The smell of corn pollen hangs heavy over the land. It is a fragrance as typical of August as the crunch of tooth on the roastin’ ear. And for many an old timer it stirs many a memory. The mainstay of every farmer was his cornfield. No matter the shape or form – shelled, on the cob, or in the jug – it was the coin of the mountains.
It was more than just bread.
As a matter of fact, corn was a way of life.
It was hospitality and sociability and neighborliness.
It was corn-shuckin’s and hoe-downs, fiddle music and banjo pickin’.
It was chair bottoms and hats, bridles and pipes.
It was pudding and soup, hominy and mush.
It was dumplings and fritters, beer and coffee.
It was brooms and sausage sacks.
It was dolls and whistles and fiddles.
It was a ballad called Jimmie Crack Corn and I Don’t Care.
It was johnnycake and gritted bread and hoe-cake.
In the mountain world, each day revolved around corn.
No other crop provided so many necessities for a people who were forced to depend on the things and hand for survival.
Corn fed the family and the livestock.
Many a family slept on cornshuck mattresses.
They burned corn cobs for fuel.
It was an age when “hot bread” meant cornbread to mountain folks. They ate it three times a day and never got tired of it. They poured molasses over it at breakfast, dunked it in polikker at dinner and crumbled it in sweetmilk at supper.
There was no waste where corn was concerned. It was one crop a body could depend on to meet their needs. They used everything…the stalks, the shucks and the ears.
It was a time when corn was a way of life in the mountains. And many an old timer, smelling the corn pollen that now hangs heavy over the land, will nod his head in agreement.