Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. It's bonus episode time. Hi everybody.
You're not accustomed to seeing us. You're not accustomed to seeing us. You're not ever ever. And some of us in real life who you have, you know, if you have seen us, we're sorry.
We're so sorry. Sorry about that. Anyway, we have the face for radio. Yes, we definitely.
I do as well. Yeah. All right. So this is because we kind of forgot y'all on Thursday.
Listen. Listen. Listen. It's been a week.
I texted Haley on Thursday morning. So I was listening to another podcast and said, Haley, I was like, no, we didn't upload or post an episode. We have both failed. So listen, if you work in the public school setting or really anywhere with children or people in general, this weird time between like holidays, holidays, like after Halloween, the November, December time frame, I'm going to tell you right now, my kids are feral.
Yeah, they are. It's a hard time. I don't have biological children, but my students, they are feral. I love them.
Every day I have to remind myself that I love them. Yes. And I have to continuously tell them I love them because there are days. Yeah.
There are days. I love you, but I need you to get it together. Even my own. He's so we put up our Christmas tree.
And every single day he wakes up and says, has Santa come? And I'm telling him it's November. It's not even Thanksgiving. No.
So we talk about the days. He doesn't really understand. So I'm going to get an advent calendar, maybe that'll help. Yeah.
I don't know. But I did have a child tell me today that I was her third favorite adult in the building. And I felt like that was a win. It really is.
You are my second favorite adult in this room right now. Wow. That's impressive. That's better than what your student got.
It is. I also successfully was in charge of buses today. Me was in charge of the big yellow school buses getting them in and out of the parking lot, getting the children on them safely. Nobody got run over.
No buses demolition derby out there. That would be fun. My son would be down. It was great.
It ran smoothly all was well. They told me I was in charge of buses literally the day before I was in charge of them. I was not because I've been out there. I knew the drill.
I'm like, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. I did tell my mother that I was in charge of buses and she's like, all right, I'll send the Calvary. Send prayers.
Send prayers. And you're well wishes to Haley. No, but I did it. I'm proud of you.
Thanks. It wasn't bad. Yeah. I had my little radio and I was out there and I was waving buses and they were all looking at me like, what are you waving at us for?
And I'm like, if I know, y'all know what you're doing better than I do. I'm just out here to make sure nobody gets run over. And success. Success.
Everybody got on a bus and now that you don't know that was the right bus and they got on one. They got somewhere. Don't know if it's home, but they got on one. Well, that's good.
I mean, I hope they know by this point they are middle and high school students. What bus they ride. And this opens the door for you to do it more often. Yeah.
Maybe. I feel like I need to find a new assignment for the winter months. Because I kind of volunteered for this on meaning to. I went out there one time to help out because it was there's pretty short staff out there and I got out there and then there was a problem and I fixed the problem.
You're never leaving. And now they're like, huh, you're never leaving. You can do buses. I'm like, can I?
Oh, I can't, but should I? No, no. But you're proving. I can't.
I know you will. And now I will. I live in the bus a lot now. Well, I'm excited for this bonus episode you guys get.
So basically we felt so bad that we kind of forgot about you until, you know, a little later on Thursday. So we have managed to pull off a bonus episode for you that is airing today, Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. I'm so excited about Thanksgiving. Hailey, you got your stretchy pans ready for all that food.
Heck yeah, I do. Do you have anything in particular that you are looking forward to? I am looking forward to all of it. I was going to say the ham, the mac and cheese, the sweet potatoes, the green beans, some sort of bread.
Casseroles galore. I'm just ready for a long time. Do you cook or do something else? I usually do a dessert.
Nice. Do some bacon. Nice. Do some bacon.
That's good. Or is your family one of those families that they like dress up nice? No. Same.
Great. I don't understand those families. No, but I think it would kind of be cool to kind of have one time, a year that you dress nicely and have a nice dinner. It's usually Easter for us.
Okay. So I'll go to church on Easter and then everybody comes back and we have a big lunch. But I usually bring a change of clothes and I change out of my Easter finery into my stretchy pants. Out of my bunny costume and then into my stretchy pants.
Nothing says rising of our savior like a bloody costume. Yeah. Yeah. It's hit or miss every year either.
It's appreciated or exactly like it. I'm who say get out. Yeah. Yeah.
It's time. So I make it kind of crap for this. I don't really like Thanksgiving that much. I just like the food.
Yeah. We do the same food for Thanksgiving as we do for Christmas. Gotcha. So we you know do traditional things.
I mean, but since my grandmother has passed away and kind of more the matriarch family, like, you know, it's much smaller of the Thanksgiving and I have always been in charge of cooking. I don't host it. It's not at my house. Is that my parents' house?
