Palates and Perspectives: Savoring Appalachian Feminist New Materialism

As the Appalachian region has evolved over the centuries, so too have Appalachian palates. In order to better understand the rhetorics surrounding food in Appalachian communities, I examine cookbooks written about Appalachian food and perform a material-discursive analysis of Appalachian kitchens to establish my own theory: Appalachian feminist new materialism (AFNM). To understand how gender, materiality, and regional identity intersect in the Appalachian food context I consider both human and non-human factors essential for studying this theory. My examination of Appalachian cookbooks requires an understanding of technical rhetorics and Appalachian history books. I turn to feminist posthumanist and new materialist scholars for defining the material turn in rhetoric studies and the particularity of specific, location-based knowledges. I cement three tenets of Appalachian feminist new materialism to prove the utility and relevancy of my theory, citing award winning cookbooks as evidence of my theory at work. I uncover hidden power structures and human/nonhuman relationships that exist within Appalachian cookbooks. These three tenets are: Appalachian posthuman agency; challenging Appalachian essentialisms; and decentering humans and recognizing nonhumans in Appalachia. These three chapters work together to establish AFNM as a valid theory necessary for understanding Appalachian foodways, which are more complex than we realize.