January 2010 NewsletterJim Casada
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www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com January Joys (and Tribulations)One addition I intend to incorporate into this monthly epistle during 2010 is a brief introductory portion letting readers know my plans for the month—especially those which involve public appearances or situations where I might have the opportunity to shake and howdy and exchange a tale or two with you. January will be moderately busy in that regard. You can check these in the calendar which appears on my Web site for details. I’ll be making back-to-back presentations to a pair of area fly fishing groups on January 19 and 20. In each case I’ll be talking about the experiences underlying my book, Fly Fishing in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: An Insider’s Guide to a Pursuit of Passion and signing copies of the work for anyone interested in buying it. January 19 will find me in Winston-Salem talking to the Blue Ridge Chapter of Trout Unlimited, while the next night I’ll be in Charlotte addressing the Rocky River Chapter. Just over a week later (January 29 and 30) my good missus, Ann, and I will be at the annual Fly Fishing & Wingshooting Show held at the Merchandise Mart in Charlotte. I’ll give two or three seminars each day and we’ll have a wide array of my books, our cookbooks, and out-of-print hunting and fishing volumes, along with traditional mountain fly patterns, for sale at our booth. Be sure to stop by and say howdy. Unless I’m in a seminar room, I’ll be right there. Peeking ahead to February, I’ll be participating in a book signing at the Calhoun County Museum in St. Matthews, S.C., on the afternoon of February 7, with the new memoir by Henry Edwards Davis, A Southern Sportsman: The Sporting Memoirs of Henry Edwards Davis (for which I wrote the Foreword), along with my Rutledge anthologies and our cookbooks, being the focus. Now let’s get to the heart of the newsletter, and as I proofread what I’ve written I see I’m pretty long-winded to start off 2010. Maybe I’ve become in print a bit like my father accuses me of being in person, “a fellow whose tongue wags at both ends.” Be that as it may, I suspect that like many of you I greeted 2010 with a bunch of mental resolutions such as exercise more, lose some weight, do more hunting and fishing, finish three or four major projects (more of that shortly), take care of some matters around the house I’ve postponed for far too long, and the like. Truth be told, most of it likely won’t happen, but it’s human nature to use the beginning of a new year to attempt new starts. The spirit seems willing enough at the time, but the flesh can be mighty weak. Just pass a plate laden with pumpkin pie before my eyes, followed immediately by one featuring strawberries and angel food cake with home-made whipped cream (the strawberries are magically grown locally by a guy who has somehow figured out how to beat winter’s cold), and my resolve fades away like a milkweed spore before the strong north winds we are facing right now. In other words, while dining last evening at a local restaurant which features all locally grown foods and family-style meals where you sit down with whomever the staff sees fit to seat at your table, temptation reared its ugly head in a way I couldn’t resist. There were precisely 18 different dishes—a specially made slaw; fresh “tommy toes” (cherry-type tomatoes) with mozzarella and basil sprouts; a salad of local greens, sliced strawberries, nuts, toasted Ramen noodles, and Mandarin oranges; another salad featuring sliced pears and greens with a honey and white balsamic vinegar dressing; yeast rolls; collard greens cooked in butter and garlic; roasted potatoes with onions; black-eyed peas; whole green beans; an apricot casserole; roasted baby carrots with a honey glaze; macaroni-and-cheese using extra sharp cheddar; roast beef; gravy with two types of mushrooms; baked tilapia; Parmesan-crusted wahoo; and the two above-mentioned desserts. I sampled and savored some of every dish, double-dipping a couple of times, and never mind portion size. When you consumed 18 different dishes, all but two of which I found delicious, weight control becomes an issue. If you read this newsletter regularly you have to know I like food, and the woman who runs this restaurant works wonders and does so using local produce. There went one resolution off skating on decidedly thin ice even as the addition of two pounds (I weighed this morning) threatened to break the ice. Speaking of ice, we awoke this morning to the coldest temperatures experienced locally in years. It was 16 degrees at daylight and probably dropped another degree or two, with the wind chill putting the “real feel” in the low single digits, before bright