But you end up cooking. But I end up cooking. I end up cleaning. I do another word.
No. It is very stressful for me and I hate it. Again, not my house. I shouldn't have to do this.
I'm a guest too, but nonetheless. So I think because of that, I've grown just to not like it. My dad's side of the family is we have two separate ones. One's from my dad's side of the family.
One's from my mom's side of the family. So basically in the daytime, my dad's family comes. They don't provide any food. They don't bring anything.
They don't help contribute financially to anything. They come. They eat. They don't put dishes up and they leave.
So then I'm in a mad dash of her inkling because the next one will come. But this time we're getting the first one catered from Cracker Barrel because I was like, I ain't cooking. And then nobody else went cook. So it is what it is.
And then the second one we're going out to eat. Nice. Yeah. So yeah.
Well see how it goes. Let me know. Let me know. Yeah.
Thanksgiving is not my favorite, but I do like food. Well, I think you have, you have reason. Yeah. Mac and cheese, man.
I'm in love with a jam. It's my jam. Okay. So I thought we would talk about Thanksgiving traditions in Appalachia.
I like it. Yes. And I want to see if you guys out there do a lot of these things. Okay.
Or if we do a lot of these things. Okay. All right. So first we're going to start, start, start, start, start.
We're going to start with the arrangement of the table. Okay. All right. So Appalachian tradition calls for two separate tables, one for the adults and a second one for the children.
Yep. I'm going to say that as a kid, I didn't like this. I was like, oh, kids table, especially as I got older. But as a parent, I think it's amazing.
I love my son. But if I can have like a minute to eat a meal by myself, that sounds great. Yeah. See, I don't really remember having a, sometimes we ate, yeah, I guess we did have kids table, kind of.
Like an extension to the bigger table. No, we ate in a separate room. There was this little like, like the way my grandmother's kitchen is, it's like, there's like a window, but it's inside that looks through to the living room. And then there's like a bar thing that flips up and we would put stools there.
And so we would usually eat in there, or we'd put the three boys in there because there's three grand sons and I'm the only granddaughter. So sometimes we put the three boys in there and I got to sit at the adult table. That was also the oldest grandchild. Right.
And the most mature. You deserved it. Sure. But so I was sitting there.
Now we all sit together. How do I say, do you find it weird now that everyone sits at the large table and you're still out with the girls? Now it's switched. Now everybody eats in there and I'm alone sitting in there.
Like this feels beautiful. No, no, it's all good. We all eat together now. We, you know, I can say all now, you know, we all eat at one table and it's really that that is really nice, you know, having everybody together.
So but that comes from, you know, Appalachia. Kids table. Next one, the play settings. Good old Appalachian folks use durable ceramic crocs.
They would break out their good China because this was a special occasion. And only to quickly clean it up immediately and put it back in the case, like you're fine China and you're silver and all those things like, hurry, you can use it this time. We're going to clean it up immediately. It goes back and like we don't touch it.
Go back in the cabinet and that's it. Yeah, we use, we just use regular plate. I mean, we use like plates that you have to use the washing plates, not the disposable plates. So we use what we call them real plates.
Yeah. I was like, are we using the real plates or the paper plates? I'm like the real plates. That's how you know it's fancy.
And we use whatever you tend to combine. But my aunt, and sometimes my youngest cousin, and my youngest cousin is 21. So like we're all adults, get divided plates. She doesn't like her food to touch.
She gets a little like plastic. Oh, okay. I thought like my son's like divided plates that are like plastic kids. No, that's what I'm talking about.
Oh, oh, yeah. Exactly. Well, there we are. So usually there's two of those on the Thanksgiving table with everybody else's.
You guys do what you gotta do. That's eight, you know, I'm not gonna. No, it works well. You ever seen an episode of Friends?
I don't know if you've ever watched Friends. You've never watched Friends. Nope. Well, sorry.
So for the rescue. There's episode of Friends. It's season nine. I think they're all together for Thanksgiving and Monica's really worried about her wedding China.
And she's like, you know, no, no, no, no, just don't argue around the China because she's so worried. And at the end of the episode, it ends up getting broken and she has a, you know, his he fit. But I kind of feel like I would be that way. Like if I had Banshee China, I would feel scared to use it just because of those reasons.
Like my son would hear, don't touch it. And then he would like break it on, you know, so yeah. Okay. So also a pressed cloth made of cotton would always adorn the Thanksgiving table.
My mother does this too. But the only reason she does is really to hide the flaws in the table. It's just easier to clean up. Yeah, because you just took it in the washing machine.
Exactly. And it looks nice. Yeah. Let's talk about the all important, the food.
