Sometimes the best thing about going home is the food you might find on the dinner table. If that’s going home to a hometown festival, then it can be the special food they are featuring. My little town has a Burgoo Festival. Not this year due to the Covid19 pandemic, but we can hope next year. Here in Kentucky most little towns have some sort of fall festival. An apple festival. A sorghum festival. A barbecue festival, spoonbread festival, country ham festival, and many more. I couldn’t find a Shuck Bean Festival, but maybe there should be one in Eastern Kentucky if they don’t have one there already.
In my Appalachian books, the mountain people eat shucky beans. Well, I called them shucky beans anyway, but one of my newsletter readers, Sue, says she was born in Straight Creek which is in Bell County that’s part of the Appalachian region of Kentucky, and that those dried beans were always simply shuck beans. Here’s what she says about them. “We call them ‘shuck beans’ instead of ‘shucky beans.’ They are fabulous cooked with bacon grease, fat back, or a ham bone with a little meat left on it. My mom once bought a mess for less than a dollar. The last I had was a Christmas present from my sister about 20 years ago. My husband, and I recently priced green beans at $50.00 a bushel. We didn’t buy any. My how things have changed!”
They certainly have, Sue. I had to confess to Sue that I’ve never eaten shuck or shucky beans. They are also called leather britches because when they dry up they look like leather britches that got we and drew up. The picture is one I took at the South Union Shaker museum. These have probably been dried too long to cook up in a pot these days but it does show how the beans are strung up. In These Healing Hills, I have Jeralene helping Fran and Betty string up their green beans to dry for the winter. The shuck beans were an important staple for the mountain families as they supplied protein throughout the winter. The people would pick the beans and pull off the ends and strings. They wanted the hulls to have formed good sized beans in them, but not be “shellie” beans. Then they would lace the beans on a string and hang then somewhere out of the sunlight to dry. Often in an attic or on a porch. Then in the winter, they pulled the beans off the strings and cooked them down for several hours. Sue was surprised that I had never eaten shuck beans but she assures me they are delicious and I should give them a try. I actually had a woman who used to buy a bushel of beans (for way less than $50) from me every year so that she could do these shuck beans. Here’s a link about shuck beans if you want to know more from the Smoky Mountain Magazine.
Another reader, Connie, wrote to tell me about a unique festival her hometown has every year. She wasn’t a bit surprised I’d never heard of their food specialty. Here’s what she shared about a festival her town, Bear Grass, has been having the last several years called “The Chicken Mull Festival.”
“Chicken mull seems to be a dish that developed in this area and not much anywhere else. Being born and raised in the western part of N.C., I had never heard or it or ate it until I married and moved to this area eastern N.C. Chicken mull developed from families trying to stretch a chicken to feed a lot of mouths, either in a family, or to feed tobacco hands. It consists of a boiled and deboned chicken with broth, salt, pepper, and crushed up saltine crackers. Everyone around here has their own little recipe of extras they add to it to enhance the flavor to their liking. My husband likes to add chopped boiled eggs, crumbled sausage, and hot sauce. Other people may put some corn in theirs or something else. The festival usually takes place in October. The main highway that runs through the middle of Bear Grass is blocked off, traffic has to routed to a side road around town, lots of vendors set up, games are set up, music is an all day thing, the local school band plays, a petting zoo from a local farmer, and of course, chicken mull to eat, along with any thing else you can imagine from vendors. This may be a year that will have to be skipped due to the “virus” but will probably be back next year. Everyone in the area looks forward to the very small town event.”
Small towns do know how to put on a fall festival and I look forward to better times in the years to come when all the festivals will be up and running again.
Does your town have a fall festival?
Comments 14
Yes, we have a festival: the Blueberry Festival. It’s the largest 4-day festival in Indiana, and takes place over Labor Day weekend, in Plymouth.
Author
So your area must be good for growing blueberries, Kathy. That sounds like a festival I’d enjoy since I’m sure there are plenty of blueberry goodies to enjoy.
My town of Lindsborg, Kansas was settled by Swedish immigrants. In the odd years, Svensk Hyllningsfest is celebrated on a weekend in October. There is Swedish dancing by several groups including our Lindsborg Swedish Folk Dancers ( a high school group who have many performances through the year), a parade, special food and music, etc. The school children in grades 1-8 perform special dances with their classmates. All the dancers are in traditional Swedish costumes, as are many of the local townspeople. The school children also sing Children of the Heavenly Father in Swedish as part of the opening ceremonies. Fortunately this is not a Hyllningsfest year since it would have to be cancelled as have so many of our other events .
Author
That sounds like a great festival, Pam. I hope by next year things will have returned to something closer to normal and the festival can go on. We miss things like this. Those extras make life more fun and it’s good to celebrate the heritage of our places.
I was so shocked to see my name and comment on your blog!!! Thank you!!
Pineville, the “town” nearest Straight Creek, doesn’t have a fall festival that I know of. We had one in the springtime called the “Mountain Laurel Festival”
featuring a parade, with high school bands and floats, and the crowning of a queen at Pine Mountain State Park. It was the highlight of our year. I don’t live there anymore, but I hope they still have it.
Author
Hope you didn’t mind me using it, Sue. I had kept your first name but not your last with the message I copied to perhaps use on my blog. Then I wasn’t sure which Sue I needed to contact to let know I used your info about shuck beans. But I do make a note in my newsletter that I might use whatever you share with me if you don’t say not to.
I have heard many good things about the Mountain Laurel Festival. I should put it on my calendar and go next year. I love the Pine Mountain State Park. I’ve been there to the lodge a few times.
Yes, we have the Darlington (MD) Apple Festival each year. Since we could not have it this year, 3 places offered something. The Episcopal church sold their famous apple cakes and offered pit beef sandwiches. The Fire Department had people selling crafts and they also sold pit beef. And the AME church had a fish fry. All of these were outside and you bought the food to go. It was still fun this year and without the crowds of people.
Author
Fun that your area stepped up to still have something fun for your town, Birdie. Oh, and Birdie, I’ve tried to reach you. If you were the Birdie who left a comment on the blog I visited recently, Diamonds in Fiction Blogspot, you were selected as the winner. Peggy Trotter is the one trying to contact you. She couldn’t get the address here for you at gmail to work. So if you see this, you can contact me or her and see if you’re the Birdie who won.
My hometown area has The Mountain State Forest Festival. We missed it this year as it is a week long affair.
Author
I love the idea of a Mountain State Forest Festival. That has to have some good times attached to it, Lucy. I’m hoping and praying that by next fall, things will be closer to normal for most of us.
My hometown has a Pumpkin Festival every year ( except this year because of Covid-19).Its actually the next County over from where I live now but it was ” town” to where I grew up.
There are pumpkin decorating contests, biggest pumpkin prizes, lots of yummy food and vendors galore!
I have rarely missed a Pumpkin Festival since the very first one when I was in high school.
Author
Perfect time of the year for a Pumpkin Festival, Lisa, and that opens up all sorts of fun and pumpkin flavored food. Sorry you have to miss it this year, along with everybody else, I suppose. Wishing for a return to the festivals next year. A return to a lot of things, as far as that goes.
Not my town. But my mom’s hometown in Kentucky every year in September but not this year, has the honeyfest in September. Do in part to the town having a factory that makes bee keeping supplies. I loved going every year growing up.
Author
Kentucky must be gung-ho for festivals, Carissa. I think every little town in the state has some sort of festival. A honeyfest sounds sweet. Alright, that was groan worthy. lol. I’m glad to see more bees around our area than I have for a few years.