2025 at the North Carolina Folklife Institute: Stories, Partnerships, and the Work Ahead
As 2025 comes to a close, the North Carolina Folklife Institute reflects on a year shaped by collaboration, listening, and deep engagement with communities across the state. Our work this year centered the people who carry cultural knowledge forward – artists, tradition bearers, apprentices, and public servants – and the partnerships that make this work […]
NC Folklife Institute Announces 2025 In These Mountains NC Folklife Apprenticeship Awardees
$10,000 Awards Support Apprenticeship Pairs in NC’s Mountain Communities to Preserve Traditional Arts DURHAM, N.C. (November 19, 2025) — The North Carolina Folklife Institute is proud to announce the recipients of the 2025 In These Mountains NC Folklife Apprenticeship Awards, a program supporting the continuation of traditional arts and cultural practices across North Carolina’s Appalachian […]
Applications Open for the 2025 North Carolina Folklife Apprenticeships Program
$10,000 Grants Support Mentor-Apprentice Pairs in NC’s Mountain Communities to Preserve Traditional Arts DURHAM, N.C. (July 15, 2025) – The North Carolina Folklife Institute is excited to announce the opening of the 2025 North Carolina Appalachian Folklife Apprenticeship Program. This program supports year-long, community-based mentorships in the folk and traditional arts of western North Carolina. […]
Nick’s Grill
Text and photos by Madison Heltzel Like many sub-rural stretches of Western North Carolina, my neck of the North Asheville woods is graced with an abundance of small burger-and-shake joints. In fact, there is one located directly across the street from my humble abode. However, whenever that inevitable burger-craving hits, I usually find myself hopping […]
Candyroasters
Text and photos by William Ritter As the leaves begin to fall and cold weather (sort of) begins to set in, pumpkin pies, pumpkin soups, and pumpkin ales start popping up on menus across the state. Historically, though, many western North Carolina families let the pumpkins go to the hog pen, and it was candyroaster […]
Beyond the Music: Feeding the Merlefest Masses for Community Causes
Text and photos by Leanne E. Smith When 75,000 people gather for four days at a music festival, they will eat a lot of food. If that festival is Merlefest, they will have plenty of choices from longtime favorites to newer offerings. Food vendors are scattered throughout the festival grounds at the Wilkes Community College […]
“I Can Feed You”—Farming, Activism, and Food Justice
Text and photos By Virginia Hamilton This summer was a particularly rough one. While wading through a host of personal issues, I was also absorbing a constant onslaught of images of bloodied, dust-covered children being pulled from wreckage and black bodies dying on shaky cell phone cameras. Refugees, soaking and sinking. Too little water and […]
Livermush Monday at the Grocery Basket & Grill in Ferguson, NC
by Leanne E. Smith At the Grocery Basket & Grill in Ferguson, North Carolina, Labor Day Monday is Livermush Monday. On the day after the Happy Valley Fiddler’s Convention, Livermush Monday is a somewhat new music gathering celebrating an older foodways tradition and the longtime local eatery. Traveling from the festival towards Wilkesboro, the first […]
Cataloochee Prune Cake
by Sarah Bryan In some ways the border between the Carolinas is fluid. The two largest towns that are on or a few miles from the state line—Charlotte and Myrtle Beach—seem mismatched with their respective states. Charlotte could be mistaken for a bustling, shiny, businesslike version of the self-image of the state to the […]
Ramp Seasoning
While I’ve been enjoying the sun of the last two days — walking down to the river by my house (accompanied by my two cats who stalk about like they think they are local bobcats), and especially enjoying the spectacular sunsets — my sister in Des Moines has been posting about the first major snow […]
Making Do With Fall Apples
by Joy Salyers I took my children with me to the North Carolina Folklore Society meeting in Cullowhee, NC October 9 and 10. I was confident that we would encounter learning opportunities to rival a day of school. We drove first to the Musuem of the Cherokee Indian, where they got Jerry Wolfe’s autograph, sat […]
Pat Franklin’s Mama’s Banana Pudding
