Local preserving Appalachian history, one blog at a time

Brasstown Cherokee and surrounding counties are rich in history and culture. Deeply rooted in the preservation of the local heritage is Tipper Pressley, creator of the blog “Blind Pig and the Acorn” and the YouTube channel of the same name, celebrated the 13th anniversary of the blog on March 6.

“Blind Pig and the Acorn” also was awarded the 2020 e-Appalachia Award from the Appalachian Studies Association on March 14. The award is given annually in recognition of an outstanding media source that provides insight on Appalachia and its people.

Pressley started the popular blog in 2008, a time she called a rough patch and was searching for something to make her happy again.

Pressley’s twin daughters, Corie and Katie, were cloggers at John C. Campbell Folk School, and she remembered enjoying sitting with the other parents as the cloggers practiced on Monday nights. Pressley said a fellow mother, Dana Bolyard of Marble, had a blog at the time called “Old Red Barn Company,” and told her how she wrote about her kids on the blog so family who didn’t live in the area could keep up with them.

“I started reading her blog and from there, I found more blogs to read,” Pressley said. “I began to think, what if I did that?”

Appalachian appreciation

Pressley said she has always had a pride in where she lived, which was instilled in her through her father, Jerry Wilson. She always had a great appreciation for Appalachian culture from the music, food, language and landscape of the mountains.

“There’s sometimes a bad light shown on Appalachia being economically poor, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else I the world. There’s more to happiness than money and that’s what I wanted people to know – it’s not a poor place, it’s a rich place to live from the people to the landscape and I wanted to celebrate those things.”

One of the first blog posts in March 2008 was about the name of the blog. Pressley received help from the Small Business Center at Tri-County Community College in Peachtree, which helped her plan.

“My mother-in-law, Cindy Pressley of Martins Creek, had a friend come up with a list of names and I read through it,” Pressley recalled. “ ‘Bling Pig and the Acorn’ stuck out to me, I asked what it even meant and it comes from the saying: ‘Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while.’ ”

Pressley resonated with the phrase, so she started writing about her life and the old Appalachian traditions she loves.

Speaking the language

As well as music, Pressley found a deep appreciation for the Appalachian dialect and phrases in an Appalachian Studies class taught by John Cabe at Tri-County.  

“In that class, I noticed for the first time that we were different from other people. What I thought was normal, was not for other people.” 

Pressley said since she loved learning about the Appalachian vocabulary, she thought other people would too and added the same idea to her blog. About a year into blogging, Pressley received a comment from a reader about a dictionary on Smoky Mountain English. 

Pressley said her mother-in-law set out to find the book, which was out of print. The book was written by Michael Montgomery, a linguist from east Tennessee, and the research of Joseph Hall, who came to the Appalachian Mountains to document the dialect and livelihood of the people in the late 1930s and continued until the 1970s.

Pressley and Montgomery conversed through emails to each other for several years, and he was broadening his range of research. Montgomery passed away in 2019 but his assistant Jennifer Heinmiller pushed through to finish the next book, Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English, which is set to publish in June.

Pressley said through her blog and conversations with Montgomery, “Bling Pig and the Acorn” may be a source in the new book.

Learning vocabulary 

Each week, Pressley has a new Appalachian vocabulary term or phrase on her Instagram page, many times featuring herself, her twin daughters, and other family and friends in videos saying the words. 

“It’s interesting to see how people respond,” Pressley said. “If I share a word, maybe 30 people will comment on it, and out of that some people will be familiar with the usage, and others will say they’ve never even heard the word.”

Pressley said people enjoy learning about the vocabulary of Appalachia and many readers have found that they say Appalachian phrases without realizing it. 

“I got an email once from a gentleman in Oregon and his whole married like his wife would say, ‘grab and growl’ when supper was ready,” Pressley said. “His wife told him that her grandparents would say it when she was a child so he googled the phrase and found my blog – turns out, her grandparents moved to the Pacific Northwest from Appalachia.”

She added that the way people speak in this area is often thought to be a negative connotation and a stereotype of ignorance. 

“How someone speaks, it doesn’t mean you’re uneducated,” Pressley said.

Eating up

Another aspect of Appalachian life that gets shared on the blog is the traditional food of the area. Pressley often records videos of her making foods like cornbread, killed lettuce (or wilted lettuce as some call it) and pickled beans and corn. 

“I grew up learning how to cook from my mother and granny,” Pressley said. “When I was young, I’d beg to get the chance to cook and it was something I always enjoyed. I had a great interest in it and these are all the things we still predominately eat today.” 

Pressley teaches a course at the folk school called “Mountain Flavors,” where she mostly teaches about making traditional breads, kraut, jams and jellies.

Cooking from scratch is a way of life in Appalachia, she said. Cooking with what is in the pantry or what comes from the garden used to be the only means of feeding a family in a time when dining out wasn’t commonplace.

Pressley said the most popular food recipe she shares on her blog is how to make traditional pickled beans and corn in the crock or how to make pear preserves.

Words to video

In July 2020, Pressley started a YouTube channel that focuses on all of the parts of her blog called “Celebrating Appalachia,” sharing her food videos, she has found that food really does bring people together from all around the world.

Moving forward, Pressley would love to be able to blog, run a YouTube channel and manage her social media accounts as a full-time job as well as writing books about her findings and knowledge of the area.

“I want to continue celebrating Appalachia and shine a positive light on the area,” she said. “In the beginning, I thought it would be great to be a successful blogger and make some extra money, but the friendships I’ve gained by people sharing their most treasured memories are priceless.” 

When “Blind Pig and the Acorn” began, Pressley said she only had four followers but over the past 13 years the blog has grown to reach more and more people globally. Pressley said she has readers all over the globe, and it fascinates her to think she’s reaching all of these people from Brasstown. 

“I’m really passionate about Appalachia,” she said, “and I hope everyone loves their culture and feels that way about where they are from. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”