NOTTIES are here to stay.

Including the WHATTY-NOTTIES we think will increase in value some day...

Why, even some of our favorite restaurants decorate every available spot with WHATTY-NOTTIES, too.

Cracker Barrel

The Bubble Room on Sanibel Island

The Bubble Room on Sanibel Island

I hate to admit it, but I have a “few” WHATTY-NOTTIES in my house as well. However, I have a rule. It only stays if I can sell it to buy food or if I love it so much it makes me smile when I look at it.

So, how many WHATTY-NOTTIES have taken over your house? What’s your favorite? And which one is so ugly you don’t know why you haven’t thrown it away. I would love to see your photos!

TWEETABLE
#Appalachian word of the week - Whatty Notty - @karennolanbell (click to tweet)

Appalachian Word of the Week -- CORNPONE

This week's word is sure to make your mouth water. A CORNPONE is how we refer to a pan of cornbread.

Now, in the mountains, we don’t make our cornbread like the Yankees do. They use yellow cornmeal instead of our mill-ground white cornmeal and add sugar to it. It may taste good for dessert, but our cornbread goes with the main meal. Or IS the meal for some of us. Adding sugar to cornbread is like adding sugar to grits. Yuck.

Nothing beats my granny’s cornbread, baked in her iron skillet in her coal-fired cook stove. But, it’s passable to use a modern oven or even cook it on top of the stove. You must, however, use an iron skillet if you want to make it more authentic.

Photo taken at the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, KY

Here’s my granny’s recipe:

Put some bacon grease (or butter, if you don’t keep your bacon grease for cooking) in the bottom of your skillet (black, iron skillet) and put it in the oven (set to 400 if you’re using a modern stove) to heat up while you mix your ingredients.

Put some self-rising flour and a little less meal in a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and an egg. Stir in just enough buttermilk to make a thick batter. Just stir it enough to get the lumps out, don’t over-stir it. (Granny never measured. She used her eye to make sure it looked right.)

Take the heated skillet out of the oven and pour the heated bacon grease (or butter) right into the mixture and mix it in. She also melted a couple of tablespoons of bacon grease or butter and put it right on top after she put the mixture into the skillet. Bake it until it’s golden brown (Start eyeing it after about 25 minutes).

If you need a more detailed recipe, you can try this one:

2 cups of cornmeal

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon of table salt (a pinch)

1 large egg

1 ¼ to 1 ½ cups of buttermilk

2 tablespoons of bacon grease for batter, plus 3 for the skillet

Preheat oven to 400°.

Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of bacon grease to your iron skillet and put in the oven, set to 400.

In a large mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients. Stir.

Add egg. Then add 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk, but if it seems too dry I add another 1/4 cup. Stir sparingly. Batter should be moist, not runny like pancakes. If it looks too wet add just a little more cornmeal.

When the skillet is good and hot, remove it from oven with a good thick pot holder. Add the melted bacon grease/butter to the batter and stir just enough to mix it in. Add batter to the skillet and stick it in the oven.

Bake until the edges turn golden brown (Check after about 25 minutes. Don’t go past 35 minutes or you might burn the bottom. If you’re not sure if it’s done, stick a toothpick in it like you would a cake.

Make sure you use that potholder when you remove it from the oven. Iron skillets get really hot! And they’re heavy.

If you want to fancy up your CORNPONE, there are a few common ingredients you can add.

CORN – Drain a can of corn (or some of your own canned corn) and add it to the mix. Make sure you don’t get too much juice in it or it will be too runny. If you want to add creamed corn, back off on the buttermilk a bit.

CRACKLINS – You may be wondering what a cracklin is. It’s the fried skin of a pig, after the lard is rendered from it. Adds a tasty excitement to your CORNPONE.

A cornpone with cracklins

 CHITLINS – Chitlins (Chitterlings) come from pigs, too. Before you get too grossed out, remember that sausages are made by squeezing the sausage meat into a pig’s intestine. Didn’t know you’d been eating them for years, did you? But, chitlins are cleaned thoroughly and then cooked. Mighty tasty, if you can stomach it.

 ACCOMPANIMENTS WITH YOUR CORNPONE:

My favorite way to eat cornbread as a child was crumbled into a glass of buttermilk. My dad and I loved having it for breakfast or a late-night snack.

