Blue Ridge Country May/June 2024 - 79

BLACKBERRY DUMPLINGS
Missy Jones is the host of " Mountain Cookin' with Missy " on Facebook and is the author of a
cookbook of the same name. Here's one of her favorite recipes.
BLACKBERRY DUMPLINGS
½ stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 pounds frozen or fresh blackberries
2 cups sugar
Enough water to cover the berries about 2 inches-approximately 2 cups
➨ Over medium heat, melt butter in a 7-8-quart Dutch oven. Add berries and
sugar and stir until berries thaw and sugar has dissolved. Add water and
cook over medium heat, stirring gently, until mixture comes to a rolling boil.
While cooking the berries, make the fluffy dumplings.
➨ 2 cups White Lily self-rising flour (use a little less flour if using another
brand)
➨ ⅓ cup unsalted butter, melted
➨ Enough whole milk to make a sticky dough
➨ In a bowl, add the flour and make a well in the middle. Add melted butter.
Then add enough milk that when stirred, the dough becomes thick and sticky
and not too wet. If it's too wet, add a little more flour. After berries come
to a boil, sprinkle a little flour over the dough. Also, flour your hands. Pinch
some dough with your hands and gently roll into 2-inch balls. Drop dumplings
into the boiling berries. Don't stir. Make room for all the dumplings by gently
moving them around with a spoon. Reduce heat to low. Cover and let simmer
for about 10 minutes. Eat immediately to keep dumplings from getting soggy.
Serve in a bowl with ice cream or whipped cream.
Having grown up in a family that raised hogs, Missy
adds either a ham hock or a slab of jaw bacon to each
pot of soup beans. A whole onion and some salt and
pepper complete the simple recipe.
It is in her kitchen not far from the Ohio state line
where Missy's connections to faraway Eastern Kentucky
are the strongest.
" In our way of cooking, we didn't have a lot of spices
other than salt and pepper, " Missy says. " I cook with
spices now because they're readily available, but nothing
compares to just simple home cooking. "
That simplicity is illustrated in Missy's Eastern Kentucky
approach to chicken and dumplings. In the tradition
of her great aunt Lucy Bowling, she makes the thin,
rolled-out version. And oftentimes, following her mother
Annie's teaching, she makes the fluffy kind.
Either way, she says a fat, bone-in, skin-on hen creates
the best flavor, and she insists that those cooks who
throw in some carrots and celery are straying from tradition.
A couple of drops of yellow food coloring is an
option, but some melted lard is mandatory.
" We use lard for everything, just about, " Missy jokes,
sort of.
Again, her mother's coaching comes to mind when
she contends that dumplings should not be stirred. " Or
you'll just have a big pot of gravy. Just give the pot a
good shake. "
Inherited kitchen wisdom and this straightforward
style of cooking have had a lasting effect on Roger and
Missy's 21-year-old daughter McKenzie, a soup bean
lover who often writes papers about Appalachian culture
on her way to a teaching degree at Kentucky's
Thomas More University. McKenzie's most requested
meal is her mother's wilted, or " killed, " lettuce, topped
with cornmeal gravy and crumbled cornbread.
" You don't need a ton of ingredients to make something
good, " Missy declares.
She ends our conversation with a reflection on her
homeland.
" Southeast Kentucky is a country all its own. The
mountains keep it sheltered, and that's why people like
it. And that's why they're drawn to it. When you go back
to Southeast Kentucky, it's usually for a death, but we go
back as often as we can. Nothing satisfies us until we go
on top of Pine Mountain. "
Fred and Jill Sauceman study and celebrate the foodways
of Appalachia and the South from their home base in East
Tennessee.
MAY/JUNE 2024 79

Blue Ridge Country May/June 2024

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