In Defense Of Appalachian Culture or Conversation With An Idiot!

Abut 25 years ago, I was working as a mental health therapist in a facility for juvenile males in one of the most classically Appalachian counties in Kentucky. That facility at the time had an idiot as its executive director. I had not been employed there very long, we didn't know a great deal about each other, and became involved in a lengthy conversation. The talk wound round and round as such conversations often do, and the fellow asked me something or other about the kinds of things I was interested in or in which I was involved. I said that I was very much involved in Appalachian Culture, Appalachian History, and Appalachian Literature. To my utter amazement, the man who had been raised in a Kentucky county which sits of the edge of Appalachia said "there is no such thing as Appalachian Culture". I was momentarily thunderstruck but managed to regain my mental equilibrium in time to make an honest attempt to inform him of the error of his ways. To this day, I still don't know if he was actually that stupid, and he was definitely stupid, or just attempting to antagonize me. He had been career Army which, I am certain, had not improved his intellectual capacities and skills. i began with a very brief history of Cenral and Southern Appalachia which is the area which constitutes what I refer to as Cultural Appalachia. That area of the entirety of West Virginia and parts of Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, North Georgia, and much smaller portions of Western South Carolina and Northeastern Alabama are the area of the Appalachian Mountain Range which comprise the entirety of Cultural Appalachia. The vast majority of the area of the Appalachian Mountain Range is not remotely a part of Cultural Appalachia. Yes, there are areas outside that area which have been deeply affected by the large numbers of Appalachian people who have migrated into them, especially in the Midwest. But having been affected by a non-native culture does not make an area a part of the migrant culture. In the reverse of that premise, let's imagine that I, a Caucasian Appalachian male traveled to Watts in Los Angeles or Harlem in New York City. No one in their right mind would say that I had suddenly become African American or Hispanic. Even if I became a multitudinous polygamist with more than two dozen wives and a hundred children who were all raised in social isolation and steeped in my native culture, no one would say that I had managed to make Harlem or Watts into a part of Appalachia. Cultural Appropriation is not that pervasive. But let's move on to the rest of my discussion with the previous idiot in mind. In a momentary aside in addition to discussing a list of the various elements of Appalachian Culture, I also intend to intersperse throughout this blog post some photographs of some manifestations of that Appalachian Culture. The first of these elments to be so pictured below will be Food which is clearly recognized as a primary element in every clearly acknowledged culture. The photograph below is of a meal I cooked in my home a few months ago of guinea and some side dishes.