North Carolina - X Marks the Spot

Self-described "food-centric mountain irregular" Mark Rosenstein moved temporarily to the Great Smoky Mountains at age 19 to work at a restaurant. Thirty-eight years later, he's still there -- and it's easy to understand why.

Long before locavores and sustainable sourcing, the food here relied entirely on farm-fresh or foraged ingredients. Habits originally developed through the poverty-long endemic to the area are now cherished by ingredient-obsessed foodies like Rosenstein.

"It's difficult to farm here, it's so up and down, the weather can change and get extreme, soils are not as fertile." Thanks to the rugged, sometimes difficult terrain, he says, big farms didn't evolve; rather, land workers were cottage industry all-rounders. "At 50 acres or less, people tended to be very independent and the farm was much more diverse – a pig or two, chickens, making their own sorghum. And today, we're sort of in a revival of that," he notes.

Read our "only in North Carolina" list after the jump...

Take ramps, one of the many native plants that were staples of traditional menus here. They're now a rarefied ingredient, hallowed at upscale eateries in Manhattan and San Francisco, but in western North Carolina, the springtime wild leeks are an old favorite. Indeed, they've been so overforaged that it's now forbidden to gather them wild (Rosenstein is grateful that one local organization has created a sustainable project to supply them fresh). Produce here is rustic and robust. "I got out into the woods and started eating, learning to forage wild greens like polk salad," Rosenstein recalls of his early times here. Apples are core ingredients too, at least according to Mary-Lou Surgi. Surgi runs Blue Ridge Food Ventures, a new set-up designed to promote niche producers of gourmet treats in the region. "Gerber Baby [once] made its apple sauce here," she says. "And you will always pass farm stands in the area with a sign for heirloom apples – Pink Lady is a favorite here."

The rugged terrain, so sympathetic to fruit trees, is also the reason that pork's the meat of choices in the Great Smoky Mountains: Pigs are adaptable, compact and easy to keep. "Bacon, leather, they ate everything – sausage was a big thing," Rosenstein adds. BBQ here was always pork and fatty offcuts were recycled to add flavor or crisp up vegetables. "In this part of the world, all they had was pork fat, so frying was huge and continues to be a dominant technique in cooking."

Mark's favorite local treat, though, isn't food but drink: homemade moonshine that he's turned into punchy vinegar for salad dressings. Its popularity, he says, is down to the rugged independence of locals. "To be able to produce your own liquor and not have infernal revenuers chasing you to pay tax?" Mark chuckles. "No wonder this is where NASCAR began – building fast cars to outrun the police."

CHESS PIE

The state's riff on this southern staple, according to Mark Rosenstein, is to sweeten the egg and cornmeal mix with sorghum. It can seem cloying to modern palates, so it's best served now with a thimble of stiff espresso – or try vinegar pie, which cuts the sweetness with a teaspoon of acid.

SWEET POTATOES

NC is the capital state of sweet potatoes – the top producer in the USA. Rosenstein says the classic NC preparation is french fries in crackling pork fat. There is one rarity, though, to which Mary-Lou Surgi's slavishly devoted: the blue sweet potato, limited to growing Stokes County. "It tastes about the same, but has a denser texture like a dried sweet potato," she says, making it ideal for pies.

CHEERWINE

The rugged landscape hasn't lent itself to mass marketing of brand-name products, but one of the few treats invented here is 93-year old Cheerwine. No, it's not legal moonshine, but rather like Cherry Coke with a fruitier kick. "My brother lives in Atlanta, and every time I go visit, I try to bring him some," Surgi says. It's also used in homemade BBQ sauces, chocolate cakes, for glazing meat and even now in martinis.

APPLE STACK CAKE

The ultimate treat from the state's western reaches, a nod to the easy access to heirloom apples. "Imagine thirty layers of very thin cake you make almost like pancakes baked in a cake pan, then in between you put dried apples that are rehydrated so they're juicy and most," swoons Surgi. "Ladies used to compete on how many layers they could create."

BAMBOO PICKLES

The climate here is ideal for bamboo, which grows ferociously well. How better to enjoy it year round than to pickle the stems -- Bamboo Ladies is one prime example of the emerging foodie niche here.

COUNTRY HAM

"It can be the equivalent in a dining experience to a fine prosciutto or Serrano ham," swoons Mark Rosenstein of the state's pork-related staple. High-quality country ham -- whether smoked, salt-cured or both -- has been revived by boutique producers such as Benton's and Hickory Nut Gap Farm. Rosenstein raves over the result of the up to three- year curing process; he suggests eating the ham wafer-thin like antipasto rather than frying it up in slab-like chunks.