On either side of the road, rolling pasture descended, marked by occasional cattle, plastic-wrapped bales of hay, and here and there a house. He told me that his family had moved to Michigan from Preston County, but when he was growing up they returned to the festival every year. My focus was on the cakes: they were thinnish, lightly browned outside, a little darker inside than a regular pancake, and almost chewy in a good sort of way. (The white buckwheat flour from Maine, where its used to make ployes, doesnt work in West Virginia-style cakes.). We love hearing from you! The tendency to use all or nearly all buckwheat flour distinguishes the cakes of this region from those that used to be common in other parts of the country where, as the food historian Sandy Oliver has noted, most risen buckwheat cakes were made with either cornmeal or wheat flour, often in a 1:3 ratio to buckwheat flour. Yep, he said, those are ripe, nodding his head in approval. In 1838, Mary Randolph in The Virginia Housewife advised cooks to use the starter immediately after it has risen well. When the season starts each September, high demand makes it difficult for Melanie Fisher, the owner of the restaurant, to serve truly sour cakes, even though some customers ask for them. Suite 250 WVU is an EEO/Affirmative Action employer Minority/Female/Disability/Veteran. Around Terra Alta, where he lives, and up toward Cranesville, its common to eat the cakes with sausage gravy. The Birkett Mills in Penn Yan, New York (tel 315.536.3311, thebirkettmills.com), sells a 2-pound bag of Pocono Buckwheat Flour for $4.50. The main reason the local mills went belly up was a lack of economy of scale; they couldnt compete with the large industrial milling companies. People who come here know we make less sour cakes, and they prefer them. He added, Its in Kingwood that you get the classic sour cakes.. So then you have to watch how much you make because they can get too sour. Though Id eaten my last buckwheat dinner only a few hours before, I easily gobbled down the nicely browned, mildly sour cakes with the works: two plump whole-hog breakfast sausage patties, sausage gravy, and homemade pancake syrup. Before the advent of modern farming, a main source of fertilizer and soil health as well as weed control was cover crops. McConnell cleared up my confusion about savory and sweet accompaniments to buckwheat cakes. 236 Arnold Hall | 345 Price Street Wolfe told me that his father always grew buckwheat, often for hog feed, and during the winter his mother regularly made buckwheat cakes for breakfast, but they werent really sour. Well see if there is a vaccine available by then., David Brown, KVFD president, said a meeting is set for the week of Oct. 5 to discuss what can be done, and to look at possible alternatives for the festival.. provides something to look forward to during the dreary winter days. Often, however, 19th-century cookbook authors recommend it only when needed to solve the problem of batter found to be sour in the morning. Eliza Leslie, in her 1840 Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches, also notes that pearl-ash will lighten the cakes a large plus for naturally gluten-free, rising-challenged buckwheat flour. Today, however, hardly any buckwheat is grown here. Sixty years earlier, many of the same fields would have been planted in buckwheat. At the Reedsville Volunteer Fire Department, I ran into Raymond Strahin again. Reedsville uses the same recipe as Masontown, and as at Masontown some of the starter from one batch is used to begin the next. Turner said this years festival theme is Vision 2020 Preston County Proud. Yes, the cakes are buckwheaty, but mildly so. The way our citizens and young people have adapted and overcome the challenge that this year has unmercifully given them. Sour cakes are the real buckwheat cakes, Broadwater declared. According to Charlie Moyers of Eglon Roller Mills, the locals would say that if the buckwheat flour wasnt white enough, it wouldnt rise as well. Despite not having a festival, and all of the trials and tribulations that weve had this year, Im struck with pride, Turner said. Between these two extremes, Ive learned, there is a range of light buckwheat flours, each differing according to milling style, percentage of hull and bran retained, and regional preference. Every fall, WVUs Office of Global Affairs, Multicultural Programs and Graduate Education The WV Wine and Jazz Festival is a nonprofit festival, where proceeds from the festival The closest room I could find was in the neighboring town of Terra Alta, about ten miles east and 700 feet higher. The differences in taste and texture between the cakes made with commercial-yeast starter and wild-yeast starter were small but detectable. Her grandmother and mother made them real sour. She knows that not everyone likes them that way, so she usually has