Courtney Balestier

Perhaps the appeal, to us twenty- and thirty-somethings going about life like it's one long home-ec class, is that georgic chores like composting food scraps or butchering pigs are just beyond our memory's reach, but not so far beyond it that we can't imagine them. The distance makes them perfect focal points in our digitized pastoral.

There, chef contestants use the eponymous pan to re-imagine traditional ingredients and recipes into creations that evoke the spirit of New Appalachian cuisine, dishes like greens in sweet-and-sour vinegar sauce, beans in mole sauce, and custard-filled corn bread. Anne Hart, the chef/owner of Provence Market, a French restaurant in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has submitted entries like moonshine haute chocolate, ramp bisque, and (coming full circle) squirrel nachos.

“The idea that every time a Southern family sits down it’s just a mountain of hush puppies and you stick your head in a bowl of grits is fucking insulting,” Newton says as we start eating.