Other things that just seem to belong on a plate with a chunk of cornbread are soup beans, tomatoes from the garden, green onions, any kind of soup, and fried chicken.

Of course, no piece of cornbread from your CORNPONE is complete without a slathering of fresh cow’s butter.

I would open it up, piping hot from the oven, and add a bit more butter

Are you hungry yet? Have you ever made a CORNPONE? If not, it’s not too late.

Appalachian Word of the Week -- MESS

My Appalachian word this week is MESS.

Although there are several uses of the word “mess” in Appalachia, and I have been told many times that I am one of those types of mess

and have been responsible for leaving another type of mess, 

the one I am concentrating on this week refers to a MESS of food.

A MESS is the amount of a food item you gather for a meal. The size of a MESS varies, according to the number of people who will be eating the meal. That means a MESS for just me is much smaller than a group of six people. A group of twelve or more would require an even larger MESS.

Although a MESS can refer to a variety of food items, in my family it generally referred to green beans, Swiss chard, tomatoes, green onions, or any other food we grew in our garden. It also referred to wild blackberries or other berries.

However, in my household, we also gathered a MESS of uncultivated greens from our yard.

Last week I told you about poke, but there are several other greens available. Greens that aren't as potentially toxic.

Poke

My mother regularly sent me out into the yard to collect plantin’, dandelions, and violets to cook up a good MESS of greens for dinner.

Plantin'

Wild Violets

Dandelions

She cleaned them up (you never knew which critter had stopped for a visit), trimmed them, and threw them into a pot of boiling salted water to cook. In an area where fresh vegetables were usually limited to what you had on hand, the variety of wild greens was a healthy change to the regular menu and extended the supply of canned vegetables from the previous year.

Have you ever eaten the weeds from your yard? If so, what did you serve up?

Appalachian Word of the Week -- POKE

My Appalachian word this week is POKE.

This one might be a tad confusing to non-mountain folks. There are two kinds of POKES we refer to in the mountains.

The first kind of POKE is the one you get when you go shopping for your groceries. The paper type, that is. Some of you may call it a sack or a bag. In my part of the country we called it a POKE.

You know the term “pig in a poke”? Well, that’s what the POKE is. Aren’t you glad you finally know what they’re talking about?

There’s also another type of POKE. It’s a green leafy plant that grows wild, uncultivated. In my hometown of Harlan, Kentucky, we even have a POKE Sallet Festival every June to celebrate the POKE weed. If you don’t know what a SALLET is, come back next week to find out.

Special thanks to Corinne Farley for this photo

There’s an important secret about POKE before you go out, gather the plants, and eat them on your own. It’s TOXIC. Yep, it can make you quite ill and can even kill you. Because of that, you need to know exactly how to harvest and prepare POKE to keep from killing anyone.

Here is the link to a Youtube video showing how to harvest and prepare POKE properly.

Most of the people I know add scrambled eggs to their POKE. It can be a tad bitter and the eggs calm down the flavor.

Here’s the Poke Sallet Recipe

1.    Remove Poke leaves from plant

2.    Rinse Pokeweed leaves in cool water

3.    Bring leaves to rolling boil in large pot for 20 minutes

4.    Pour leaves into sieve (colander) and rinse in cool water

5.    Repeat Steps 3 and 4 two more times

6.    Panfry Poke leaves for a couple of minutes in bacon grease

7.    Add crushed bacon, salt and pepper to taste (or add and scramble eggs)

8.    Serve and enjoy

One more secret of the POKE weed plant. As the season progresses, purplish berries appear on the top of the plant. Those berries seem to be the most toxic part of the plant. If you put a berry into your mouth and chew it, you will probably die.

However, some Granny Women and current day natural medical practitioners swear by the healing qualities of those POKE berries if they are swallowed whole without biting or chewing.

Feeling lucky? Me either. I’ll leave the whole POKE plant to someone else to risk, thank you.

So, do you think you would ever try POKE sallet? If so, I recommend you travel to Harlan, Kentucky next June and try it at the POKE Sallet Festival. Check out their website at: 

http://www.pokesalletfestival.com/. 

Make sure you choose a vendor with a long line of repeat customers.