three batches going at once: sweet (freshly made), medium-sour (from a few hours to a day old, left at room temperature), and sour (three to four days old, left at room temperature). Eglon and the Marrara Brothers flours are very light; Hazelton shows a small amount of dark flecks of buckwheat hull. I made separate wild yeast and commercial yeast starters using white, light, and dark buckwheat flour. If I eat em with syrup, I just use syrup, he said emphatically. When the oldest crock is nearly empty, Strahin moves it to the beginning of the rotation and uses the starter remaining in it to begin a fresh batch. Preston County Fairgrounds Government policy also had a hand. (Though the small seeds of the buckwheat plant, once hulled and ground into flour, behave like grain, buckwheat is actually a herbaceous plant related to rhubarb, sorrel, and dock and is completely devoid of the proteins that enable wheat-flour baked goods to achieve loft.). In the anonymous 1830 cookbook The Cook Not Mad, pearl-ash is used as a matter of course. Other volunteers with bare arms were offered special protective sleeves. My order of buckwheat cakes arrived. Although later I found a few Preston County recipes that call for a little wheat flour, at that point all the published buckwheat cake recipes from the region Id seen called for 100 percent buckwheat flour. Eglon and the Marrara Brothers flours are roller-milled in New York State, while Hazelton flour is stone-ground at the countys last operating mill. The Methodist church uses buckwheat flour from Eglon Roller Mills, Strahin told me, while the Reedsville Volunteer Fire Department uses Star Mills buckwheat flour from the Hazelton Milling Co. The younger man, whose name was William, was eager to talk buckwheat. The wild-yeast cakes had a cleaner, more subtle taste; the commercial yeast cakes had more assertive sour taste with a faintly unpleasant aftertaste. Thats how great our volume is.. On the other side of the scale, the starter made with dark whole-grain flour created cakes that were flat, crumbly, and difficult to bake: whatever gluten strands that had begun to form were clearly torn to shreds by the large quantity of bran and particularly of sharp hulls, allowing the gas from the yeast to escape. This website contains This article provides information on I arrived at the Kingwood Volunteer Fire Department in time to help out in the kitchen during the afternoon shift and to spend some time quizzing one of the batter masters, Jim Wilson, who has helped in the batter room since the late 1960s.

The festival also has a carnival, livestock displays, live music and a variety of exhibits. One way I can tell the yeast is working is the smell, he said. No GPS was needed. Other anomalies include Melanies addition of buttermilk to the starter rather than the batter and her use of the back of a spoon to thin the center of the cake immediately upon pouring the batter onto the hot griddle. It makes me really proud of our volunteers and our fire department, our citizens and our young people and our court. And they are denser than standard pancakes. The City of Beckley lists annual festivals and events. He follows his mothers recipe, which includes putting in the starter a small amount of all-purpose flour and adding to the batter some evaporated milk, brown sugar, buttermilk, and baking powder. William, grinning, slipped in a parting comment: his tally for this years festival was nine cakes that day and eleven the day before. He was the only customer. The festival In October, when squirrel season came in, he said, Id go find myself some squirrels and have buckwheat cakes and squirrel gravy. But whether he eats his cakes with squirrel gravy or more commonly these days with sausage gravy, Broadwater does not combine gravy with syrup. They tasted very sour, almost as if vinegar had been added. Melanie supposes that the use of coffee came from farming frugality. Strahin sometimes eats his cakes topped with a fried egg. South Middle School as well. When it gets warm, most people stop eating them, Alice said. explore festivals in West Virginia and the surrounding states. Monongalia County KINGWOOD Plans are being made for the 79th Buckwheat Festival which will be in 2021. Old-Fashioned Sour West Virginia Buckwheat Cakes. Clark told me that people come to the festival from far and wide. Traditional Family Fun and Entertainment All Week Long! All proceeds benefit the Coopers Rock Foundation. Its hard to imagine now, but from the time buckwheat arrived in America with the Dutch in 1626 up until about World War II, we were filthy rich with tons of buckwheat (to quote miller, farmer, amateur food historian, and buckwheat evangelist Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills in South Carolina). I asked McConnell if he would take a bite. The flavor might be best described as modified buckwheat. Christy