Well, it's fall again in my part of the universe. I awoke this morning with memories of seasonal changes in food in my native county of Hancock. I don't assume these food changes are any different from other parts of Appalachia or other Southern regions because the culture is a widely shared one. Fall always meant getting the crops in and finishing up the garden before the first good hard frost.
By September and October the food focus at our house had moved from fresh beans, corn and cucumbers to a variety of fresh greens, including mustard, turnip and wild creasy greens. The sweet potatoes had been dug and were being put away for the winter. These sweet potatoes were a perfect combination with crowder peas which, incidentally, are not the same thing as black-eyed peas. Our daily menus changed with the arrival of each new season and were always welcomed. In October Mama and Aunt Ruby could be found roaming through the cut corn and tobacco patches in search of creasy and other wild greens. As soon as one of them discovered a new patch of wild greens they ran across the road to announce their find. As a child I often went on wild greens searches and soon became quite adept at knowing a weed from these delightful delicacies.
Once these wild greens were brought inside for cleaning and processing a whole new conversation emerged around making sure the greens were ready to be cooked. Cleaning was VERY important. It really boiled down to washing off dirt from the broad leaves and a search for small green worms that were often hidden somewhere on the leaves. Mama loved to give lectures and demonstrations on how to find these small worms. She always stressed the importance of finding them so they would not be cooked with the greens.
Also, there was one or two stories sprinkled into these lectures about somebody in the neighborhood who was not 'clean' with their greens, and how during a meal a dead worm was discovered floating around while eating the greens. It seemed to me that this story was there for the 'gag and fear factor' to the whole process. Often a comment was made like, "Why, I wouldn't eat a meal at HER house at all because so and so said they found a worm in the greens." This comment appeared to me to be the ultimate cooking insult. Honestly, this comment is absurd to me now because it would take a lot of effort to find this so-called worm, and the search for it would be pretty obvious to the host and everyone else. I mean, isn't the the meaning behind, "Quit picking in your food! Just eat it, for God's sake!" a warning so that the host won't be offended? As much as I love fresh greens in the fall of the year, I still live in fear of serving them to my guests because someone might discover a worm I overlooked.
Incidentally, Mama believed she NEVER cooked a worm in her greens, EVER; and that Aunt Ruby probably cooked several of them because she was not careful ENOUGH. This was one of many ways she distinguished herself as a superior cook to Aunt Ruby. As a psychologist I understand that the second child (Mama) always tries to unseat the first child (Aunt Ruby) from the throne. Or maybe this was nothing more than two mountain women living out life in a culture that is constantly in search of cooked worms in fresh greens.
No comments:
Post a Comment