sun started a turnaround. Not quickly enough, however. We had frozen water somewhere in the system—probably at the pump or in the pipes leading from the pump to the tank under the house. I’ve got it sorted out for the moment and hopefully for good, but just a few hours without water served as a powerful reminder of just how coddled we are. No dishwasher, no flushing of the toilet, no warm water to wash one’s hands, no luxurious bath. That temporary deprivation and short time of tribulation led me to contemplation of just how much things have changed in the course of my father’s 100 years on this earth. We talked to him last evening (in the Smokies where he lives it gets appreciably colder than it does here) and he was worried a bit about the power going out. Yet when he was a boy no such worries—frozen pipes, failed electricity, inoperative commodes, or the like—existed. I’ve been to the site of my father’s boyhood home countless times, taking the moderately demanding bushwhack high up on a little branch named Juneywhank in what is today the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. All that remains today, more than nine decades after my father and his family moved to the little mountain farm, are some old rock walls, a hardy Japonica bush which stood in front of the house, the rocks which surrounded a still strong-flowing spring, and, if you look carefully, maybe a piece of glass or two from broken medicine bottles. Yet this place, tucked in a relatively level high country locale sometimes known as a “flat” or “beech flat” (beech trees often grow in such sites), was home to a family of nine children and gave them almost all they needed in the way of sustenance. They didn’t have to worry about water freezing, because the bold spring never failed and never froze. You just toted water from it to the house on a daily basis and an integral and routine part of life. When nature called, no matter how cold the temperatures, you either used what I’ve commonly heard described as a “night jar” or else made the bitter trek to the nearby privy. Water for washing hands and dishes, along with use for the occasional bath (to the day he died, long after having moved into a house with plumbing, my paternal grandfather took one bath a week “whether I need it or not”), was heated on a wood burning stove which, along with a fireplace, provided the only heat in the house. The family lived close to the earth, eked out a hardscrabble living almost entirely from the earth, and never really had time to trouble their minds with thoughts of deprivation or feeling sorry for their lot. They knew they could count on a few certainties—self-dependence and the sweat of their brows, along with predictable provender from the good earth. Thoughts of sucking the government teat or taking any type of handout would never have crossed their mind, and even if it had, such temptation would have been mightily resisted and thought of as singularly shameful. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, and I’m not at all sure all this worship at the altar known as “progress” has been positive. I just know and respect my grandfather and my father as wonderfully self-sufficient and extraordinarily independent men. They may never have accumulated a great deal in terms of bulging bank accounts or fancy folderol proclaiming their success, but they paid for what they bought with “cash money,” took loans or bought “on account” or “on credit” with great reluctance if at all, and wanted no part of any kind of public interference in their lives. Had he even been familiar with the system, Grandpa Joe would almost certainly have considered government welfare totally repugnant. It was one thing to grasp a helping hand from neighbors or his children, but he wasn’t going to be beholden to any man (that’s one reason why, his entire life, he refused to work at any job where he had a boss), much less a remote, remorselessly intrusive government. That’s about enough about old days and old ways, but the New Year, a cold snap, and some temporary inconvenience got me started to thinking about simpler days and simpler ways. Maybe it’s just passing years and hair that grows grey even as it becomes sparse, but I honestly don’t think this country is going in the right direction. I know, as surely as I love to read and cherish things such as a fine functioning fly rod or a gun which fits me so well it seems an extension of my body, that the endless government encroachment on our lives is flat-out dangerous. I actually had a friend ask me recently, after having admitted he had supported and continued to support Obama, whether he thought the descriptions “socialist” and “Marxist” he had heard fellow outdoor communicators apply to the man were merited. My reply suggested that if you look at Marxism in