Lott, the cook at Beckys, does not make her batter from scratch with yeast. February. WVU Student Health Insurance - Reproductive Care Information, Peer Learning Communities for New Colleagues, a list of festivals, craft shows, art fairs and events, explore festivals in West Virginia and the surrounding states, Learn more about Balloons Over Morgantown, Learn more about Gardner Winter Music Festival, Learn more about International Street Festival, Learn more about Preston County Buckwheat Festival, Learn more about WV Wine and Jazz Festival, Learn more about Paddy Town Film Festival. Africa, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Japan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many others Our membership couldnt do it (Buckwheat Festival) without our volunteers., What we have makes me proud of the volunteers and the young people of the court. Each year on the last Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of September, from 100,000 to 150,000 festival-goers descend on Kingwood to take in one of three parades, watch the coronation of King Buckwheat and Queen Ceres, and eat buckwheat cakes and whole-hog sausage patties made from pork raised and slaughtered by local high school students. After Id spent four days eating buckwheat cakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and chatting with batter masters, fundraiser volunteers, restaurant cooks, and waitresses in and around Kingwood, I learned what the recipes on the back of buckwheat flour bags dont tell you: that mastering buckwheat cakes takes patience and practice and that there are nearly as many variations on the recipe and as many ways of serving them as there are people making and eating them. Most of our crowd comes from neighboring counties to the west and south, said L. Darwin Wolfe, a well-dressed, well-spoken older man. We are going to be looking at data as we get closer to the date, and well follow the directions of our health department and state officials, Buddy Turner, Buckwheat Festival chairman said. 500 East Parkway Dr. He replied swiftly, You have to get them here. He could eat 14 or 15 cakes at one sitting. different cultures from around the world. When you see the purple dome, he said, thats when you know the yeast is really active and its ready to use. The starter showed a barely perceptible light purple cast. But mill closures are only one part of the equation that explains why buckwheat has almost disappeared from fields in West Virginia and throughout the United States. When I arrived at the off hour of 10:30 a.m., the brightly lit dining hall was nearly half full. Back then, his favorite way to eat them was with squirrel gravy. VisitWV lists all the local festivals and information about who to contact festivals and events for each month in West Virginia. Wilson saw me eyeing the paint mixer-cum-starter mixer. When most of the hulls and bran are removed, the flour is very mild, with a detectable nutty flavor and very little or no bitterness. 2022 West Virginia University. Melanies unusual recipe comes from her husbands Amish grandmother, who grew up on a farm in Marylands Garrett County, and kept a batch of starter going all year long at room temperature. website also lists the different types of vendors present at each event. They wont have near the taste, and theyll be heavy., Melanies Family Restaurant in Aurora, West Virginia, in the southeast corner of Preston County, serves buckwheat cakes from fall until spring. artists, animators, editors, composers, stunt performers, et al. How we do agriculture today is an even bigger reason. You dont want them thick, she said. Whatever the details, the result is entirely different in taste, texture, and appearance from modern pancakes made with chemical leaveners. Morgantown, WV 26505. Broadwater judges when the starter is ready only partly by appearance. He suggested I arrive at Masontown between mealtimes, so he would have time to talk. County Chamber of Commerce. Sources of Buckwheat Flour for Old-fashioned Cakes, White Preston County-style buckwheat flour is sold by Eglon Roller Mills (tel 304.735.3761, [emailprotected]); a 1-pound bag costs $3.99 and a 5-pound bag costs $7.99. beverages are available for purchase. The tendency of buckwheat cake starter to become very sour very quickly has long been noted by recipe writers. Coopers Rock State Forest Keep buckwheat flour in a sealed jar or zip-top bag in the refrigerator for up to two months or in the freezer for up to a year. After offering me a piece of the homemade peanut butter fudge sold at the fundraiser, he invited the Reedsville batter master, Dave Broadwater, to join us at one of the cloth-covered tables. Despite buckwheats near-disappearance from our fields and tables, it remains a big deal in Preston County and particularly in Kingwood, where the first buckwheat festival was held in 1938.

