Jim Casada Outdoors

August 2006 Newsletter

Jim Casada Web site: www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
1250 Yorkdale Drive E-mail: jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638
803-329-4354

Dog Day Doings with Grandpa

As these words are being written, stifling heat holds the Carolinas, along with much of the rest of the nation, firmly in its sweaty grip. For me, that means getting up early for the daily work session in the garden, and as sweat dripped off my brow this morning (it was well worthwhile, since I picked a peck of crowder peas, a mess of butterbeans, a dozen really big tomatoes to use on burgers this weekend as my family celebrates my father’s 97th birthday, okra, squash, zucchini, and blueberries) my thoughts inevitably turned to Grandpa Joe.

We spent some mighty fine times together when I was a boy, and come to think of it, he was just another boy caught in an old man’s body. Some of the finest of those times came during the period of late summer Grandpa referred to as “dog days.” It was a time, according to him, when a man needed to be might careful about snakes (they were shedding their skins and would strike without provocation, he maintained), but it also brought lots of reasons for joy.

Often I joined Grandpa, who lived on the banks of the Tuckasegee River just outside the little town of Bryson City, N.C. where I grew up, for a day of what he simply referred to as “piddling.” Grandpa was a master piddler, but don’t let that fact mislead you to think he was lazy or trifling – far from it.

A typical day would find us harvesting garden truck, just as I did this morning, early in the day. We might pick a bushel or two of pole beans if Grandma Minnie was in a canning mode, or if she had soup in mind, there would be a half-day session that included green beans, corn, butterbeans, okra, tomatoes, and maybe one or two other vegetables. Periodically we might pause to munch on a juicy “tommytoe” or two. Grandpa grew both red and yellow ones, and I never heard the descriptions cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes until many years later. Or perhaps we would gather a handful of bright yellow, super sweet ground cherries for our snack.

Once the garden work, which might also involve some hoeing or weed pulling, was done, we would gather eggs from the chicken house, scatter some scratch feed, and make sure they had water. Next came the hogs, which would, a few months hence, furnish fresh tenderloin; that indescribably delicious, cholesterol-laced treat known as crackling bread; backbones and ribs; and a concentrated family effort to “work up” several pigs. For the moment though, we needed to slop the hogs and pull weeds for them. Incidentally, if you didn’t know that pigs would eat weeds, you ain't totally country. As a matter of fact, they will eat most anything but cucumbers.

Mention of pulling weeds for the hogs reminds me of one of the many occasions when Grandpa outwitted me. He was full of tricks as a pet ‘coon, never mind the fact that many of the adult members of the family (and others) looked on him as being a bit “quair,” a wonderful mountain expression used to describe someone who is eccentric or distinctly different. It was just that Grandpa would do no work where someone else was the “boss,” and he took considerable pride in being “sot in his ways.”

On this particular occasion we were walking through rows of corn, pulling up red-rooted pigweed and stripping foliage off the corn stalks, as we gathered food for the pigs. For some reason, probably because I picked up a rock and threw it, our conversation turned to the fine art of rock throwing. It had long been my ambition (which remains unfulfilled to this day) to throw a rock across the Tuckasegee River. Never mind how hard I tried or how carefully I selected my donnick (I don’t know whether that word is in the dictionary, but it was commonplace in Appalachian English), I couldn’t reach the far bank.

Chuckling, Grandpa said: “Why, I can throw a rock across the river.” Given the fact that he was well into his 70s, badly stooped, and by no stretch of the imagination as “catty” as had once been the case, I scoffed his claim of rock-throwing prowess while making my disbelief known in no uncertain terms. That was a mistake – one of the sort I should have known better than to make, given the fact that I had plenty of prior experience in falling into his carefully laid traps.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll pull weeds and slop the hogs for a week if you throw a rock across the river.” So confident (and so foolish) was I that I didn’t even bother to get a quid pro quo from Grandpa should he fail to accomplish what he bragged he could do.

“Son,” he said with a smile flickering across a face given character by dozens of laughter lines, “you’ll regret those words.” He pulled out his Barlow knife, which was always razor sharp and used for everything from performing daily tasks to whittling, and cut down a tall stalk of Hickory Cane corn that had already turned yellow in the late summer sun. He stripped the fodder off the stalk, made a square cut at the base and then about six feet towards the top, then carefully carved a notch a few inches from the upper end.

With the corn stalk in hand, he walked 30 yards or so to the river bank, while still mystified, I tagged along behind Grandpa. Once we reached the shore, he spent some time carefully picking up and discarding a number of rocks before settling on one that seemed to strike his fancy. Having picked his rock, he fitted it into the notch in the corn stalk and, using the huge mechanical advantage provided by a six-foot extension of his arm, launched it across the river. The rock was still rising when it reached the other side.

“I didn’t say anything about how I would throw the rock,” he said, “and I reckon you’ve got a passel of weeds to pull for the pigs.” He then put his arm around my shoulder, suggested that it was usually a good idea to remember that things aren’t always what they seem, and muttered something about the penalties connected with speaking in haste. Then, typically, he added: “Let this be a lesson, and I’ll help you take care of the hogs.”