Appalachian Word of the Week - Conveyors

This week's word is CONVEYORS. The conveyor is how miners got coal from an underground mine to the coal tipple (that we talked about last week). I've seen conveyors that stretched from the entrance to the mine all the way down the side of the mountain to the tipple. I've even seen one near Pineville, KY that crossed the main road.

Crummies, KY conveyor stretching down the mountain to the tipple

Although trucks can also be used to transport the coal, I remember how fascinated I was watching the coal travel along the conveyor and drop into the bin of the tipple, to then be released into a train car. Most conveyors are enclosed, though, so the coal doesn't slip off.

Benito Mine, Benito, KY

You may wonder how the coal gets to the conveyor from where it’s mined.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity of visiting a coal mine and seeing for myself how coal is, or was, mined. That mine is no longer in operation.

As I did some research for a novel set in the Appalachian coal fields, I took a tour of Portal 31 in Lynch, Kentucky in Harlan County. I climbed into a people mover as it drove us into the mine and down further and further. Not a great experience for anyone who is claustrophobic. 

People mover that takes miners (visitors) deep into the mine

My tour guide who I discovered was a former classmate. We've both changed a lot in 40 years.

One of the vignettes with a mule. That ceiling didn't make me feel safe.

A map of all the tunnels through the mountain. 

Some equipment needed in the mines

Along the way, we stopped at vignettes of life in a coal mine from the early days of mining there. The days when they had mules to pull the coal out of the mine. We also saw the early methods of getting the coal out of the mountain using dynamite and pick axes. Those were the days when fancy gadgets didn’t help shore up the roof to keep it from collapsing on them and they had no modern devices to alert them to gas. It was especially dangerous since they used caps with carbide lamps to light the way. Those flames could be fatal if gas was present.

Miner from Lejunior Mine

I remember my dad used a carbide miners cap to go frog gigging at night. I miss those days of fresh bullfrog legs for dinner.

When the coal was extracted from the mountain, it was then transported by cart (motorized in modern days, mule-powered in the older days) through the tunnels and outside the mine to the CONVEYER.

The CONVEYER was started up, the coal was loaded onto it, and it carried the blocks up or down the mountain to the tipple.

I won’t get political about it, but mining today has changed from just the deep mine method. There is also strip mining for seams of coal near the surface. However, the one that breaks my heart, since I'm a girl from the mountains, is mountaintop removal. It’s sad to see the tops of my beautiful mountains and the forests that once covered them completely wiped out to reach the coal. Yes, they are forced to replant when they are finished removing all the coal available, but I can’t help but think it is very much like what happens with a mastectomy. The coal is gone, but so is much of the tissue. All that’s left are the scars and the memories.

Coal mining seems to be disappearing from the mountains, though. Men and women have lost their jobs and have few to no opportunities to provide for their families. The economic and social make-up of the area is deteriorating.

It breaks my heart. But, true mountain people always find a way to survive. Above the fog, the sun still shines. Beneath the mist, the mountains still stand—even if they are a tad damaged in spots. There’s always hope for tomorrow.

Photo by Author Sandra Aldrich

Appalachian Word of the Week -- PUMPKNOT

My Appalachian word this week is PUMPKNOT.

A PUMPKNOT is what you get when your head bangs into something it oughtn’t. At high velocity. You may call it a “bump” or a “goose egg” instead of pumpknot. But, that’s what my family always called them.

Real Goose Eggs

My sister had a gift for getting pumpknots. I remember one time she was running crazy through the house (which of course we were told not to do) and she flew head-first into the Stokermatic stove that sat in the middle of the living room floor. Boy, I tell you I could see stars above her head and she had a huge pumpknot that popped out and grew bigger as we watched.

Another time, she had just received a skateboard for her birthday and was practicing inside the house. Well, I guess it seemed the smart thing to do since we had gravel in our driveway. I never saw the sense in having a skateboard in the mountains anyway; but then, that was my sister.

She took the skateboard into the kitchen and zoomed from there into the dining room and then into the living room, gaining speed. I suppose she was attempting to avoid the Stokermatic this time, so she swerved a little as she approached it. Well, she was going so fast that the skateboard veered off and went under the coffee table. My sister did not. She went head first into the table corner. Another huge pumpknot.