All right. So did you know that traditionally Apple Latchins had two to three meat options at their Thanksgiving table? We do too. Really?
We do have two meat options. Yeah. Like Turkey and ham. Turkey and ham.
Okay. Okay. So this would be anything from your traditional Turkey and ham to like chicken and doublings. Yeah.
I read one article that said that after chicken was killed, her uterus or her egg bag, as they called it, would be dropped into the dumplings while they were cooking in order to give them more flavor and better color. No, absolutely not. I really do think I'm going to pass on the egg bag. I'm going to pass on the chicken and your wrist.
I just know chicken and your eye. When I think Thanksgiving, I don't think uterus. I think childbirth when I think uterus. I do too.
Yeah. Another meat option that has been popular with Appalachian folk is squirrel. I see that. Have you had squirrel?
I have never tried squirrel. No. Never. I heard it tastes like chicken.
I had bear the other week. How was that? Bear roast. It was amazing.
Really? If I did not know what I was eating, I thought it was a pork roast. But like at the very end, it had kind of a different flavor. But I'd never, I'd had bear before, but I've never had it cooked well.
Because usually the only times I've had it's been greasy. It's almost really interesting. Like it's bad. It was not good at all.
Well, it's like eating. It's probably in the city. Yeah, probably. But this one was really good.
She did it as a roast. And it was good. Mmm. Bear roast.
There are a lot of bears in the city and they are eating trash. No. Caution. We don't know what's going into your bear.
No. I've never had squirrel. I've never had bear. I've had buffalo.
Okay. It's pretty good. Yeah. Anyway, so squirrel was a big hit.
And after a fall of squirrel hunting, there was a plethora of meat to cook up. Some folks cook the entire squirrel while others remove the eyes, ears, nose and left the head. Yum. Folks would remove the squirrels, lower jaw and enjoy the delights of squirrel tongue.
They would also suck out the brain. Eww. Rose. What a nice candy.
No. Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised that this is a thing. Is this something that you do?
No. I didn't know. I didn't know. That's my dad because he would catch and prepare a lot of squirrels when he was a kid.
Really? Yeah. I'll have to ask him if he ate squirrel brain. Yeah.
Or sucked out squirrel brain. Right. Yeah. I'll have to wait back.
Please let us know. immediately. So traditionally when an animal was killed, whether it be cow, chicken, hog or squirrel, folks ate every part of it. I mean, that's kind of the thing.
So common side dishes were these lovely, lovely meat options. I'm so afraid. So it's included turn up or collard greens? I love a collard green.
Oh my gosh. Yes. Me too. Collards.
Mmm. Have you ever put, I love to put a little bit of in a ground? Yep. Douse in my career.
Perfect. Perfect. So greens with ham hocks, grease. You know, usually doing a little bit of grease.
Biscuits with sau no gravy. Shucked and sun-dried green beans. Yup. Corn, carrots, beets and cornbread with lots of butter.
Yes. Actually, that sounds amazing. That sounds great. Yeah.
Yeah. For dessert, you had the traditional pies and cakes, but Appalachian culture added to the mix by having fun with Jell-O. Oh yeah. Jell-O salads, Jell-O ambrosia, Jell-O mold.
You name it. Jell-O was most likely a part of the festivities. Sure is. Do you do a lot with Jell-O?
We do. Beside shots. Beside shots. Actually, I've only ever had one Jell-O shot in my turn.
Really? Yeah. I've had several. Um, she was like, duh.
Um, no, we do, like we do the pan ambrosia salad. We've done that before. I'm not a huge fan of Jell-O. So I usually do not partake.
Um, but ambrosia we've done and then at Easter, we do Jell-O eggs. Like a mold home. Do Jell-O eggs. Cool.
Um, again, I'm just not a Jell-O person. When I think Jell-O, I think colonoscopy. Because traditionally, when I have prepped for a colonoscopy, um, I have eaten Jell-O. Yeah.
Or, you know, yeah. Right. Right. Pop-sicles.
Or like sick. Like hospital. I think Jell-O. So, the connotation with it, it doesn't for me make me want to eat it.
I will say that my mother, like sweet salads are very common for Appalachia. She makes this ambrosia with like fruits and coconut, marshmallows and whipped cream. Not my cup of tea. It's like too much sweetness.
I think it's a texture thing too. I don't like the texture of it. A coconut texture is very like hit or miss. Like, I don't know.
Mm-hmm. A lot of folks like it. It is true. It is very, very southern.
Jell-O. Extremely southern. Just Jell-O alone. Yeah.
So as for beverages, you would dare find an Appalachian drinking liquor on Thanksgiving. Instead, it was much more common to have buttermilk, tea and coffee on the table while you're enjoying dessert. What do you guys have? We do tea.