the narrowest, walk in the footsteps of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels fashion, Obama might not be a clearly defined Marxist. However, when it comes to socialism, there’s really no room for debate. No matter how you shape it, his policies smack of rank socialism, and I find that repugnant in the fashion perhaps possible only for someone who comes from a long line of folks who worked with a will, understand the value of work, and treasure independence more than the most precious of jewels or a bank vault full of money. They instinctively knew, and I think this is a sense we as a society are losing today, that there was no free lunch and that seeming government gifts come at a totally unacceptable price—loss of freedom. I’m neither a pundit nor a prophet, but I am scared—scared about our country’s corrupt leadership, frightened of our president’s policies, shamed by the actions of national “leaders” in both parties (I use the quotation marks because they don’t lead any parade I care to join), and distressed by the seeming inability of a fair share of the populace to even recognize how our bedrock institutions and lifestyle are threatened. My answers? Alas, I don’t really have any other than to tell you what I intend to do—and therein lie my real, down-deep resolutions for 2010. I fully intend to live closer to the earth than I have, knowing as I do so that if, God forbid, we plunge into a deep and prolonged time of economic trouble, I can still grow a garden, shoot a deer, catch a mess of fish, pick wild berries, gather nuts, and pretty much live off the land. Likewise, I have every intention of doing my small part to protect the Second Amendment, hold politicians accountable (although the responses I get from my congressman, when he bothers to respond at all, never address the issues I raise), and in effect, following a “keep your powder dry” philosophy of life. Meanwhile, on a far more pleasant note, the rambling ruminations lead me to two other matters—the major projects for 2010 I mentioned above and new year’s food traditions and folklore. As for the projects, here’s what I hope to complete in 2010. A full-scale, comprehensive, and carefully annotated bibliography of turkey hunting books is one of them. I likely own one of the finest and largest collections of turkey hunting books in the country, and I’m fascinated by the sport of the literature. There are enough folks who share my passion to make such an effort worthwhile, and I intend to complete it and self-publish the results (there isn’t sufficiently wade interest for any commercial publisher to touch this with a 10-foot pole). It’s a labor of love which might, at the best, make me a few bucks, and if you read turkey hunting books or collect them, let me know and I’ll be sure you are notified when the book becomes available. Second, I want to see Volume Two of The Lost Classics of Jack O’Connor through the press. It’s basically complete now, insofar as selection of the stories and editorial work goes, but the finishing touches need to be added. Again, I’m keeping a list of interested parties and all you have to do is let me know that you’d like to be notified when the book actually sees the printed light of day. Another anthology, this one a collection of Archibald Rutledge’s Christmas tales, is also well advanced—I’ve submitted the manuscript to the publisher, the University of South Carolina Press, and plans are for it to appear in advance of the 2010 Christmas season. Work which remains involves selection of some photos, garnering permission to use those photos where necessary, and, eventually, final proofreading. Again, let me know if you are interested, and I should note that this book will contain a lengthy chapter of Christmas season recipes and coverage of the food traditions which prevailed in the South Carolina Low Country in Rutledge’s glory days at Hampton Plantation. Lastly, as far as projects go, I intend to plow ahead with two full-scale biographies—lives of Rutledge and Horace Kephart. Both are figures of whom I have written many times and who led lives well worth exploring and sharing. These are major undertakings, ones not likely to be concluded this year, but I certainly intend, by year’s end, to be well along the way. Let’s conclude as I normally do, with some thoughts on food, culinary traditions, and recipes. In my family, as is true across much of the South, New Year’s Day and the arrival of January was heralded by eating specific dishes. Black-eyed peas, properly cooked with a ham hock with plenty of meat left on the bone, were one “must have” dish. According to all the old folks in my boyhood, the peas represented coins and a hope for wealth in the coming year. Much the same was true of another dish, turnip greens, which were cooked with streaked