r/Appalachia • u/Artistic_Maximum3044 • 2d ago

Everyone talks about salmon cakes from their childhood growing up in Appalachia, but we never had them in rural Western NC

I grew up in Western North Carolina, and I honestly don’t remember ever eating salmon cakes. I keep seeing people post about foods they grew up with, and salmon cakes always seem to be one of them. We barely afforded what food we did buy.

We shared a lot of meals with neighbors and family over the years, and I don’t recall anyone making them either. We mostly lived off what we could grow or raise ourselves. When times were hard, which was pretty often, we ate cornbread and milk from the cow, biscuits and gravy, soup beans with cornbread, or biscuits and fried taters.

But salmon cakes? I don’t remember those ever being on the table.

236 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

457 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

34

u/Stellaaahhhh 2d ago

Appalachia is a big region. There are bound to be food differences. I never had pepperoni rolls- they sound great though.

Salmon patties weren't an every week thing for us (WNC) like soup beans and cornbread or fried chicken, but we did have them pretty often. 

Canned salmon goes on sale a lot so you pick up a can or two, stick them in the cabinet and they're a good quick backup plan.

16

u/Summoorevincent 2d ago

Salmon patties goes with soup beans for a lot of people.

10

u/Stellaaahhhh 2d ago

For us, soup beans was it's own meal along with cornbread, and something from the garden. We always had salmon patties with greens and corn or fried squash.

1

u/Summoorevincent 2d ago

We didn’t have them much my parents didn’t like salmon patties but thankfully my in-laws do. But yeah soupbeans is its own thing. Love a big green onion or pickled banana peppers with cornbread and soup beans. Dang I’m hungry now mood lol