I always do some sweet tea. Usually there's like some soda options just for people to grab and then we do coffee afterwards. We don't do a whole lot of, my grandfather used to drink, he would have milk or buttermilk. Well, yeah.
But yeah, he would do that. Yeah. We do, you know, whatever my son would have milk or water. Usually coffee kind of at the end and then the second one, it was in the evening, it's too big for me.
My grandmother loves wine. So we have wine and then coffee with dessert. Yeah. Really delightful.
We're not my family because we have a lot of folks. My grandmother doesn't drink alcohol. So we don't really ever do alcohol at like family gatherings really. Like don't have like everyone doesn't have wine or anything like that.
Like not opposed to it but it's just never something. And I think a lot of southern families you find that. Yeah. I have, I had Yankee grandmothers.
So yeah. Super known. So much more, much more common. I love coffee but a glass of red wine for Thanksgiving sounds really great.
Actually, I'm getting ready to have tomorrow night is my friends giving with my friends and I'm in charge of the odour and the wine. Nice. So on it. Yeah, that's good for you.
I'm making a really warm spinach dip with beggets and I'm so good. So after the meal, women, which traditionally clean up the table while the children went outside to play and the men rested in the parlor with a cigar. I have a problem with this. I do too.
I do too. So I, in my family, I will say, I don't know. It's hit or miss. It's either, well, partially because my grandmother, that is like her thing.
Like as soon as you're done with something, she's like, get it off the table, wash it. I'm not. Combine things. She's combining, if you're the bite of this and a bite of this left, we're combining it in the same type of where.
I'm like, can we please just leave them separate? It is. Okay. But she'll eat all the Tupperware out there.
She'll start and sometimes I hate doing dishes. Like I'll wipe down the table. I'll upset tables. I'll do any of that.
But I hate dishes. It's my least air drawer in the entire world. I'm like, I'll sleep to get, I'll do whatever you need to do. Wipes up down, anything.
So usually she and sometimes my mom and my aunt, but sometimes my brother. And sometimes my, I see my dad in there helping with dishes. I've seen my aunt's husband in there, my uncle. Yeah, it just kind of depends.
Interesting. But all kinds of, just kind of whoever gets up and moses that direction. Starts it. Kind of starts the process.
I appreciate that. But everybody takes, like if you get up, like you scrape your plate, you rinse it off. So it's just ready to pop in the dishwasher. Or if people are sitting around, we'll start doing kind of the gather.
Like give me all of your dirty utensils and we'll do the gather. When my dad's family visits, they don't do anything. Man, woman, nobody, it's all you. It's all you.
When my mom's family is there, my aunt, my grandma, they'll typically like help out and put the dishes up and that kind of thing. Like clear the table. They do help. But yeah, all the men walk off like, you know, we're some Appalachian family.
Like what the hell? Get up here and start the middle lazy. What can I say? So I think this year, I'm going to let others clean.
Well, I sit in the parlor and have a cigar. I don't smoke, but a cigar sounds delightful. I mean, why the heck not? Another glass of red wine.
And she's exactly hopefully my son won't be around in a way to smoke when we're drinking. But I don't care if he sees me drinking because I think in a healthy context, glass of wine is fine. But yeah, I don't want him to see me smell. Kind of got smelly in the cigar.
Well, Haley, that is what Thanksgiving looked like in Appalachia in the past and may look very similar to you all's Thanksgiving today. So we hope that you enjoyed this bonus episode and a little look into what we for Thanksgiving. Please email us if you so choose to while Haley. Yeah.
Say hi. How do Thanksgiving? Especially our international listeners. Like what do you guys think about Thanksgiving?
Yeah, especially our Brits out there. Because you guys don't obviously. Yeah, I mean celebrate. Exactly.
And it's also like it's a stupid holiday. It's like it didn't actually happen the way it's taught in school. It's just dumb. But listen, we get an excuse to eat.
That works for me. Yeah, so it's fine. Email Haley. You can do so by pressing that send to Mountain Mysteries at Gmail.
That's not it. Sorry. No, I'm a serious guy. Apple atchan at gmail.com.
Facebook is not mysteries. Instagram, not mysteries dot Apple atcha and our Patreon is patreon.com. I killed it. Nailed it.
Look at that. Wow. Supporting me. I appreciate that.
So welcome. All right. Huge shout out to LaVonia Georgia. Hey Georgia.
That's right Georgia. All right. Catch us on Thanksgiving. And two days we have a really fun episode for you.
Really, really fun. It's not going to be, you know, it's not Thanksgiving thing. It's really fun. We'll catch you there.
Bye. Bye.