Cooking Appalachian Christmas Food? These Cookbooks Help

This book pulls selected recipes from the favorite cookbooks of three states, and West Virginia is one of them. It’s number seven in the Best of the Best regional series, and the bestseller rank is modest, which tells me it’s a niche regional book and not a trendy one. For anyone who wants holiday recipes that read like a church cookbook from back home, this is the one I’d grab first.

The Modern Pioneer Cookbook is built around a traditional foods kitchen, which lines up with how plenty of mountain families still cook at Christmas, from scratch and from whatever got put up over the summer. DK is a trusted publisher, it’s sold first-party, and a bestseller rank of #64 says it’s moving. It pairs well with the homestead skills books we think earn shelf space if your cook also cans and preserves.

Jubilee covers two centuries of African American cooking, and a good share of what ended up on Southern and Appalachian holiday tables runs through that history. It reads as a serious historical cookbook more than a weeknight one, and it would sit well next to the Southern cookbooks for home cooks we tracked earlier. One caveat from the listing: it’s Prime but not sold first-party, so check the seller before you order a gift copy.

The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook has a #1 bestseller rank this week and the early Prime Big Deal tag. It covers recipes and techniques for hunters and anglers, which matters when bow season fills the freezer and nobody has a plan for it. It’s one of the strongest gift picks in this post for the hunter in the family.

Franklin Barbecue calls itself a meat-smoking manifesto, so I read it as a technique book first and a recipe collection second. It’s for the person who runs a smoker and wants to put a smoked roast next to the ham this year. With a #7 rank and first-party selling, it’s a safe buy, but skip it if nobody in the house owns a smoker.

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics is about flavor from simple ingredients, which is the right approach when you’re feeding a full house on Christmas Day. A #37 rank says plenty of people still buy it years after release. It’s the book I’d point a neighbor to if they just inherited the family dinner.

Three Half Baked Harvest books showed up in this week’s pool, and I picked this one because the subtitle is Recipes from My Barn in the Mountains. That mountain kitchen angle fits a West Virginia holiday better than the other two titles do. It ranks #16 and carries the early Prime Big Deal tag, though it’s not sold first-party.

I’ll be straight about this one. The Trellis Cookbook: Expanded Edition is here because it’s a Simon and Schuster title with the deepest markdown in the batch, and not because it’s Appalachian. A #1,968 rank says it’s an older book with a smaller audience, so buy it if you know the cook wants it.

Joanne Fluke’s Lake Eden Cookbook collects Hannah Swensen’s recipes from The Cookie Jar, the bakery in her mystery series. That makes it a smart gift for the reader who also does the Christmas cookie trays every year. It ranks #77, it’s sold first-party, and it has the early Prime Big Deal tag.

The Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook has 1,400 slow cooker recipes and a #1 bestseller rank. That volume is the point, because it gives you a backup dish for every relative who shows up with no warning. A second Fix-It title was in the pool, but this larger one is the better buy.

Cooking Under Pressure is Lorna Sass’s classic pressure cooker cookbook, and pressure cookers have been in mountain kitchens a long time for a reason. Soup beans and tough cuts of meat cook fast in one, which helps in a busy December. It was added in the last 24 hours with a #470 rank, so it’s a solid pick if your cook owns a pressure cooker.