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t’s that time of year in Appalachia where friends begin to make social media posts begging for information about where to find ripe pawpaws. Private messages are exchanged and secret locations are disclosed. Timing is critical because the fresh fruit only lasts a few days, perhaps a week, if they’re refrigerated. You won’t find them stocked in grocery stores, or in many places outside of the region. Farmers markets and friends are your best bet.
superior product to one you’d buy at a grocery store,” Castle continued. “There’s an exquisite flavor that we can get that’s completely unlike anything you’d find if you leave the mountains. I absolutely cannot buy beans that feed my ‘mountain-ness’ anywhere other than up where they grow.”
Tom Colicchio, head judge on the popular culinary competition show “Top Chef ” and Kentucky Chef Edward Lee, a guest judge on the show, agree that this Many of Appalachia’s finest foods are like the pawpaw. regional food focus is a trend that they are seeing across They are best consumed at the right time in the place where they were grown. Sheri Castle, food writer and the United States. cooking teacher, points toward the French term terroir to explain this mystery. Loosely translated, terroir “America is rediscovering its regional roots,” said Colicchio while in Kentucky filming an episode of the means to taste the earth in the food. show which has incorporated regional cooking this sea“When you go out to your yard and pick a tomato or son. “Whenever we film in a city or a state, that place pepper that was meant to grow right where you live, almost becomes a character in itself. In the past couple and was allowed to stay in the garden until it was ripe of years we’ve really tried to tease out the particular and ready to pick, that’s going to be a very different and food cultures in those states and areas.” FALL / WINTER 2018 | christianapp.org/MtSpiritGive
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