2025 North Carolina Humanities North Carolina Reads pick

A journey through Southern Appalachia to explore the complex messages food communicates about the region

Depictions of Appalachian food culture and practices often romanticize people in the region as good, simple, and, often, white. These stereotypes are harmful to the actual people they are meant to describe as well as to those they exclude. In Hungry Roots: How Food Communicates Appalachia's Search for Resilience, Ashli Quesinberry Stokes and Wendy Atkins-Sayre tell a more complicated story. The authors embark on a cultural tour through food and drinking establishments to investigate regional resilience in and through the plurality of traditions and communities that form the foodways of Southern Appalachia.

Listen to Ashli Quesinberry Stokes and Wendy Atkins-Sayre on the New Books Network podcast

Ashli Quesinberry Stokes is professor of communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Wendy Atkins-Sayre is professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Film at the University of Memphis. The two have collaborated on Consuming Identity: The Role of Food in Redefining the South and coedited City Places, Country Spaces: Rhetorical Explorations of the Urban/Rural Divide.

"Joyously and poignantly spotlights the underappreciated cuisine, people, and stories of Appalachia. I love the way that the authors turn stereotypes into a sustained celebration."—Adrian Miller, James Beard Award–winning author

"A scholarly approach to using the diversity and dignity of our food stories to reveal bigger pictures—to get Appalachia 'less wrong.' As a professional cook and storyteller with Appalachian roots that go back generations, I applaud the authors' goals and their work."—Sheri Castle, host of Emmy-winning cooking show, The Key Ingredient

"An essential read in rhetoric and food studies, showcasing how Appalachian cuisine embodies a cultural rhetoric of resilience."—Justin Eckstein, coeditor of Cookery: Food Rhetorics and Social Production, Pacific Lutheran University

"Hungry Roots continues to offer residents of Appalachia and others interested in the region exciting opportunities to better understand the food, history, and people that make the Mountain South such a special place."—Jessi Rae Morton, Southern Review of Books

2025 North Carolina Humanities North Carolina Reads pick

Hungry Roots

How Food Communicates Appalachia's Search for Resilience

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Hungry Roots

How Food Communicates Appalachia's Search for Resilience

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