Hillbillies and Haute Cuisine. (Seriously.)

Newsweek, May, 2006 by Amy Green and Arian Campo-Flores

Mention Appalachia, and you'll often hear snickers about an area full of backward inbreds. Here to dispel such caricatures is the recently released Encyclopedia of Appalachia, a 1,800-page, four-kilo behemoth that compiles the insights of more than 1,000 scholars. A decade in the making, it's the first comprehensive reference book on the 13-state region, which stretches from central New York to Mississippi. "Somebody once said there's more known about Appalachia that's untrue than probably any other region in the United States," says coeditor Jean Haskell, former director of the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University.

In 30 sections tackling subjects ranging from geology to folklore, the tome depicts Appalachia's rich diversity and...

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