2016 Richmond Folk Festival’s Virginia Folklife Area to offer a buffet of “Tasty Licks”

Organizers of this year’s Richmond Folk Festival are encouraging attendees to save room for seconds with this year’s Virginia Folklife Area theme–”Tasty Licks: Virginia’s Food Traditions.”

The Folklife stage and surrounding areas will showcase the diverse foodways of Virginia, and present some of its greatest practitioners. But instead of famous chefs and restaurateurs, the spotlight will be on “home cooks,” featuring traditions both old and new to the Commonwealth. Festival-goers will get to learn family-held recipes, share in closely-guarded kitchen secrets, and even taste the results.

“The popular expression ‘you are what you eat’ is often meant to be interpreted literally, but the saying also holds true in the greater cultural sense,” said State Folklorist Jon Lohman. “It is often through our food that we consciously and unconsciously express to ourselves and others our most deeply felt sense of who we are.”

The Virginia Folklife Program, a public program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is the state center for the documentation, presentation, and support of Virginia’s rich cultural heritage and partners each year to produce the stage and theme.

A full listing of the foodways demonstrators will be announced in mid-September. The Virginia Folklife stage will complement the foodways demonstrations with a lineup of artists from the same communities.

2016 Virginia Folklife Stage Artists

• Cora Harvey Armstrong – gospel (Richmond)

• Dori Freeman – Appalachian singer-songwriter (Galax, Virginia)

• Shadowgrass – bluegrass (Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and North Carolina)

• Sherman Holmes – soul and gospel (Saluda, Virginia)

• Unique Sound of the Mountains – Larry Sigmon and Martha Spencer (Callaway and Whitetop, Virginia)

• The Legendary Ingramettes – gospel (Richmond)

• David and Mason Via – bluegrass/singer-songwriters (Patrick Springs, Virginia)

• The Hurdle Brothers with Reverend Tarrence Paschall – Tidewater gospel (Portsmouth, Virginia)

• Trio Sefardi – Sephardic folk songs (Northern Virginia)

• Reverend Frank Newsome – old regular Baptist a cappella gospel (Haysi, Virginia)

• Humayun Khan – Hindustani singing (Annandale, Virginia)