High atop a mountain overlooking Haywood County, Annie Haslam Colquitt sits across a dining room table at The Swag. A rainstorm has just swept through, with a cold breeze floating through the open front door. She gazes around, her eyes slowly drifting out the windows onto the deep woods of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park bordering the property. 

Though the culinary and agricultural history of Southern Appalachia is as vast and robust as the tall and rigorous mountains that make up this region, the intense worldwide focus and adoration for the ingredients, recipes and folks who stir it all together is more of a 21st century phenomenon. 

Ten Acre Garden in Canton has created an experience for visitors. They can come pick their own seasonal berries — blackberries, blueberries, strawberries — or pick their herbs or flowers from Garth Kuver’s Genesis Gardens on the property.

Though the culinary and agricultural history of Southern Appalachia is as vast and robust as the tall and rigorous mountains that make up this region, the intense worldwide focus and adoration for the ingredients, recipes and folks who stir it all together is more of a 21st century phenomenon. 

For generations, the people of Waynesville looked to the auto repair shop at the intersection of Branner Avenue and Depot Street as a place to get oil. 

An Old World delicacy tied to myths of the supernatural, the truffle is often construed as a rare exotic, likely to grace only the most expensive of culinary creations.

But truffle cultivation is seeing a surge in North Carolina, with more than 200 truffle growers popping up across the state since word began spreading in the 1990s.

Heading up Hemphill Road, just outside of Maggie Valley, the lush fields and bungalow homes of Jonathan Creek fade into the rearview mirror. Pulling up to a large metal gate, it opens slowly and you soon find yourself meandering a dirt road, pushing ever so carefully toward the top of the 5,000-foot ridge.

It’s lunchtime in downtown Waynesville. Hungry bellies wander up the sidewalk in search of nourishment. It is the calm before the storm for Julie Katt as she awaits the midday rush. 

“The key thing is the people,” she said. “You have to like to deal with people, to have patience with people, and for us, that’s what it’s all about.”

Ricardo Fernandez is a renowned chef, master gardener and also a former national diving champion, but there’s one thing he can’t do.

“I’ve tried to get my hair to grow back, but it doesn’t work,” he laughed.

One gets hungry strolling downtown Sylva these days. For a town of around 2,600 residents, there sure are a lot of savory scents wafting from restaurants and cafes in seemingly every direction.