Part 1: West Virginia’s Food Heritage

Featuring Free Dicarlo's Pizza Samples!

Stan Bumgardner will talk about the history of food in West Virginia. He will examine how certain foods and beverages hold a special place in Appalachian culture and how this heritage has evolved over time—from early German and Scots-Irish pioneers, to later immigrants of the early 19^th and early 20^th centuries, to the present-day “local foods” movement.” He will demonstrate how our food and beverage traditions take on unique forms in different parts of the state and, at the same time, bind us together as West Virginians.

Instructor Stan Bumgardner has been a professional historian for more than 25 years. He has worked at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, for the West Virginia History Film Project, at West Virginia Archives and History, and as acting director of the West Virginia State Museum. He served as creative director for the West Virginia State Museum renovation. He has also developed exhibits for the South Charleston Museum Foundation and the National Coal Heritage Area and created a traveling exhibit for the documentary The Great Textbook War. As a free-lance writer, Bumgardner is the author of The Children's Home Society of West Virginia: Children-Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (1996) and Charleston (2006). He has written articles for American History and Wonderful West Virginia magazine and developed a driving guide for historic sites in southern West Virginia. He also directed a project that documented the food heritage of each county in West Virginia. In 2015, he succeeded John Lilly as the editor of Goldenseal magazine and state folklife director.

See Stan discuss his book about Charleston at the West Virginia State Archives.