July 2009 NewsletterJim Casada
Web site:
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com July JoysI’ve been in the high country of North Carolina for the last two weeks and will likely remain here most if not all of July. The lengthy stay involves family matters, primarily caring for a father who will turn 100 next month. My siblings help, and ordinarily I split time in the warm weather months with my brother while my sister stays here in the little town of Bryson City in the winter. However, recent surgery on my brother, followed by complications and a second surgery (he’s doing much better after a huge scare), mean it’s on my shoulders. Mind you, I’m not complaining. What I’m really getting to do is to make an extended foray, with added responsibilities to be sure, back to my boyhood. I get away for some evening fishing almost daily; enjoy the simple pleasures of a garden that, thanks to 70 years of attention from Dad, is incredibly productive; read a lot; write some; and make a daily excursion to one place of interest or another. Those little outings, usually lasting 30 minutes to an hour, are truly special. Many of them have been to cemeteries, a lot of these in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and accessible only by trail. To some this may seem strange, but then I’ve never denied being somewhat eccentric, or as it is put in the mountain vernacular, “quair.” I firmly believe in the timeless historian’s adage, “You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been,” and in my view there are few better ways to get an appreciation for the present than to ponder the past. My wanderings have encompassed everything from creek rocks marking the grave of long forgotten individuals to one of Thomas Wolfe’s “angels” (from his book, Look Homeward, Angel—it is a soaring statue of Carrera marble imported from Italy by his father) adorning the final resting place of a young woman. Collectively the cemeteries gave me the idea for a series of profiles under the general title “Trails to Tombstones,” in which I am writing about prominent or notorious local figures, a goodly number of whom I knew as a boy, who had a significant impact on this small mountain community in one way or another. They appear in the little weekly hometown paper here. I’ve written a column for it, mainly on the outdoors, but with periodic sidetracks into history, for a number of years. Curiously, and since I just mentioned Thomas Wolfe I will dispute the title of another of his books, You Can’t Go Home Again, by saying those columns have taken me back home. While I seriously doubt if the newspaper’s subscribers reach 10,000 in number, I get more response (positive and negative) from my work for it than anything I do. One individual whose tombstone intrigues me, as does his life, was a famed outdoorsman by the name of Mark Cathey. I’ve written about him extensively over the years, thanks in part to the fact that he was a pioneering fly fisherman but also because he was a fascinating man. Certainly the epitaph on his tombstone is about as fine as you will find. It reads: Mark Cathey,
beloved hunter and fisherman, The epitaph was written by a Baptist minister who was an avid angler, and he and “Uncle Mark” became good friends late in the latter’s life. Whether or not the hook had a good, solid barb (Cathey had been a maker and consumer of moonshine, as well as something of a “rounder,” most of his life), there’s no denying the impact of the thought. Another aspect of my perambulations, and it is one which will gather importance in coming days, involves berry picking. That’s a direct link with my boyhood, when picking blackberries was an important way for me to earn pocket money, and I’ve loved gathering nature’s rich bounty ever since. The mountains have had plenty of rain this year, which translates to big berries, and after having gotten a running start on wild raspberries, which ripen earlier, I intend to do full justice to the blackberry crop. In that regard, there’s a recipe for a cobbler at the end of this newsletter which is as simple and scrumptious as anyone could want. Thinking along those lines, I realize that in a sense connectivity to the land is something far too many folks in today’s world lack. They have only the vaguest idea of the circle of life, have likely never hoed a row of corn or pulled weeds in the hot sun. Their idea of “meat on the table” involves a visit to the local grocery store or meat market, and the closest they’ve ever come to butchering an animal would be carving up a turkey at Thanksgiving. That saddens me, while at the same time I take quiet comfort in my own roots and sense of closeness to the land. I may be paranoid, but I’m terribly concerned about the direction in which this country is going in a variety of ways—politically, morally, religiously, and economically. I genuinely believe, and I say this as someone who has spent most of his years studying history, that we are currently on a fast track to disaster. That being said, at least I know how to grow a garden, harvest a wide variety of wild foods, catch and clean fish, kill and dress game, and more. I’ve got a wife who can turn such things into wonderful provender, and