Southern Appalachian Cooking

by Allison Best-Teague

Johnnie Sue Myers, a nationally recognized Cherokee cookbook author and Native American food expert, will be at Blue Ridge Books on Saturday, July 16 at 3 p.m. to sign her new book, The Gathering Place: Traditional Cherokee Dishes, Wild Game Recipes & Preparation Tips and Southern Appalachian Cooking.

Cherokee cooking is an often overlooked local cuisine that few people get an opportunity to taste or learn about. Many of the old recipes and traditional ways of preparing the various wild foods have been slowly dying.

Myers’s cookbook contains recipes for traditional dishes such as
Cherokee Bean Bread, Apple Stack Cake, and Indian tacos with fry bread.
Of special interest are recipes for wild harvested foods such as ramps,
poke, and sochani. The book also includes instructions on how to prepare
bear, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, groundhog, and wild turkey.

Johnnie Sue Myers is a Cherokee Elder who has a passion for preserving
and protecting her Native American culinary heritage. She has been a
guest on Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods television show.

Blue Ridge Books, 152 South Main Street, Waynesville, NC, 28786. For more information, please call (828) 456-6000.