This book, the first of two volumes, chronicles a highly personal journey, with plenty of loafing stops along the way, through the hills and hollows of Southern Appalachia, in search of the tastes that define and sustain the region's people. Join food writer Fred Sauceman as the sorghum syrup thickens in September, as the First Family of Country Music repeats the late summer ritual of making the vinegary, vegetable-packed relish called chow-chow in Virginia, and as ramps, audacious cousins to the green onion, first push through winter's leaves on the forest floor near the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. Learn pimento cheese techniques from octogenarian pharmacists, eat gas station pizza off a warm car hood, and revel in the simple but ingenious concoction called Beans All the Way.