Me and Geoff with Melissa Bond, Kristin Smith, and Robert Gipe
When I think of Appalachia, I think of a people so creative and resourceful, they overcome some serious difficulties to make a life infused with community and hilarity. I think of the most beautiful of natural settings juxtaposed with the harsh realities of sometimes brutal economic conditions. Every now and again, art manages to capture Appalachia’s duality so perfectly that the participant is left breathless. And that is just what happened on Saturday night at the Cornbread Convocation, through both food and theater.
The Cornbread Convocation was set up to explore the dynamic between food and community. It started at the Wrigley Taproom & Eatery, our neighbors and good friends on Main Street. Chef Kristin Smith was one of the lead organizers of the event, which she hosted to raise fund for the Appalachian Food Summit. Everyone who has eaten at The Wrigley knows how she has taken her family’s farming history and infused it with an incredible talent for food. It is one restaurant where I could eat every day. Kristin collaborated with Joyce Cheng, the owner and chef at Panda Garden in Harlan to come up with a menu that not onlyt riffed on the Eastern Kentucky potluck, it also represented the diversity of our region. She did so with so many creative and inventive touches, from putting beans and cornbread in a salad to peperoni’s in an egg roll. Perhaps the highlight was the macaroni-and-cheese that came cooked in whole pumpkins. No sooner did the staff lay it in front of you than the pumpkins were sliced like a cake and served. Check out the photos below — it was pure heaven.
After the meal, folks came back to Second & Main, where we had the honor of hosting Higher Ground’s final performance of “Perfect Buckets.” Higher Ground is a community theater group out of the Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Harlan County. Their leader and organizer for many years now is the writer Robert Gipe. Every play they do is part oral history—they take the stories they collect and fuse them with music and performances by local actors. This particular play was commissioned by the Southern Foodways Alliance, and along with exploring the territorialities of potluck recipes, it also explored what happened when the Black Jewel mine closed and then revoked the paychecks of its miners. The music was provided by The Kudzu Killers, the hometown band of Harlan County. They are known for embracing many musical influences and genres, and are one of my favorites. When the cast and band gathered together to sing “Welcome Table,” most of the audience had tears streaming down their face. I know that I did.
One of the benefits of being from Appalachia is having a strong heritage, but sometimes it is hard to translate that to the present day. So often, our culture is defined by others, outsiders. We are described as having a culture of poverty. As being coal country, or Trump country. Kristin opened the evening by explaining that The Cornbread Convocation is about the present day. It is part of the momentum to claim our identity for ourselves and what it means in our current social and political context. And if it means community solidarity around food and music, I am here for it.
