Remarks and Book Signing with Diane Flynt, author of Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived:’ The Surprising Story of Apples From the American South.
For anyone who's ever picked an apple fresh from the tree or enjoyed a glass of cider, writer and orchardist Diane Flynt offers a new history of the apple and how it changed the South and the nation. Showing how southerners cultivated over 2,000 apple varieties from Virginia to Mississippi, Flynt shares surprising stories of a fruit that was central to the region for over 200 years. Colorful characters abound in this history, including aristocratic Belgian immigrants, South Carolina plantation owners, and multiple presidents, each group changing the course of southern orchards. She shows how southern apples, ranging from northern varieties that found fame on southern soil to hyper-local apples grown by a single family, have a history beyond the region, from Queen Victoria's court to the Oregon Trail. Flynt also tells us the darker side of the story, detailing how apples were entwined with slavery and the theft of Indigenous land. She relates the ways southerners lost their rich apple culture in less than the lifetime of a tree and offers a tentatively hopeful future.
Alongside unexpected apple history, Flynt traces the arc of her own journey as a pioneering farmer in the southern Appalachians who planted cider apples never grown in the region and founded the first modern cidery in the South. Flynt threads her own story with archival research and interviews with orchardists, farmers, cidermakers, and more. The result is not only the definitive story of apples in the South but also a new way to challenge our notions of history.
A multiple-time James Beard Award finalist for Outstanding Wine, Spirits, or Beer Professional, Diane Flynt founded Foggy Ridge Cider in 1997 after leaving her corporate career and produced cider until 2018. She now sells cider apples from the Foggy Ridge orchards in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains.
Please join us on March 16, 2024, with remarks and a book signing with author Diane Flynt. The presentation will start at 10 a.m. with a book signing to follow. Diane's book will be available to purchase from our gift shop.
From openings that read like warm memoir set against meaty pockets of science Ms. Flynt underscores the how and why of southern apples. Entertaining as she explains the facts and fiction around the fruit to fully personify the nimble ways it suited and supported the needs of indigenous Americans, enslaved Africans and landowners alike, Flynt shows us all we lost when we fled our family farms in the name of opportunity and turned our backs on the agricultural heirlooms that held more than we ever knew. Luckily, Ms. Flynt leaves us with the ways she and other resourceful entrepreneurs are working creatively to reestablish and invigorate an important, but also delicious part of our diverse shared heritage.”—Vivian Howard, restauranter author of Deep Run Roots: Stories & Recipes from my Corner of the South, and host of Somewhere South and A Chef’s Life
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. This program is inside the Horne Creek Visitor Center. Limited Seating Available.
Please RSVP to 336-325-2298 or hornecreek@dncr.nc.gov before March 15 if one is planning to attend. Free, although donations are appreciated.
Book signing and Spring Apple Tree Sale will both take place on March 16. Come purchase some heirloom apple trees and then meet the author Diane Flynt.