by bluewaters | Nov 21, 2018 | Uncategorized
The pumpkin, truly a symbol of autumn is deep-rooted in American life. In the early days, it was used stewed in soups, in stews, in pie and pudding. The flesh was dried for winter and early spring. The seeds were used as a delicacy.
The early settlers here in the hills learned to grow them in their fields of corn. It was common practice 75 years ago to plan seed of pumpkin in a hill of corn.
To the pioneers, the pumpkin was one of the most versatile of vegetables. Pumpkin could be stored in the fall, down under the fodder bundles and then served as a vegetable – peeled and boiled, and it was then fried – through most of the winter.
Pumpkin butter is a gourmet’s delight, is still a favorite in many a mountain home. So is pumpkin bread and pumpkin molasses.
To make pumpkin bread, according to the recipe handed down, you must stew the pumpkin until it is done, then put in the corn meal and salt it and work it up into a dough shape it into a pone or small cakes, bake until it golden brown.
Some mountain women make a pudding of boiled pumpkin. And some still make pumpkin molasses, which provided sweetening to cook other delicacies. Back then the word molasses was used in the same sense we use syrup today. When cooked for a long time in a large quantity of water, strained and the water further reduced by boiling, you have pumpkin molasses.
Then, of course, there is pumpkin whiskey. As knowledgeable old timers will tell, pumpkin whiskey is a lot easier to make than corn whiskey, and not as risky! All you need is sugar and a good sized pumpkin. You cut a plug out of the top of the pumpkin, clean out the seeds and the pulpy mass to the meat. Then you pack the hollowed out pumpkin full of sugar, replace the plug, seal it with wax, and set the pumpkin under the bed or in a dark place. In a week or so the sugar has turned to liquid and you’ve got a quart or so of whiskey!
It could be dried, or freshly cooked and put into the cornbread batter.
Most of us think of pumpkin pies when we see a wagonload of pumpkins or pumpkins sitting on the back porch. But pumpkin is more than just pie. It is a bread and a pudding, a butter and a molasses. Many a mountain family right now is savoring one or all of them.
by bluewaters | Nov 14, 2018 | Uncategorized
There is nothing like a smell to stir old memories. Smells are surer than sounds or sights to make the heart strings twang. They have that achingly familiar power to evoke the past. And a good strong whiff can stab you in the heart with pain, longing and remembrance. For the old timers, most of the once familiar smells have become elusive and rare, to be sought out or stumbled upon.
Like the smell of warm foaming milk or the poignant and wordless odor of dandelions. Or the acrid fumes of potash and lye of steaming kettles. Like the smell of an oil lamp or the crisp, blue smell of hickory smoke.
For many mountain folk, the smells of an old fashioned, non-deodorized barn are part of their heritage – the acid fragrance of manure, mingling with the sweetness of hay, the clean sharp odor of leather, a horse’s pared hoof, oats and bran. Fertilizers now are non-organic and hence the farmlands odorless.
The wonderful aroma and scents and smells of a grandma’s kitchen have been snatched up by ventilation hoods and either absorbed chemically or shot high into the air. Today’s pantry is no long the haunting and nostalgic fusion of delicious smells that pervaded the atmosphere of grandma’s pantry. There is nothing about it to whip the senses – nothing heady or pungent or sharp. Gone are the odors of cinnamon, pepper, smoked ham and cloves.
There are no longer the old time kitchen smells – of baking bread, buckwheat batter and black sorghum molasses, kerosene and linoleum, the clean ground strength of fresh ground coffee, of vanilla in cake dough, of fresh cut stove-wood and pine kindling in the wood box by the stove.
Something has gone too from the house that whetted a body’s appetite. There was a time that Rip Van Winkle could have told by the smells whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner. Somehow the smell of breakfast has lost its pungency. The smells of country sausage frying, ham and eggs and wheat cakes are gone.
Something has gone too from the living room. There are no longer the good male smells…pipe tobacco and pine and leather and starched curtains.
And with the loss of the country store, the most exciting confusion of odors that ever prevailed anywhere. The scent was of nothing in particular and everything in general. It was in reality an odoriferous inventory of the entire stock – a mixture of hardware and groceries, dry goods and notions, onions, kerosene and soap. It was the glaze on the calicos and the starch in the checks, rooting cabbages and potatoes, spring onion sets, leather polish on new shoes, oil and wax on saddles, horse collars and buggy harness, the stove, peppermint and wintergreen candy. It was a blend of salt meats, paint on plow tools, cottonseed oil, honey and un-ground coffee. It was the smell of whittled wood and sawdust and shavings.
