The Unexpected

It’s that time of year again, Frostburg’s annual Appalachian Festival. This year the Appalachian Festival took place from September 13th to September 15th. The sounds of fiddles and banjos fill the air of the upper quad. The smell of fresh apple butter and apple cider get carried across noses as the festival is met with cold breezes. Walking through the main tent many people have tables setup selling their homemade crafts. Cheese platters forged out of alcohol bottles; purses made from recycled pants and shorts; rootbeer brewed from root to bottle by one man; and knitted hats and scarves. All the items are fairly priced for both students and other patrons. Aside from merchant tables many of the student organization of Frostburg State University use the Appalachian Festival to present to the community information pertaining to their achievements or findings.  The Ethnobotany program at Frostburg State University uses the Appalachian Festival to share their work in the area.

When approaching the Ethnobotany table visitors are greeted with a warming “Hello” from Hannah Goodmuth.  Hannah is a student at Frostburg State University and her long blonde dreadlocks is the first characteristic people notice about her person. The second is her insight of ethnobotany.  “Ethnobotany is the study of plants and culture, the interactions of people and plants.  Religious uses, material goods, building materials, and herbal medicine is a big aspect of it,” as Hannah explained. Past Goodmuth’s hair the ethnobotany table has a display of an array of different flowers, berries, roots, plant extracts, nuts, mushrooms, clothes made from hemp, books on ethnobotany and even ink from Pokeberries.  Alongside Hannah are Kait Donch and Ben Brown, both of whom are ethnobotany enthusiast and students at Frostburg. Kait starts to write with the Pokeberry ink, “this ink is made from crushed Pokeberries with yeast and set for a day, then strained to make pen ink. A little bit of alcohol is added to help preserve it a little bit.” The ink from the Pokeberry is a light purple.  Ben picks up what looks to be an unripen cherry tomato, but a matter of fact he says “it is a fruit called a persimmon.” The small ping pong sized fruit tastes like a “mixture of an apricot and a tangerine” Kait adds. Ben bravely eats the persimmon not knowing for sure if the fruit is completely ripe or not. The first couple of bites were sweet and tasty by the look of his face, but after a few more chews his face turns to disgust as he found out the persimmon had not ripen yet. “the texture was mushy, and a very astringent taste,” Ben said as he was spitting out into a nearby trash can. A couple minutes later a curious student named Kyle Hughes tried the persimmon guaranteed that it was ripe. But again the fruit was expelled into the trash. Even though Kyle’s face was that of repugnance, he eloquently described his bitter experience, “the specific nuances of the after tones of the persimmon were good at first but upon further chewing my mouth turned to cotton.”

At the Appalachian Festival one hopes to hear Folk artists like Jay Smar singing tunes of coal miners, the popping of old fashion kettle corn, and smell of fresh apple butter and apple cider. The Persimmon is an unexpected taste at the Appalachian Festival. It looks like an unripen cherry tomato, has a texture that is usually mushy, and the most deceivable quality is the bitter taste that dries out a mouth. No one expects the unexpected at the Appalachian Festival.

Photo from Left to Right:  Ben Brown, Kait Donch, and Hannah Goodmuth.