Old-Fashioned Sour Cakes in the Buckwheat Belt of West Virginia

By Holly Jennings

"ARE THEY BAKED THE WAY you like them?” asked the waitress, after I’d made some progress on a stack of well-browned, ultra-lacy-edged buckwheat cakes. “Yes, thank you,” I said, smiling. But really I had no idea how to answer. I was too inexperienced as a buckwheat cake eater — the question was outside my frame of reference. Never had a waitress asked me…