Here are a couple of genuine Appalachian Mountain recipes from Foxfire Book #2 (©1973 Anchor Press).

ICICLE PICKLES (by Margaret Norton)

2 gallons of cucumbers

1 pint coarse salt

1 gallon boiling water

1 walnut-sized lump alum

2 quarts of vinegar

4 quarts of white sugar

1 grain of saccharine (one tablet)

1 tablespoon of pickling spice

2 tablespoons of celery seed

2 tablespoons of cinnamon buds

Split cucumbers lengthwise. Add the salt to the boiling water and pour it over the cucumbers. Let it stand one week.

After a week, drain the cucumbers, cover them with the boiling water again and let stand twenty-four hours. Then drain, dissolve the alum in boiling water and pour it over the pickles. Let stand twenty-four hours.

Then drain the pickles and take two quarts of vinegar and four quarts of sugar plus all the spices and boil them together. Pour this mixture over the pickles. Repeat this for four mornings, each time pouring off the liquid, boiling it again and pouring it back over the pickles boiling hot.

Seal the pickles in a can.

BLACKBERRY WINE (by Jake Waldroop)

Gather six to eight gallons of wild blackberries, wash them and put them in a big container. Mix in five pounds of sugar and cover the container with a cloth, fastened securely so that bugs can't get in but the mixture can still breathe. Let sit for eight to ten days.

Then strain the mixture through a clean cloth, squeezing the pulp so that all the juice is removed. Measure how many gallons you have. For every gallon of juice, add one and a half pounds of sugar. Let it work off. When it stops (bubbling has stopped on top), strain it again and measure the juice, adding another one and a half pounds of sugar to each gallon. When it finishes working this second time, bottle it.

The Foxfire books and magazines are still the definitive publications on Appalachian culture. Check out The Foxfire Fund Web site for more information on this very important organization.