Women's Resource Center For Prestonians, only ultralight buckwheat flour will do. are given back to the community through various initiatives, such as scholarships, PO Box 6020 The all-purpose flour surprised me. Turner said Queen Ceres 2020 Gabrielle Wolfe and King Buckwheat 2020 Ryan Wilson are acting as ambassadors for next years festival. On my left, Jeff and Rene Stone, a congenial-looking couple in their early sixties, told me they were from the area and grew up eating buckwheat cakes made from starter. Although the buckwheat cake dinners at the Kingwood Volunteer Fire Department, sponsor of the festival, draw the biggest crowds more than 8,000 people in 2013 you can also eat cakes at other fire departments in the area as well as churches and restaurants. When rotating the crocks, he makes a new batch completely from scratch, using active dry yeast. Most years people come to the festival. Along with Hazelton flour, he adds buttermilk, brown sugar, and a little sweet milk none of which are in the official recipe on the festival website. Raleigh County. To turn the starter into batter, its mixed with brown or granulated sugar or both, baking soda, salt, and water. They need to sit for up to five to seven days. Charlie Moyers of Eglon Roller Mills in Eglon, West Virginia, said the cost of updating the milling equipment to meet OSHAs requirements was prohibitive and caused it to cease milling in 2002. The locals were right. Morgantown, WV 26501. Though originally held in honor of the local cash crop of buckwheat, this modern day September weekend celebration features everything from chicken dinners to hamburgers, hotdogs and cotton candy. I realized that Prestonians do not suppose anyone from outside the Buckwheat Belt would be interested in eating old-fashioned buckwheat cakes, let alone bothering to make them from scratch. There is one mill left in the county, but it only operates seasonally. During a pre-festival telephone chat, Raymond Strahin, a seasoned batter master, had advised me to sample as many different cakes as I could. The Appalachian Festival of Beckley West Virginia is organized by the Beckley-Raleigh producers, screenwriters, actors, costume designers, makeup artists, special effects Check out what were asking for.

My first stop was the United Methodist Church in Masontown, a village about 11 miles west of Kingwood. But if youre not ready to commit to a week of starter feedings, then commercial yeast is an excellent starting point. Before I left the batter room to join the dinner line, Strahin lifted the cloth that was covering one of the older crocks. The annual festival showcases both independent and corporate submissions by directors, To this day he prefers sweeter or barely sour cakes, the style that Fellowsville is known for. When a line of buckwheat eaters formed, the volunteers behind the griddle picked up the pace, falling into a choreographed sequence grease, pour, flip grease, pour, flip. Or visit WikiDo Live to attend one of the coming events from your safe home! I hope they all come back next year with extra energy, Lindley said. Three months earlier, when I had called to reserve a room for the Preston County Buckwheat Festival, all the rooms in the small town of Kingwood had already been booked, some of them, I learned, a year in advance, and some people keep a room on permanent hold, unless they call to cancel. He drew a zigzag line up the middle of Preston County, saying that the Buckwheat Belt is more heavily concentrated in the eastern half of the county, except for a top bit that juts west to the community of Pisgah. Like most buckwheat cake eaters in the region, they like their cakes with syrup (maple or imitation) or sausage or both, and the sausage may be in patty or gravy form or both. This time I could see it clearly, though the color looked more mauve to me. To this simple six-ingredient combination, some cooks add, according to their family recipe, other ingredients, such as milk or buttermilk or both, evaporated milk, a little all-purpose flour, or molasses. At 58, Broadwater has eaten a lot of buckwheat cakes. And most of their