by Leanne E. Smith When Pat Franklin buys fifty pounds of bananas at one time the second week in June, the cashiers at Ingles grocery store in Marshall, North Carolina, give her funny looks. What could someone possibly do with the contents of a cart loaded with bunches of bananas, boxes of Nilla wafers and vanilla […]
Where Food Is More Than Only Something to Eat
by Ray Linville Food is more than simply sustenance. Kitchens are more than places to prepare and eat meals. No place is better for demonstrating the value in society of food and kitchens than The King’s Kitchen in Charlotte, NC. As its customers enjoy the menu of the day, the unemployed, underemployed, difficult to employ, […]
Keeping Wild Foods in Our Culinary Culture
by Ray Linville Is cooking with wild foods out of place in today’s modern society? Because it’s so old-fashioned, I was surprised by how many kids had entered the Wild Food Cooking Contest in Richmond County. It’s the event of the spring in Ellerbe, NC, when youth and adults show off their skills for cooking […]
Official NC Food Festivals in May 2015
by Deborah Miller It’s not like we don’t have anything good to eat around here. We arise food. We talk about food. We read about food. We drive miles out of the way for a “food” experience. What choice did North Carolina have but to honor and designate some long-existing events as“Official State Food Festivals?” […]
Stan’s Pimento Cheese
by Evan Hatch Stan’s is one of those North Carolina answers. Like Duke’s. And Sweet. And “Yes I want slaw on that.” The question is, “What is the bestest pimento cheese ever?” It is rich. It is mayonnaisey. It is so creamy. It is from Burlington. I have not always taken a lot of pride […]
Making Mac and Cheese Better with N.C. Mountain Cheese
by Ray Linville What’s the most important ingredient in macaroni and cheese? Except for the love that the preparer personally adds, is one item more important than anything else? The questions may seem frivolous because today the recipe at home can be quite simple – unless you’re Thomas Jefferson, who was so consumed with serving […]
North Carolina’s Official State Symbols That Taste Good, Part 2
by Deborah Miller These are the things that keep me up at night. I’m an unashamed “wonderer.” My friends all laugh at me when I’d ask “those” questions. You know, “why are some raindrops big and some little?” and “who ever figured out how to eat an artichoke in the first place?” Yes, they’d even […]
Lenten Fish Fries in 2015
by Joy Salyers North Carolina historian David Cecelski helped start NC Food, delighting readers for the blog’s first five years with his explorations of state foodways and his musings about food’s connections to place, family, and all that is good in life. In 2011, he noted in a food blog post that “It’s one of […]
Cabbage
by Sally Parlier Every few months or so when I was young, my parents would get a craving for some fried cabbage, served with pinto beans, cornbread, and a tall, cold glass of milk. This was the food of their youth in Watauga County – filling, homegrown, and low cost – and still staples of […]
A Food Sisterhood Flourishes in North Carolina, and then some
Just in case you weren’t paying attention, North Carolina got some seriously good props this week from the New York Times. The North Carolina Food Sisterhood, to be exact, and it’s a nice change from all the athletic and political press we’ve grown used to. We’ve always been an agricultural state and women have long […]
North Carolina’s Official State Symbols That Taste Good, Part 1
by Deborah Miller Every state has its official list of chosen symbols. We all know, or should know, that our State Bird is the Cardinal and State Tree is the Dogwood. But why, and how, do such random things like dog, reptile, and even dance become official? In case you just moved to the Tar […]
Happy Thanksgiving!
by Deborah Miller The holidays seem to turn the nostalgia dial up to eleven for many of us, especially when it comes to food. We find comfort in the familiarity of the menu and we want them prepared the exact same way we had them at our table. I certainly wouldn’t put my mother’s green […]
Plum Granny Farm: Old Land, New Passion
by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim When Cheryl Ferguson graduated from South Stokes High School back in the mid 1970’s, chances are she wasn’t planning on returning to her family’s King homestead farm to live as an adult and become a USDA Certified Organic small family farmer. But that’s exactly what she did. The land, now called […]