for that matter, I like to think I’m a pretty fair hand myself when it comes to cooking. Today’s menu for me and my Dad will include fried trout I caught yesterday, potatoes and onions I grew in my garden back home, and green beans and squash from his garden. Even the dessert, a black walnut cake made by a wonderful colored lady who lives out the road a ways, will feature nuts gathered, cracked, and shelled the old-fashioned way. In other words, we will eat well, and what we consume will come from sources at first hand. If times continue to worsen, all of us may be doing more of that. Still, for all that I have a long running case of the mollygrubs about our national leadership (and I should note that my disdain for politicians is pretty near universal—I think all of them on the national level, with precious few exceptions, have lost touch with reality), I retain a positive outlook by finding things to take my mind away from a country gone badly awry. July is a chorus of jar flies (cicadas if you insist) singing at dusk. It’s a staunch country woman putting up corn gathered in the dews that very day. It’s a child chasing lightning bugs at first dark or capturing a June bug and attaching a piece of sewing thread to make their own insect version of a helicopter. It’s crickets and grasshoppers offering their sunny day music. It’s tomatoes ripening on the vine or a slice of icy watermelon in the gloaming after a long day of hard labor in the field. It’s a pot of just picked, strung, and broken green beans simmering in a pot on a back burner, with a good chunk of streaked meat added for seasoning. It’s bees busy in sourwood blooms and the thoughts they evoke of that incomparable honey adorning a cathead buttermilk biscuit. The month is an old man and a young boy sitting on a shady river bank, watching for bobbers to bounce at the business end of their cane poles. That timeless partnership of young and old may bring home a mess or catfish or bream, and if they are really lucky, the fish will be fried in stone-ground cornmeal. That same cornmeal will be used to make cornbread the way it should be, in a cast iron skillet that never knows the misery of being exposed to soap and water. Just a careful wiping after each use, with a swipe or two from some fatback to keep it seasoned until the next use. July is a month for celebrating our heritage, and as I have already done, bemoaning the way that wonderful history and tradition is being abused. I don’t have any ready answers to my myriad of concerns with national leadership, but I do firmly believe that the heart of what made America great and what holds her promise for the future lies far from Washington. It is found not in Chicago, or LA, or New York, or New Orleans, or indeed any giant city. Instead what is bright and right about this country lies in the heartland, red states if you will (and I’m not a Republican, though certainly not a Democrat either), where people still live close to the good earth, fly the flag, honor our nation’s history, revere the military, pray in earnest, despise socialism, are fiercely independent, believe that self-sufficiency is a cardinal virtue, cherish the Second Amendment, hunt and fish, and respect their fellow man. I find comfort in knowing such people and in realizing there are untold millions of them, never mind what the out-of-touch idiots in the mainstream media would have us believe. And with that I’m going to stop, add some recipes, go cook lunch, and be thankful I’m among those privileged to be in tune with the natural world. BLACKBERRY COBBLER1 cup milk Melt butter and pour into bowl with all ingredients except the berries. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Pour batter into an 8 x 10 (or larger) baking pan. Pour berries on top and cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown. NOTE: This recipe also works well with a variety of other berries including dewberries, strawberries, and blueberries, and it can be used with peaches, apples, or cherries. Sour cherries may require a bit of extra sweetening. PAN-FRIED TROUT2 or 3 small trout
per person (trout in the 7- to 9-inch range are tastier and fry better
than larger ones) Heat oil in a large frying pan until it is piping hot. Meanwhile, thoroughly coat trout with cornmeal, being sure to put some in the body cavity. Fry until golden brown, turning once. Place atop folded paper towels to absorb grease, although if the pan is as hot as it should be, the cornbread overcoats will “seal” the fish and leave little grease and no greasy taste. Serve piping hot. Slaw, fried taters and onions, and cornbread make the perfect accompaniments. NOTE: A quick, simple, and scrumptious way to prepare perfectly fried potatoes using virtually no oil is to cook the spuds, with their jackets on, in a microwave for a few minutes (be sure to puncture with a fork and wrap each potato in a paper towel. Microwave until almost done. Then slice into a large frying pan, adding thinly sliced onions, and cook until potatoes are nicely browned and onions carmelized. You won’t eat better fried potatoes, and grease isn’t a factor. Thank you for subscribing to the
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