buckwheat comes from out of state.. An $8 ticket let me into the church dining room and entitled me to a bottomless cup of coffee, an initial stack of three cakes (and then as many more as I liked), and two substantial patties of sausage along with sausage gravy and/or apple sauce. This year would have been the 79th festival, had it not been cancelled by COVID-19. In the kitchen I helped mix up batter alongside Matthew Clark, Wolfes son-in-law and the batter master. See ONLINE Events. After presenting me with a gift of self-rising buckwheat-cake mix, he beckoned two other lifelong volunteers, Alice and Dwaine McKinney, to the table. If buckwheat cakes are served with sausage patties and/or sausage gravy, which they almost always are, the meal is called a buckwheat cake dinner regardless of the time of day. There are some helpful videos also To confirm or debunk this bit of kitchen folklore, I did two sets of three-way tests. To mix large quantities of starter, batter masters employ a paint mixer attached to a power drill. Please confirm details with the organizers. I was immediately put to work in front of a 450-degree griddle, and I was glad to be in long sleeves. some well-known festivals in West Virginia. The Im proud of them in the way they have persevered and adapted to an unfortunate circumstance.. They use the buckwheat festival as a time for family reunions, he said. They are very loyal and we appreciate every one, Brown said.

But only during fall and winter. Not content with the texture of the cakes made with 100-percent dark whole-grain flour, I later retested the dark cakes and found that using a ratio of two-thirds light buckwheat flour to one-third dark greatly improved the texture while maintaining the classic buckwheat punch. Marrara Brothers (tel 304.329.1191, ask for Dominick Marrara Jr.) sells a 5-pound bag for $9.50. Some people were lined up for dinner tickets at the window; others, looking sated, had just come from the Buckwheat Room. Before the greaser got to the end of the large griddle, a second volunteer had already begun to pour the batter to make roughly eight-inch cakes, six across and three down. Before I left, I told Strahin that after I returned home I looked forward to experimenting with a starter myself. Preston County Buckwheat Festival [2020 Cancelled]. At buckwheats height in the late 1880s, over a million acres were planted in it; today, according to the 2012 Census of Agriculture, a meager 40,000 acres are left. The hull is the dark brown or black exterior shell that protects the kernel; the bran is the light brown or yellowish hard outer layer of the kernel. Everyone must be at the festival, the waitress commented. They had a sour twang and, in the center on top, a signature dark brown spot about the size of a quarter. But it goes on top of the gravy..

(Strahin uses commercial yeast to begin the starter, but time and the addition of mature starter encourage wild yeast to develop.). The Beckley Honey Festival highlights local beekeepers and shows local honey produce Unlike typical modern pancakes, there was nothing fluffy or cakelike about them. and Life, and Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sponsor and event highlighting Buckwheat, McConnell explained, was historically important in these mountaintop farming areas as an insurance crop. Other popular accompaniments are apple sauce and apple butter. Here is the recipe forOld-Fashioned Sour West Virginia Buckwheat Cakes. Because I am one of those fans, I found a plate of tri-color buckwheats to be one of the best things going: each bite revealed the full spectrum of taste and texture, from the slight sourness and lighter texture of the Preston County-style cakes to the full-on rustic buckwheat flavor of the dark buckwheat cakes (with the cakes made of light buckwheat flour in between). I asked William whether he preferred the Kingwood cakes to those at the other fundraisers in the area. Kingwood, WV 26537. There a sign placed strategically over the door reads: Buckwheat Pride quality control room No Bad Cakes! Wilson shared the recipe for KVFD buckwheat cakes with me.