Eat like Bourdain: West Virginia

Bourdain ate: biscuits with gravy and fried eggs.

Breakfast dates: Nick Mullins, journalist, environmentalist, and former coal miner and Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Peabody-award-winning documentarian.

Bourdain had: beer.

Drink date: “Constitutional conservative” and candidate for District 24 of the West Virginia House of Delegates, Allen Lardieri.

Bourdain ate: vinegar pie (known as “desperation pie”), pawpaw ice cream with candied wildflowers, buttermilk-poached trout with fresh-picked rhubarb, sweet-corn chowder, buttermilk-fried rabbit with fresh maple syrup, venison with a chicory-root rub and chanterelle mushrooms.

Lunch dates: Mike Costello and Amy Dawson, chefs and owners of Lost Creek Farm.

Bourdain ate: “a typical expression of hard-scrabble Appalachian practicality,” combined with “Neapolitan roots”: spaghetti pizza, chicken stew with peas and onions, pumpkin pie cake.

Dinner dates: the McKinney family.

Bourdain ate: a hearty lunch of ribs, baked potato, and roast chicken.

Lunch dates: Football Coach Mike Anderson, Coach Larry Thompson, and players, Fred “Fatback” Minco, Micah “Woody” McLaughlin, Cole “Chavo” Anderson.

Bourdain ate: bear meat, chicken, potato chips.

Lunch dates: coal miners of Pay Car Mine No. 58 in Kimball. 

Bourdain ate: frog legs, snapping-turtle patties, catfish (barbecued and fried), smoked bass.

Lunch dates: Adam Ringer, Eric Williams, Mike Benedum, Amber Williams. 

Bourdain ate: cheeseburgers, hot dogs.

Lunch dates: Justin and Ashley McMillion, owners of JMac Customs, a company that specializes in manufacturing Kalashnikov parts.

Bourdain ate: squirrel gravy, fried potatoes, biscuits and gravy, poached egg.

Lunch dates: Lola Klein and her family.