If you are a country man or luck enough to roam these rural byways, there are still smells that pleasure the nose and the soul. Like the smell of dew wet mornings, the cherry scent, the cool earth, damp moss, the wet loaming of the garden. Like the smell of burning leaves, the cidery smell of early apples on the ground, the wild tang of wild grapes, pressed cider pulp, the mint and goldenrod smell of tall weeds recently mowed. The smell of rain bearing winds, frosts sharp and quick as driven nails, the cool fern smell near springs, the elusive vast seductive and exciting smell of the hills blooming in the dusk.
Ah, those wonderful smells!
by bluewaters | Nov 7, 2018 | Uncategorized
From pioneer days gourd receptacles have been in daily use in many a mountain home. The best example is the proverbial gourd dipper.
Out here in Graham County and elsewhere in the hills where there are folks who still get their water supply straight from sparkling springs that gurgle out of the hillside near the house, the gourd dipper continues to hold a cherished place. Such folks will tell you that spring water is the coldest, sweetest and purest when drank from a mellowed gourd.
When Hernando DeSoto, the Spanish conquistador, came this way in 1540 he found the Cherokee using gourd shells for storage and carrying. He found them used as water jugs, dippers, spoons and dishes, mixing bowls, pottery smoothers, rattles, roof-drains, medicine masks, and parts of ornaments.
He discovered the Cherokee using the flowers as food, coloring material and in their ceremonies. The wild species were eaten green, or used as medicine, but rarely made into utensils.
Later, when the pioneers put down their roots in the mountains, they also turned to gourds for use as domestic utensils. Time was when many a mountain woman kept a small cooking salt gourd hanging near the fireplace where the cooking was done. And near the fire was the meal gourd. The salt gourd usually had an opening in the upper part of one side and was hung up by the stem.
Then there was the darning gourd, a small gourd used as a darning egg. Its sides were smooth as a waxed apple. There was the fat gourd too. It was a large gourd used as a receptacle for grease and meat drippings. Still another was the soap gourd, a container for homemade soft soap.
The men folks also found a heap of uses for gourds. They used gourds to hold the powder and shot for the muzzle loadin’ rifles. When it was molasses making time, they used gourd skimmers and gourd dippers. They even made gourd horns to call their sheep.
Many a mountain fiddler learned to play on a gourd fiddle. That was in the days of puncheon floors and cornstalk bows. In these days, it was not uncommon to see supplies stored in gourds under the beds in a mountain cabin.
Most of the old uses to which gourds were put have disappeared. But there is still many a mountain farmer who uses them in his battle with the crows. He strings hollow gourds to the tops of long poles in his corn patch for the martins to keep the crows off. But others plant them just they will spread their vines over the fences and keep the snakes away.
by bluewaters | Oct 29, 2018 | Uncategorized
Autumn is in high gear here in the Smoky Mountains and it is still raining black walnuts. It appears that it is a bumper crop this year. Walnuts are the first tree to lose their leaves in fall and one of the last to leaf out in spring. Black Walnut is a native tree species that is abundant in Western North Carolina. Walnuts have a rich historical legacy. They have been found in prehistoric deposits dating back to the Iron Age. Walnuts are mentioned in the bible and were an important food source for Cherokee and early settlers. The name of the genus, Juglans means “nut of Jupiter” or nut of the gods and the species name nigra refers to the black dye in the shells. Fascinating folklore surrounds walnuts as the Cherokee viewed it as a fertility source and it has been viewed over time as a means of warding off witchcraft and evil spirits.
Medicinally, walnuts have been used for the treatment of swollen glands, shingles, infections and as a vermifuge for treating intestinal worms as well as an aid for intestinal discomforts. The nutmeats are exceptionally tasty and prized for their unique flavor and they make a delicious addition to brownies and cakes. They are nutritionally rich and are believed to protect against heart disease and reduce cholesterol. The wood is highly prized and gorgeous for furniture making and rifle stocks. Black Walnuts shells contain a powerful chemical called Juglans and the leaves, nuts and wood shavings can be toxic to horses and pets. Many plants like rhododendrons will not grow under walnuts as the chemicals get into the soil and inhibit growth.
These days squirrels are ecstatic as all day they are methodically stripping away the outer husks and chomping away at the tasty nutmeats. Many of them have brownish black fur around their mouth as Black walnuts make a superb rich chocolate colored natural dye.
Small bags of black walnut meats can be found at farmers markets and roadside stands throughout the area. Don’t balk at the price, as they are indeed delicious and very time consuming to extract from their shells! Bon Appetite!
by bluewaters | Oct 5, 2018 | Uncategorized
In the long, long ago, before the Cherokee came from their homeland of great snakes and water monsters to the mountains of blue smoke and sparkling streams, so said the Old Men, there lived in these beautiful hills and glades a race of men who were not Cherokee. These men had white skin, bearded faces, and blue eyes like the sky, and they were here even before the lusty Spaniards who came seeking gold. They possessed all the land from the Little Tennessee River to Kentucky, with a line of fortifications from one end of their domain to the other.
