Things are cooking at the Appalachian Fair

GRAY, Tenn. – A new farm and home event at the Appalachian Fair gives cooks a chance to highlight their skills but also is the first in a series of contests designed to recognize that lifestyles have changed in the event’s 84-year history.

On Wednesday, Nancy Richardson took home a blue ribbon and a $100 prize when the stay-at-home mom from Kingsport won the fair’s Home Cook of the Year Contest with a picnic-themed dinner featuring a chicken casserole, deviled eggs and an apple pie.

Her 16-year-old daughter, Katie Richardson, took home a $50 prize when she won the Youth Cook of the Year Contest with a meal that could be served during a tea party and included an oven-baked pancake, an apple-berry salsa and a lemon cake.

“I figure the oven was on all the time this morning,” Katie Richardson said as she looked back on the work she and her mother submitted to win the event’s two first prizes.

The Richardsons go out for dinner only when they celebrate a special occasion, Nancy Richardson said. Otherwise, she makes the family’s meals from scratch just about every night of the week. The only exception is when her daughter prepares the food.

“This was an interesting morning,” Nancy Richardson said, adding that she and her daughter signed up for the events because they thought they’d be fun.

Contestants were judged on a series of individual courses including appetizer, entrée and dessert. They were scored on how each course tasted and how they came together as a full meal.

“The event is all about the progression,” said Lisa Bradley, director of the Appalachian Fair’s farm and home events section.

Contestants also had a chance to enter a place setting that tied their meal together and gave it a theme, she said.

Bradley came up with the Cook of the Year Contest and a Pioneer Cook Contest for family recipes that are at least 25 years old in hopes of countering losses the fair suffered when the company that runs its SPAM and Fleishman’s Yeast events pulled those offerings from the fair’s line-up this year.

“That makes sense because they are in a recession just like we are,” Bradley said, adding that the two national cooking events have disappeared from almost every fair in the state.

While the fair’s cake and pie baking events are its most popular food events, Bradley said, the four SPAM and Fleishman’s events usually brought a big crowd of people and gave out the most prize money.

She also said the cook of the year events’ relative newness is the main reason they drew only a handful of entrants. Katie Richardson was the only youth contestant, while the adult category drew four people, including its runner-up, Alicia Garst.

A stay-at-home mom from Gray, Garst won the event’s second place prize when she submitted a gluten-free and dairy-free breakfast of buckwheat pancakes, an egg dish that looked like quiche but had no cheese and a fruit smoothie made with soy yogurt.

“When you’re gluten intolerant, it’s nice to find a pancake you can eat that actually tastes like a pancake,” said Garst, who stopped eating wheat products when she was diagnosed with the medical condition two years ago. Her son is allergic to milk, she said.

Garst also makes most of her meals from scratch because it’s almost impossible for her and her son to find meals at restaurants that meet their dietary needs. She entered the contest to show people how to cook food that follows their dietary guidelines and still tastes good.

But while Garst and the Richardsons have time to put together a made-from-scratch dinner, Bradley said, there are many other home cooks who don’t because they’re living in households where both adults have at least one job.

She’s working to set up a series of cooking events targeting those families that the Appalachian Fair might start next year when it celebrates its 85th anniversary.

The new categories could include slow-cooker or crock pot meals, where someone makes them in the morning and cooks them through the day while at work, and meals prepared the night before that can be tossed in an oven or microwave.

She’s also thought about re-arranging the times when the cooking events take place. Now, the contests happen almost exclusively during the day, when most would-be contestants can’t get out of work to have fun entering their food at the fair.

“I’ve spoken with some board members and I think it’s a go,” Bradley said of her proposed changes to the fair’s food and cooking event offerings.

Another strong possibility for a future cooking event, she said, would be a category featuring meals cooked for people who like Garst and her son must follow a specialized diet because of food allergies or other medical conditions.

gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518