meat (also known as fatback or side meat) and with plenty of diced turnips included. In many regions of the South collard greens replace turnips, but my taste leans distinctly towards turnips. Maybe the greens represented greenback dollars, but they also happened to be about the only green vegetable, other than cabbage, available for consumption at this season of the year. Along with the greens and black-eyed peas, both cooked with pork for seasoning, there would be backbones and ribs. I don’t really know why my family and those around us used this particular part of the hog, unless it was a reminder to be thankful that we had meat at all, because in terms of quality cuts backbones and ribs certainly don’t constitute living “high on the hog.” As for the prevalence of pork, that’s readily explained. It was the meat of choice for ordinary, hardworking and perhaps rather poor people all over the region. If you had a cow, it was for milk and its by-products such as butter and cream, not for beef. Pigs could range free, pretty much feed and look after themselves, and required relatively little in terms of care or feeding. They certainly didn’t need large tracts of pasture or the special care associated with cattle. So you ate pork, accompanied by game and fish whenever these aspects of nature’s bounty could be procured, as a standard household meat. Doing so at the beginning of the New Year was an indication of reasonable prosperity at the moment (you had “meat on the table”) as well as a hopeful augury of what lay ahead. One final dish, and to me it was the piece de resistance (and I know the words need accent marks but this old hillbilly is too technologically inept to figure out how to apply the darn things, so kindly give me a break on the spelling) of the meal ushering in the new year, was cracklin’ cornbread. If you haven’t eaten cornbread prepared with buttermilk, rendered lard, and cracklings, about all I can say is that yours has been a life of culinary deprivation. For those who may wonder what in the world a crackling might be, it’s a morsel of pure delight, a gift from the culinary gods, and a foodstuff fit only for the truly privileged or specially ordained. Cracklings are the end byproduct of rendering pork fat into lard. When the process approaches its completion, and it is both an art and a science, the lard, at a level of heat just short of smoking, will be ready to cool and set. But prior to that, solid little tidbits of pure pleasure need to be removed. The way we did it when my family still raised our own hogs (yep, I’m afraid we’ve retrogressed and yielded to progress in a shameful fashion as regards hog killing), was in a big cast iron pot heated over a wood fire outdoors. We had a homemade special device with a long handle, sort of like a metal colander affixed to a stick, for scooping out the cracklings. Some cracklings would be eaten on the spot, sprinkled with salt and consumed just as soon as they had cooled enough to be handled and put in one’s mouth. Most, however, would be canned. The process was a simple, straightforward one. Fill a quart Mason jar with cracklings and then pour the rendered lard, as soon as it had cooled to a point where it was on the verge of making the transition from liquid to solid, over them. Sealed, a jar of cracklings would easily keep until the next hog-killing time rolled around. Cornbread, especially when made with stone-ground meal which has never been allowed to get hot enough to alter the meal’s taste, is mighty fine fixin’s. But cook a pone in a cast iron spider which has been greased with a strip of streaked meat and with the batter having a liberal infusion of cracklings, and you have cornbread with a college education. Slathered with a hefty chunk of real, home-churned, salted butter, cracklin’ cornbread is laced with enough cholesterol to give cardiologist conniptions and to allow a country boy gourmet to taste a slice of heaven. It was, for me, the ultimate in New Year’s Day fare, and just thinking of it as an integral part of the simple but scrumptious feast my mother prepared every January 1 puts my salivary glands on a higher plateau. Folks in the Carolina Low Country might wax eloquent about hoppin’ john (black-eyed peas and rice) or praise the perfection of collard greens. To my way of thinking though, you’ve purt nigh achieved perfection when you’ve got cracklin’ cornbread, backbones and ribs cooked to the point where you can suck the marrow from the rib bones, seasoned turnip greens, and black-eyed peas on the table. Alas, to repeat a phrase I just used and which one recovering politician of whom I actually think highly, Zell Miller, chose for the title of a book, such eatin’s are purt nigh gone. Thank you for subscribing to the
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