Food in nineteenth century Appalachia came from hard work, careful planning, and whatever the land could provide. Families could not depend on supermarkets or packaged meals. Much of what reached the table had been planted, raised, hunted, preserved, or prepared at home.
Julie Dorsey fills The Peacemaker’s Wife with meals that help place readers inside Polly Justice’s Blue Ridge world.
Corn was an important part of mountain cooking. Corn pone could accompany a meal of cured ham, fried squash, and buttermilk. Biscuits were another familiar food, often served with preserves, honey, or apple butter.
Pork was especially valuable because it could be cured and stored. Ham, fatback, and other preserved meats helped families make it through seasons when fresh food was scarce. Chickens supplied both meat and eggs, while rabbit and other game could add variety to the table.
Vegetables came from kitchen gardens and local crops. Polly cooks foods such as okra, potatoes, cabbage, squash, and beans. These were practical foods that could feed a household without requiring expensive ingredients.
Fruit also had an important place in the mountain kitchen. Apples became pies and fritters. Berries could be baked into desserts or turned into preserves. Fox grape jelly appears alongside biscuits, while sweet potato pie provides another taste of the region.
Nothing was taken for granted.
A productive garden, a healthy cow, a smokehouse with meat, and shelves filled with preserved food represented security. When crops failed, animals became sick, or food was stolen, a family could quickly face hardship.
Meals also carried social meaning. Food was brought to grieving families after a death. Visitors were offered coffee, water, pie, or whatever the household could spare. Community gatherings meant shared dishes, conversation, music, and full tables.
Even during the Civil War, when supplies became uncertain, feeding a family remained daily work.
Food in The Peacemaker’s Wife does more than describe what Polly eats. It reveals how she lives.
Through fried chicken, corn pone, apple pie, cured ham, biscuits, garden vegetables, and steaming cups of coffee, Julie Dorsey creates a Blue Ridge community readers can almost smell and taste.
For readers who enjoy historical fiction filled with Appalachian culture, family history, danger, medicine, love, and the rhythms of everyday life, The Peacemaker’s Wife serves up a world worth visiting.
