Beth Durham's Blog, page 13

A Stroke in Time

I’m always looking for history and culture to share with y’uns, but I did NOT start out to this week to research stroke treatment and recovery. However, I’ve spent the week visiting hospitals and rehab facilities, reading articles about stroke therapy and learning a great deal after my mother-in-law suffered a devastating brain-bleeding episode.

Now the sad coincidence of this development is that my next book will have a central character who suffers a dreadful disease, probably some type of...

Enjoy a glass of Buttermilk

If you’re having stomach problems we have a lot of options for medicine and care these days. That’s not always been the case but our mountain ancestors had solutions for their problems nonetheless. Buttermilk was a favorite medicine.

Of course buttermilk is what’s left in the churn after you’ve made butter. True buttermilk is not at all like the cultured stuff you can find in a store today. However, they are both beneficial.

Today’s cultured buttermilk is great because it has live cultures...

Intertwining Family Trees

Proudly hailing from the South, I’ve heard a lot of jokes about family trees with no branches. I often counter those with some comment about intertwining families.

While researching genealogy I often see marriages where siblings from one family married siblings from another family. These relationships often get an odd expression (or even that “no branch” comment), especially from people who haven’t looked back at their family tree or who are unfamiliar with the large families that were the...

Puttin' By

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about winter foods. On New Year’s we ate hog jowl and black-eyed peas. Then a bunch of readers mentioned you always eat cabbage too, so last week we talked about that delicious vegetable. Well those articles got me to thinking about all the work mountain folks usually do in the summertime to prepare for the cold winter months when nothing much is growing. Really, I have realized anew that “an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Proverbs 19:15b).

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Bile Them Cabbage Down

Fried, stewed or pickled cabbage is a mainstay of the mountain diet. After I shared my daddy’s New Year’s Day meal last week, I was surprised how many of you commented that you always kick off the year eating cabbage. But I shouldn’t have been surprised.

For the same reasons black eyed peas and salt-cured pork were eaten regularly in the winter months, cabbage would be too. Late cabbage can be folded in a whole (whilst still planted on the other end) can be enjoyed pretty much the whole...

Hog Jowl & Black Eyed Peas

Happy New Year Ya’ll!

Did y’uns eat hog jowl and black eyed peas on New Year’s Day? Now this is one of those meals that I’m careful not to say I won’t eat, but I’m praising the Lord that I don’t have to. This along with collards, turnip or mustard greens.

But enough about my taste in foods.

Hog jowl and black eyed peas are the traditional meal for New Year’s Day because it’s supposed to bring good luck in the new year. It seems the folks of old felt lucky to have this meal on new year’s day...

Learnin’ the Old Recipes

Christmastime brings back memories and our familiar foods evoke memories any time of the year. As I teach my little Ruthie to cook I am often reminded of my Grandma teaching me. (And I confess the times I tell her to get out from under foot, I’m convicted of what a menace I must have been to Grandma!)

My Grandma taught me two recipes that I’ve used more times than I can count because they are adaptable to so many foods we eat all the time. Of course biscuits was one recipe she taught me. We’...

What’s Next after Gracie's Babies

Almost 6 years ago I posted a fictional, short story on this blog entitled “Patches are Honorable as long as they’re Clean” and you readers asked for more of that story. It became chapter 1 of Replacing Ann. When I released that novella, I prefaced it asking if you’re reviews would show me whether you wanted more books. I continue to feel honored beyond words when you write requests for more books. I have lots more stories in my head and I hope to continue sharing them with you.

Every time I...

The Communities and Characters of Tennessee Mountain Stories

Whenever I have the opportunity to meet folks who are interested in reading my Tennessee Mountain Stories, I am often asked which book comes first – where you should start. Until now, all of the novels were stand-alone, independent stories. Now, of course, Gracie’s Babies is a sequel to Margaret’s Faith.

However, because all of the stories are set on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau and largely around the Martha Washington, Campground and Roslin communities, there is a natural overlap of...

History, TImeline and Setting of Gracie's Babies

Gracie’s Babies opens in about 1890 – if you preveiously read Margaret’s Faith, remember that Gracie was born while The Civil War still raged, and she’s just about 18 now. She has grown up on her grandparents’ Tennessee farm in northern Cumberland County.

This community of Elmore may not quite be a ghost town as there are still families calling it home. However, you can no longer walk to the railhead in Isoline – in fact you’ll have to drive completely off the Cumberland Plateau to see a...