Mary Ellen Friend and Alice Faye Bragg, Clay County natives, are being honored in a state-wide survey of the favorite wild foods or wild food memories of each of the state’s fifty-five counties. “The wild apple discovery in Clay county that has become a national treasure speaks of how many of our cultivated foods became “tamed’’, Edelene Wood, president of the National Wildfoods Association said, ‘and the story of the wild apple that the Golden Delicious treasure is the story of how we enjoy many wild foods today.’
Wood, who has been the leader-instructor of the Jackson county wildfoods group of which Mary Ellen Friend and her late husband Howard have been long-time members, writes a Jackson county newspaper cooking column. Her sister Alice Faye is a well-known newspaper columnist and author of West Virginia life-related books.
The survey of the favorites of each of the fifty-five West Virginia counties originated with the Jackson group where many participants are actual natives of another county and were able to give their favorites from back home. The survey will be a part of the 47th Nature Wonder Wildfoods Weekend at North Bend State Park near Cairo, WV on Sept. 19-21.Other Clay county favorites can be called in to Wood at 304-428-9590.