Liver Mush Festival - Marion, NC
June 3
I had liver mush once. It was in the general area this festival was taking place. I'd spent a couple days in Asheville, NC and was driving back home and stopped at a roadside diner to get some breakfast and liver mush was on the menu and, of course, I had to try it. The taste is nothing really out of the ordinary. It is rich and greasy and has a flavor not unlike regular ol' patty sausage, which is common across The South. One could also say it has a flavor resembling blood sausage or, perhaps, even a light in texture meatloaf. It was pretty good.
This festival takes place in beautiful Marion, NC and celebrates the conglomeration of different pig parts and cornmeal with such events as Best Dressed Pig contest, a Liver much sandwich eating contest, a Pig Calling contest, live music and a corn hole tournament as well. The grand prize for the Best Dressed Pig contest is twenty-five dollars.
Mountains of Music Homecoming - Virginia
June 10-18th
Nine counties, four cities and over and fifty towns. Over an eight day period the hills and mountains of Virginia come alive with the sounds of a musical heritage that traces its roots back to the European and African settlers that arrived there hundreds of years ago. The Crooked Road that links these municipalities is the marker you'll need as you travel from town to town to see acts such as The Crooked Road Ramblers and Flatt Lonesome, just to name a couple. But music isn't the only draw to this eight day hoedown. In the Central Zone in Cedar Bluff, there is a Community Quilt Challenge, and in Haysi, in the West Zone, there is a folk art exhibit by painter Shawn Wallace. What I've mentioned here is just a tiny snippet of a truly vast experience and exhibition. Find out more here.
