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Recipes Resurrected : North Carolina Culinary Treasures from the Archive

Chuck Wagon Restaurant

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Tourism and Food in Western North Carolina
Tourism has long been a distinctive aspect of North Carolina’s appeal and economy, “accounting for more than $100 million annually” by the 1950’s (Starnes, 2006, para 3). This boom in tourism has benefited many businesses across the state, including hotels, restaurants, and attractions. North Carolina’s tourism agenda has consistently been focused on “selling tourists the image of a state ready to entertain, enthrall, and serve,” which has cemented the fact that tourism is one of the most important industries in the state (Starnes, 2018, para 10). One of the areas that tourism really shines in North Carolina is in its Western region, namely with cities like Asheville, Cherokee, and Boone.
In the Western region of the state, tourists have consistently been drawn to the natural beauty of the region. This region is rich with scenery and the opportunity to explore the outdoors, which includes hallmarks such as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, mountain retreats in places like Cashiers and Flat Rock, and specific landmarks such the Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain, and Mount Mitchell . Since the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s, tourism has only grown, with “entrepreneurs emerg[ing] to provide these tourists with accommodations, entertainment, and good southern hospitality” (Starnes, 2005, 53).
The idea of southern hospitality is a major contributor to North Carolina’s tourism industry, largely due to the fact that “income generated by tourism stayed in the local community” (Starnes, 2006, para 3). For example, local inns and restaurants, promoting an image of ideal southern hospitality, have been a mainstay in mountain towns. Food was essential to this image; inns and restaurants served foods that were indicative of the Western region of North Carolina, and also of the larger South. Much like the Piedmont region, Western North Carolina foodways also center around “The Three Sisters”--corn, beans, and squash. Common dishes include cornbread, biscuits, fried chicken, ham, pickled items, and apple-based desserts.
While some of the inns and restaurants that catered to tourists in the mountains of North Carolina are no longer around, many recipe books that centered these local institutions by including their signature dishes. Mountain Elegance, a cookbook curated and published by the Junior League of Asheville in 1997, includes a section of recipes that highlight many of these local inns and restaurants that popped up throughout the mountains to serve tourists. From well-known establishments that are still around today, like the historic Grove Park Inn, to bed and breakfasts that are places of the past, this cookbook section encourages readers to recreate some food from the region that they may have eaten either as a local or a tourist.

Mountain Elegance only includes a single section of commercial recipes within a larger volume, while other cookbooks from the region are entirely centered around specific inns, motels, or bed and breakfasts. The Nu-Wray Inn, whose Carolina relish recipe is listed in Mountain Elegance, has their own cookbook with recipes from the inn's kitchen. Their 1947 cookbook, Old Time Recipes from the Nu-Wray Inn, highlights dishes served to guests during their stay at the inn, which is located in Burnsville and is the oldest operating inn in the state. Many recipes from this cookbook are traditional, Appalachian foods that were prepared for many years by Chef Will Roland.
Like the Nu-Wray Inn, there are many small inns, hotels, and bed and breakfasts that have published their own cookbooks for locals and tourists alike to purchase. Another example of this is the Richmond Hill Inn's cookbook: Our Most Requested Recipes. Located just a few miles from the heart of downtown Asheville, the Richmond Hill Inn sat just above the French Broad River and although this inn is no longer in operation, its legacy lives on through the food that was served there. Some of the recipes from Our Most Requested Recipes allude to a more elevated dining experience than you would find in a typical inn, but many still speak to its Appalachian roots, including their Southern Biscuits recipe and Mountain Apple and Vidalia Onion Soup recipe.

Restaurants in the region were often prominently placed by highways to easily serve tourists, like the Chuck Wagon Restaurant which was located in Blowing Rock before its closure. The restaurant was just off of U.S. 321 and connected to the Appalachian Motel, cementing its dedication to serving tourists and travelers of North Carolina's mountain region. This notion is reiterated in a 1960 menu from the restaurant, which highlights the region as "the holiday highlands" and encourages patrons to "ask their waitress for a free folder of our area." The back of this menu also centers the restaurant in relation to popular attractions in the area, like Grandfather Mountain and Linville Caverns. In addition to the ways that this menu caters to tourists, it also introduces travelers to traditional foods of the region, including items like fried chicken, country ham steak, and biscuits.

Resources and further readings
Starnes, Richard D. Creating the Land of the Sky: Tourism and Society in Western North Carolina. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2005.
Starnes, Richard D. Travel and Tourism. Encyclopedia of North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/travel-and-tourism
Starnes, Richard D. Selling North Carolina, One Image at a Time. ANCHOR; Encyclopedia of North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/selling-north-carolina-one

Junior League of Asheville. (1997). Mountain elegance: A collection of favorite recipes. Asheville, N.C: Bright Mountain Books.

Wray, E., & Nu-Wray Inn (Burnsville, N.C.). (1950). Old-time recipes: Nu-Wray Inn ... Burnsville, North Carolina. Burnsville, N.C.: R.T. Wray?.

O'Brien, D. (2004). North Carolina's historic restaurants and their recipes. Winston-Salem, N.C: J.F. Blair.
Richmond Hill Inn (Asheville, N.C.). (1995). Our most requested recipes. Asheville, N.C: Richmond Hill Inn.