Holiday 2016

Flying Cloud Farm co-owner Annie Louise Perkinson returned to Western North Carolina farm life to build a business. Collard greens are one crop that grows in steady rotation.

With a jar of Imladris raspberry, blueberry, or blackberry preserves, you’re on your way to a breakfast pastry worthy of Christmas morning.

There used to be dozens of crops at Peaceful Valley Farm in Old Fort, alongside a small dairy and sawmill. These days, John McEntire and his family focus most of their attention on two grains, corn and wheat.

Dried apples make a delicious snack all by themselves, but reconstituting them within a dessert brings out the tannins and sugars. And the classic showcase for the fruit is the apple stack cake, generally believed to have first emerged in the mountains of Kentucky.

A look at historic holiday menus reveals many surprises about Asheville’s history. Even as we see how health guidelines and social mores have changed, we also catch a glimpse of a culinary world that is not as unfamiliar as we might expect.

There was a time when the mill was the center of a community. Farmers brought grains on horse-drawn wagons to be ground by stones into flour and meal. Neighbors caught up on news while they waited, and everyone went home with enough flour for the week.