BOONE, N.C. — A new book by Appalachian State University professor Zackary Vernon places Watauga County at the heart of a national conversation about food, community and resilience. Eating on a Mountain at the End of the World: How I Found Love, Humor, and Beauty in My Quest for Ethical Food was published in June by the University of North Carolina (UNC) Press.
When Vernon moved to Boone, he set a personal goal: to make more ethical food choices. That effort soon led him to work on an organic farm, volunteer at a pay‑what‑you‑can restaurant and interview a wide range of people — from fishermen and farmers to biologists and reality television personality Eustace Conway. As he stepped outside the industrial food system, he found himself in the company of people on the fringe, individuals who reject not only industrial farming methods but also modern beliefs and conventions they see as harmful to food and land.
Disillusioned by extremist positions on both the left and right, Vernon writes about the challenge of trying to eat ethically without sacrificing pleasure or joy. While he doesn't offer easy answers, he invites readers to consider their responsibilities to the places they live and to the far‑off places affected by their choices. Through dry wit and personal stories, he offers ways "to fail better" as people navigate how to eat more ethically in the future.
The book highlights several well‑known local figures and organizations, including biologist Gary Walker, F.A.R.M. Cafe, Against the Grain Farm, and multiple trout fishing shops and guides. Vernon said Boone's people and landscapes shaped the project from the beginning.
"I fell even deeper in love with Boone and, more broadly, Appalachia, while writing the book," Vernon said in an interview with UNC Chapel Hill's College of Arts and Sciences. "Boone boasts a wealth of farmers, restaurateurs, scholars, writers and activists who are working to create a more equitable food system."
The book has also drawn early praise from regional reviewers. Writing for Fisher & Farmer, Rebecca Blaire called it "a food ethics memoir with the rare quality of not having already decided what it thinks." She noted that Vernon's hands‑on approach — living in Boone, working the soil and eating the food — sets the book apart from other works in the genre. "This is a book for anyone who has stood in a grocery shop trying to do the right thing and found that the right thing was not labeled, not affordable and not entirely clear," Blaire wrote.
Vernon is a professor of English and the director of graduate studies in App State's Department of English. His research focuses on American literature, film, environmental activism, and the cultural history of Appalachia and the U.S. South. He is the author of the 2024 young adult novel Our Bodies Electric and the editor of several scholarly collections. He has also published in magazines and journals such as The Bitter Southerner, Southern Cultures, Cold Mountain Review and The Carolina Quarterly. Three of his essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2015 he won the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Award from the North Carolina Literary Review.
Eating on a Mountain at the End of the World is available through UNC Press and local booksellers.
###
About the University of North Carolina Press
The University of North Carolina Press is a nonprofit publisher of both scholarly and general-interest books and journals. Established in 1922, UNC Press was the first university press in the South and one of the first in the nation. Learn more about the University of North Carolina Press
About Appalachian State University
As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, cost-effective education. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more about Appalachian State University
A person wearing a grey suit, white shirt, purple tie, and glasses smiles against a black background.
Dr. Zackary Vernon is a professor of English and the director of graduate studies in Appalachian State University's Department of English. Photo by Appalachian State University Communications