The leaves are turning, the temperature is cooling, the days are waning. It's fall y'all!
In Union County, fall ushers in the Union County Heritage Festival. This tradition has graced Maynardville for the last 15 years. But this year a coronavirus changed how we celebrate.
In 2020 the Festival Committee has transformed the Heritage Festival into Heritage Crafts for the season!
Heritage Crafts is a collaboration of UT Extension Union County, Union County Heritage Festival, Union County Historical Society, and Historic Union County. This collaboration has produced seven videos to bring the sight, sound, smell, taste and feel of fall and the Union County Heritage Festival to your home.
Remember the dill pickle you ate at last year's festival and the one you plan to eat on Saturday, October 2, 2021? Can you still hear the crunch of that first bite? Did the sour or the spice wriggle up your nose? Maybe you could taste a little pepper with the dill. Perhaps you would like to experience that same feeling this October. You can learn the Heritage Craft of Food Preservation or Canning by watching the Uniquely Union: Heritage Crafts. Simply click Uniquely Union on the Historic Union County website at historicunioncounty.com.
Alyshia Victoria, Foods and Consumer Science Agent, takes you step by step through the canning process in the Heritage at Home portion of Heritage Crafts. In the first of four videos, Alyshia introduces the canning equipment, recipes and resources you will need to can apple jam or apple butter similar but a little different than the Scottish Rite Club's famous recipe.
In the second video, Alyshia teaches you to make that dill pickle. These two videos are scheduled to post on Historic Union County during the first week of October.
While you are still celebrating your canning expertise, you may want to watch and learn some hometown history of canning pickles, peeling apples and making biscuits.
In the third video, Wanda Byerley, President of the Union County Historical Society, and Marilyn Toppins, Chairman of Union County Heritage Festival, team up to spin a few stories of their own. Wanda even peels an apple while she shares a memory about visiting her grandmother's pantry.
Now that you have all of that good apple butter, you may want to have some homemade biscuits to slather with that apple butter. In the fourth video, “Baking”, Alyshia continues Heritage at Home with Baking Biscuits. Just imagine being able to serve homemade biscuits and apple butter to someone or even yourself this fall. You can have your own mini festival!
In the final Heritage at Home video, Alyshia teaches the craft of sewing. She creates an apron to wear while you are canning or baking. You do not need a sewing machine to be successful with this craft.
Along with the fifth video titled “Sewing” is the sixth video on “Quilting” with Ellen Perry, chair of the UCHF Quilt Show at the Union County Museum. Ellen discusses the art and craft of quilting. She shares some prized vintage quilts as well as stories of the importance of sewing to our heritage.
So by the end of October, you can crunch a pickle with some barbecue like Rodney Malone's Hawg Heaven, feel the warmth of a homemade biscuit with sweet apple butter on your tongue, and start stitching someone an apron or maybe even a lap quilt.
More information is available in the seventh video on the resources of UT Extension Union County. Alyshia explains services for youth and adults. She discusses projects, competitions, and camps for youth along with leadership and mentoring opportunities. For adults, there are resources for nearly every question a resident might have regarding food, nutrition, lawn care, soil quality and so much more.
More Heritage Crafts productions are being planned for spring. Woodworking, chair caning, basket weaving and soap making are under consideration. So this fall and winter, celebrate your heritage, learn a craft, and stay safely at home.
Mark October 2, 2021, and plan to experience the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the Union County Heritage Festival.