These white men lived in little houses of logs and mud, dug out from the inside, and they never emerged from their rounded dwellings in the daytime because they were blinded by light. They came out only at night, in the dark of the moon, to hunt, fish, build their mounds and fortifications, and carry on warfare. During the full moon they were stone blind, and so they were called the Moon Eyed People.
Once at the full of the moon, said the Old Men, the Creeks came up from the south and drove the Moon Eyed People from their beautiful homeland. From where they came and where they went are equal mysteries, but it is told that they were driven far to the west toward the setting sun, and vanished into its light.
There is no proof that such a people ever existed; and there is no valid explanation for the crumbling mounds, such as the one near Franklin, and fortifications that the Cherokee totally disclaim, but there are several legends that seek to unravel the mystery.
One tale is that the Moon Eyed People were small folk, white, who lived at the mouth of Peachtree Creek near Murphy. As they could not cross the creek because the Great Leech who inhabited its waters would swallow them up, they went west in a time before history.
Another story says the Moon Eyed People were the ones that sailed with Prince Madoc in about 1170, finally reached this land and settled in the Great Smokies.
And still another tells of a people, white, bearded, and blind in the light, who lived on the Hiawassee, built mounds and fortifications for some unknown reason, went west before the coming of the Cherokee.
Were there really Moon Eyed People – white, blue-eyed, and bearded – who lived in the Smokies before recorded time? Nobody knows….
by bluewaters | Sep 12, 2018 | Uncategorized
Back in the ageless hills, where cicadas chirp by day and katydids fiddle by night, summer sighs in the trees.
And one yellow leaf comes tumbling to the ground.
Along the edge of the pasture the crimson fronds of sumac shout a prophecy as old as time.
Fox grapes, blue-black and heady, fall from the vine.
Burnished spires of goldenrod stand sentinel in the sun.
Green acorns hang on the oaks, tiny green cones on the hemlocks.
Touch-me-nots, looking for all the world like miniature orange pitchers, troop along the edge of the stream.
And the voice of the stream, so full of laughter a month ago, is only a whisper.
August ebbs away and September comes.
Autumn is at hand and summer is reluctant to leave.
To the hillborn, September is many things.
It is huckleberry pie and “hearts a-bustin’ with love”.
It’s the cidery smell of early apples on the ground and the first tang of woodsmoke curling from a chimney.
It’s amber liquid flowing from cider presses and molasses bubbling in the long pans.
It’s new-run furrows for the seeding of turnips and winter greens.
It’s leather-britches and dried fruit hanging in strings from porch ceilings.
Its kraut in the crock and pickled beans in the jar.
It’s gourds on the vine and a flowering pumpkin vine.
It’s pawpaws and maypops yellowing in the sun and the bronze of hillside grass gone to seed.
It’s pretty-by-nights and scarlet sage, lady fingers and dahlias and cosmos proclaiming their ancient glory.
It’s hound dogs lazing in the shade and chickens scratching in the yard.
It’s whippoorwills singing a requiem to summer.
It’s crows cawing and owls hooting.
It’s groundhogs and bears laying on the fat for hibernation.
It’s the haunting purple of wild aster and Joe Pye weed.
It’s walnuts ripening and squirrels busy among the hickories.
It’s fog over the river valleys at dawn and the creep of early scarlet among the maples in the swamp.
It’s gentle winds whispering of frost to come.
It’s the time of golden sunlight, sifting and quivering through tree and flower and shrub.
It’s fledglings on the wing and half grown rabbits in the garden.
September in the hills is a kiss and a sigh, a poem and a ballad.
It’s a family reunion and a homecoming, a box supper and a cake-walk.
It’s bean stringings and pepper stringings.
It’s beets for pickling and apples for pies.
It’s a time when days grow shorter, nights longer.
It is warm days and cool nights.
It’s corncob jelly and elderberry jam.
It’s thistle heads turning to fat tufts of floss.
It’s gingerbread and apple upside-down cake.
It’s a rick of hickory hearth logs, sun drying for winter use.
It’s a fox barking in the night and a possum up a tree.
It’s laying-by time, canning time, pickling time.
It’s ears of corn hardening on the stalk and sliced apples drying in the sun.
It’s the woods beginning to hang out their battle flags among the maple and poplar and red oak and black oak.
It’s chinquapins ripening in the burr and wild cranberries reddening in the bog.
But most of all, September is a goodbye to summer not yet gone and a look to autumn not yet come.
