Different people, different cultures and different tastes came together for the annual Soul Food Gathering in Kingsport's Riverview neighborhood recently.
"We had people from Erwin and Asheville, North Carolina," says organizer Johnnie Mae Swagerty. "They came from Johnson City and Bristol, Gate City, Rogersville, Greeneville, even a couple from Morristown. It's a yearly tradition for them."
And of all the soul food dishes and delectables, guess what got gone first?
One of the New Vision Youth volunteers came up and said, "Johnnie Mae, ain't no more pig's feet. They all gone."
Yes, you heard correctly. The pig's feet disappeared first. Hardly anything left.
"I said 'pig's feet?' It used to be chicken, meat loaf or something like that," thought Swagerty. "Again, he said 'pig feet. They were all gone in just a few minutes. I'm wondering chicken, the neck bones, the tenders we had."
"The pig's feet. First thing gone."
"I checked and when they cleaned their plates, the pig's feet bones had all the meat sucked off of them, right there at the table," laughed Swagerty. "Everybody broke up when I made the announcement of the most popular item on the menu and what was left of it."
"I went around going "oink, oink, oink at 'em," says Swagerty. "It was a funny moment."
Quail came in a close second, she says. "Some folks had never tasted quail meat before. Again, we also had neckbones, but we took the bones out and made neckbone tenders with potatoes and onions. They loved that, too. We also made rice to go along with it. It was something different."
Another tasty treat was pork cooked with cabbage. "If you didn't eat pork, we had it with turkey breast instead of pork," she said. "By the time you mixed in all of the side items, you had a feast you'd never forget.."
Just over a hundred people stopped by the Riverview Community Room to sample a few items, and gorge themselves on others. The menu read like the 'who's who' of anybody's barnyard from years ago:
31 years ago, the Soul Food gathering began with the idea of bringing people together to taste food their ancestors used to enjoy. Those kinfolk lived off the land and its products. Every year, the Soul Food Gathering introduces the culinary "Cuisine of the Earth" to new, younger audiences.
"We were only supposed to have the Gathering from 3 PM to 5 PM," Swagerty says, "but people kept stopping by after work, after other engagements, other things they were doing. "We just kept going until all the food was gone. If there was anything left, we took it down to the Mission. It was a tribute to all of the cooks who came together to feed the people."
Sponsors of the annual Soul Food Gathering were the New Vision Youth, South Central Kingsport Community Development, KHRA, Kingsport community churches, Longhorn Steakhouse, Texas Roadhouse, and Kingsport Parks and Recreation.
Swagerty and the New Vision Youth are also planning a "Soulful Soupful Soup Gathering" for April 25th from 3 PM to 5 PM in the Riverview Community Room on Wheatley Street next to the pickle ball courts. She says folks can try different soups from cabbage to brocholi... from potato to even fried chicken vegetable soup. Foods you never suspected would taste good in soup form.
Meanwhile at the Soul Food Gathering, missing on the menu this year were the ever-popular "chitlins," and probably for good reason. "Nobody wanted to clean 'em," says Swagerty. "Everybody knows you gotta cull chitlins before you boil them. Usually that runs all the kids out of the house, but if you can get past that, maybe we'll have 'em next year."
"If we can find somebody that wants to clean them," she laughed.