Of course, I’ve had my share of pumpknots, too. The one I remember most happened when I lived in Greenville, SC. I was carrying my lunch into the living room to eat while I worked on my computer. Somehow, my toe caught on the carpet and I did a slow spin and hit the floor. On the trip down to the floor, my lunch flew all around me and the back of my head hit a nearby table. My ankle did a spin of its own. In agony, I attempted to get up. No such luck.

About this time, my dachshund, Jessy, came running. I thought he was coming to check up on me. Not quite. He came to eat my lunch.

Not able to get up, I reached up to my desk, grabbed my phone, and called 911. When the dispatcher answered, I said, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Then I giggled because it was so cliché. I figured she would hang up on me. She didn’t.

I made sure to tell her to send someone strong because I’m a big woman. Then I remembered my locked front door and pleaded, “Don’t let them break my door. Tell them to find the stone squirrel in the front yard and pick it up. In its butt is a house key.” Well, now it was her turn to giggle.

Not the squirrel I meant

I lay there on the floor, waiting and watching the pretty stars sparkle around my head. My dachshund barked and looked at the front door. I heard laughter from the front porch. The door opened and in walked four of the hunkiest guys I had ever seen. Glory be!

They surrounded me as my pumpknot pounded as it grew larger and my ankle screamed. One, two, three and I stood in front of them—on one foot and a bit worse for wear.

My heroes. Of course, I wouldn’t have minded if they hung around a bit longer and flexed their muscles for me. But like superheroes tend to do when their job is done, they said their farewells and flew (okay, so they walked) out the front door, laughed as they crossed the porch, and disappeared to wherever superheroes go.

My advice? Beware where you put your head. That is unless you prefer a visit from some hunky heroes. 

Now, tell me your pumpknot stories. Come on, I know you've got at least one doozie. 

Appalachian Language - Holler

Photo Courtesy of Corinne Milwee Farley

I’m a hillbilly. I spent the first days of my life in a coal mining camp in Harlan County, Kentucky. After my folks moved into a small rental house in Loyall, Kentucky, on Daddy’s days off from his Greyhound driving schedule, we either visited Granny at Chevrolet Mining Camp or my dad’s mother on top of Pine Mountain.

Life was simple, but hard, back then. A water pump outside provided watering needs. Down a little path stood an outhouse for “those” needs. Chickens roamed freely to provide meat and eggs. Everyone worked the garden so there would be vegetables year round. It was hard work, but nobody complained about it; instead, we all did what was necessary to survive.

When I grew up and went away to college, I learned how the outside world judged me by where I came from. I worked hard to rid myself of the telltale accent of my people. From time to time, people laughed at the words I used from my “language.” It was okay to have a Spanish, British, Italian, German, French, or even Indian accent, but many people considered a hillbilly accent meant we were all ignorant.

Far from it. Hillbilly is a language, just like all the rest. We have our brilliant minds, our creative geniuses, and our not-so-brilliant exceptions.

So, in this blog, I plan to translate some of my language so you will have a better understanding of my culture and can communicate more effectively with my fabulous culture of the Appalachian (Apple-AT-chun) people.

HOLLER

Deep in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky where I was reared, fog snuggled the mountains at night and late into the morning before the heat of the sun burned it off or changed it into dew to nurture the flora and fauna of the dense forests.

The last place to lose the fog each day is the first word I’m going to define for you. Holler.

Photo Courtesy of Corinne Milwee Farley

A holler (or hollow) is the low place between mountains. If you look at the photos above, everywhere there is a wrinkle in the mountains you will generally find a holler. Generally, the people settled into hollers because they were more accessible. Generally, a holler contains a gentler incline and is easier to clear enough land to build a house, plant a garden, and have some chickens. Also, an underwater spring or creek usually flows in the deepest grooves of the holler.

Photo Courtesy of Corinne Milwee Farley

My mother always told me that the further up the holler people live, the thicker their accent. She also told me that they called them hollers because when mothers needed their family to come home, they’d go out on the porch and “holler” up the holler. The sound echoed between the mountains on either side and the sound carried further. Not sure if that’s true, but it makes for a good story. Living in Appalachia is all about the story.

Photo Courtesy of Tammy Hyatt

Photo Courtesy of Tammy Hyatt

Photo Courtesy of Tammy Hyatt

Photo Courtesy of Corinne Milwee Farley

Photo Courtesy of Corinne Milwee Farley