We did just that, and then stopped on the way back to the house for dinner (the evening meal was supper) to gather a cantaloupe, a muskmelon, and a watermelon. These would go into a wash tub filled with ice water and would be mighty welcome sometime late in the afternoon. “I hope you’ve learned a lesson,” Grandpa said as we walked along, “and I’ll make you two wagers that have a much greater degree of certainty than the one you just lost. I’ll bet your Grandma will have some might satisfying vittles waitin’ on us, and I reckon if we dig some worms after lunch we might well catch a mess of knottyheads down at the shoals.”

He was, predictably, right on both scores. I’ll save description of our knottyhead fishing on this and countless other days for another time, but it seems fitting to conclude with mention of the kind of meal that typically graced Grandma’s table in the summer. The big meal was dinner, with supper being leftovers or, if it was really hot, maybe nothing but a glass of cold milk, a big chunk of cornbread, slices of raw onion, and fresh tomatoes. Dinner though would likely feature a dozen dishes or so. There would be green beans cooked with streaked meat, corn in some fashion (on the cob, cream style, or cooked as fritters), fried okra, stewed squash, crowder peas or butterbeans, fried apples or applesauce, stewed cabbage, a meat dish of some sort (fried chicken, fried pork chops, fried streaked meat, hamburger and gravy, fish, or less often, canned pork left over from hog-killing time the previous fall), homemade bread (cornbread, biscuits, or biscuit bread – biscuit dough cooked as a cake rather than in individual portions, or fritters), milk gravy made from the drippings of whatever meat had been cooked, and a whole bunch of “side” dishes such as sliced tomatoes, bread-and-butter pickles, pickled peaches, watermelon rind pickles, cucumber and bell pepper slices, hot peppers (Grandpa ate them like candy, and the hotter the better), chowchow, and slices of cantaloupe or fresh peaches.

Just looking over this list, and it is nothing more than a sampling of the bounty that typically graced Grandma’s table, leaves me amazed at how much we ate. Yet Grandpa was a trencherman of note, never mind that he was lean and tough as a hickory limb, and no meal was complete until he had enjoyed a heaping helping of some type of dessert. Grandma had several specialties, and you could count on one or another of them being served at meal’s end. My personal favorite was stack cake, with half a dozen layers of thin cake interspersed with a spiced apple mixture, or occasionally, jam or jelly, between each layer. Her fried pies, using apples or peaches she had dried atop the hot tin roof of the “cannery,” when slathered with home-churned butter, were things of pure joy. The same was true of cobblers – whether made of wild berries, cherries, apples, peaches, or something else – especially when a heaping bowl was topped with milk that had a good ration of cream in it.

All of this reminiscing has my tummy in a turmoil, so I’ll stop, share a few recipes, and see about rustling up a bite to eat. As I do so, fond memories of Grandpa Joe, will continue to course through my mind, and I hope you are fortunate enough to have had similar experiences as a youngster. If so, create more of them for your children or grandchildren.

Cooking with Grandma

CRACKLIN’ CORNBREAD

There are several keys to making really first-rate cornbread, whether prepared with cracklings or not. Use stone-ground meal, and if you can find some that was truly slow ground on an old-fashioned waterwheel-powered mill, so much the better. Use buttermilk as opposed to sweet milk. A cast-iron skillet is a must if you want cornbread with a tasty, deep brown crust, and I don’t know why anyone would want it any other way. Finally, that skillet needs to be seasoned the right way, and right before the meal mix is introduced to it. Grandma simply put the empty skillet in her oven, heated it at the temperature she would use to cook the cornbread, and then rubbed it thoroughly with a piece of streaked meat (called fatback in some parts of the country). Alternatively, heat the amount of cooking oil called for in your cornbread recipe in the skillet, and when it is hot pour it off into your batter, leaving a good coating on the skillet. As for the cracklings, you can still buy them in stores, although those rendered the old-fashioned way somehow always tasted better. Just blend them into your batter for cornbread that is a bit greasy, rich, and indescribably delicious.

GRANDMA’S COBBLER

Grandma Minnie used a wide variety of fruits and berries to make her cobbler. These included peaches, apples, strawberries, blackberries, elderberries, blueberries, huckleberries, dewberries, and raspberries. Other than the choice of fruit or berry though, the recipe was always the same and was incredibly simple.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
¼ cup melted butter
2-4 cups of berries or fruit

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and milk; stir with a wire whisk until smooth. Add melted butter and blend. Pour batter in a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Pour fruit or berries (amount depends on whether you like a lot of crust or not) evenly over batter. Do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

CHICKEN (OR SQUIRREL) AND DUMPLINGS

Grandpa loved to squirrel hunt, and squirrel was one of his favorite dishes. Grandma often fixed it with dumplings, using the same preparation as for her chicken and dumplings.

2 squirrels or 1 chicken
2 bay leaves
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
3-4 carrots, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups water

Cut squirrels or chicken into serving pieces. Place in a Dutch oven and cover with water. Add bay leaves and simmer for 1 ½ hours or until tender. Skim if necessary. Meat may be removed from the bones at these point and return to stew if you desire. Add onion, celery, carrots, seasonings and 2 cups of water. Cook 15-20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Increase heat and have stew boiling. Drop dumplings by teaspoons into hot liquid. Cook 15-20 minutes longer or until dumplings are done in the center.

DUMPLINGS

½ cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Slowly add milk to dry ingredients. Drop from spoon into boiling liquid.

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