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May 2007 NewsletterJim Casada
Web site:
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com May Memories and May MagicAlthough October has its advocates, when all things are considered I think you can make mine May when it comes to the month of choice. It is a time of magic – still cool enough at dawn and dusk to make a woodland stroll or wading wet in a trout stream an invigorating exercise. Wildflowers are blooming in profusion, and in my mind, at least, the month brings back a flood of warm memories as I gradually recover from the sleep deprivation rigors of spring turkey season with its pre-dawn awakenings and “roost at dusk” demands. One of my especially fond recollections associated with the month, and it is something I haven’t done for many a year, revolves around echoes. Yes, you may say that it didn’t take much to entertain me as a youngster, but in the Smokies where I grew up hollering for the sheer joy of it and to listen to echoes bounce from one ridge top to another was commonplace. In fact, my Dad says that when he was a boy every adolescent male worth his salt worked on individual yells and took great pride in having distinctive ones. As a boy I remember hollering from elevated locations just to enjoy the pleasure of hearing my voice bounce from one ridge to the next. Some places, invariably elevated ones looking over a multitude of hollows, produce better echoes than others. My younger brother recently took a long walk in our highland homeland, yelling periodically as he went then enjoying the resultant reverberations. His wife, who was with him, reckoned his vocal offerings closely resembled those of a black bear with gastric problems, but he was really doing nothing more than calling back yesteryear. Doing so, on any day in May, is an exercise in pure pleasure. May marked the beginning of serious fishing, and in my hometown that meant one of two approaches. For me and others who loved the long rod and whistling line, taking to the streams for trout was de rigueur. That’s something I still do with gladness in my heart and uplifted spirits, but I miss the other face of May fishing. It involved watching set poles from the bridge that crossed the river running through the town where I grew up. It was something a few old men did on almost any sunny day from May right through the summer into early fall. In the late 1950s it wasn’t uncommon to see three or four folks watching set poles while passing the time of day on the bridge with anyone who happened to walk by. A venerable river rat by the name of Al Dorsey was a virtual fixture on the bridge at dusk, although during the day he usually fished from a homemade boat he poled in a long, calm stretch of water which began at a rapid and eddy with the intriguing name of Devil’s Dip. Old Al was a fascinating figure. He had spent a decade or so in the state pen for manslaughter, having shot another man on the town’s main street in a long ago fight over a woman. When I knew him, though, he was harmless other than carrying a perpetually “ripe” odor which was a heady blend of sweat, dirty clothing, fish slime, and corn squeezings. In fact, he taught me most of whatever I know about catching catfish. Old Al and his fellow pole watchers caught some fish, mostly catfish, but mostly their fishing was a time for “loafering,” socializing, and contemplating all of life’s myriad mysteries. I remain firmly convinced ours would be a better world if more folks took this laid-back, wait-for-a-bite approach to life. Strangely, another of my regular moments of May magic involved water snakes. They were incredibly plentiful during my boyhood, and I particularly recall them in connection with inner tube floats down my favorite trout stream, Deep Creek, after a spring rain brought high water. Such water-borne journeys would produce sightings of literally scores of snakes. They dropped from the limbs of bushes and slithered down banks all along the way. Every sighting provided a brief rush of adrenalin, even though you knew no self-respecting rattlesnake or copperhead would be along a stream at this time of year. Sadly, some of what were once common sights in May seem to have pretty much vanished. I can’t recall the last time I saw a young boy trout fishing by himself, saw anyone with a homemade slingshot, or spotted youngsters with a bucket full of night crawlers or turning rocks over in a search for spring lizards. For that matter, I haven’t seen kids skipping rocks, target shooting with BB guns, or playing mumblety-peg either. I trust that such joyous pursuits still occur, but I fear that television, video games, and chronic couch potato syndrome have to a considerable degree replaced such pastimes. Yet another of my favored May activities involved the onset of a type of pure pleasure which would endure right on into summer. This was what mountain folks simply described as “berrying.” At lower elevations, the first wild strawberries would begin to ripen by the end of May, and these sparkling red jewels, inhabitants of old farm fields, verges, and edges, offered a matchless treat. When Izaak Walton suggested that “doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless he never did,” he was squarely on target. Picking strawberries was demanding, back-breaking work, and it took a lot of the tiny treats to fill a gallon bucket. Yet the result, whether featured in shortcakes, preserves, layering in stack cakes, cobblers, or just eaten with cream and sugar, was worth a heavy ration of perspiration, chiggers, and the real possibility of an encounter with a poisonous snake. I don’t know that anyone ever bothered to pick them for “take home” use, but one berry ripened even earlier than wild strawberries. This was the service berry. You will find service trees, distinctive at the beginning of spring because they bloom when everything else is still in the process of thinking about getting ready for earth’s renewal, scattered all along ridgelines and creek banks in the Appalachians. For some reason though, only those trees growing close to water seem to do much in the way of bearing fruit. Yet find a tree laden with ripe, reddish-purple berries while wading a trout stream, and it is time to lay the rod down, bend down limbs, and gorge yourself in a most shameless fashion. These early berries also serve of harbingers of what lies ahead. In rapid-fire fashion you have ripening dewberries, blackberries, “black cap” raspberries, mulberries, and elderberries. Later, as summer wanes, there will be huckleberries adorning areas where fires from a few years back has seen them emerge at their finest as succession plants. I did my share of gathering all these berries as a boy, and I still make a point of picking a few gallons of blackberries every year. To me, stained hands, scattered scratches, and even chigger bites in private places are badges of honor well worth the culinary end result. As a boy, the blackberries meant more to me than just fine eating. They also provided a predictable source of income in the form of what Grandpa Joe always termed “cash money.” City folks readily paid twenty-five cents a gallon for all the berries I could provide, and while that may seem like something well below slave wages in today’s terms, back in the late 1950s two bits would buy a trout fly or a spool of tippet material. Maybe more people than I think revel and relax in the sort of closeness to the good earth all of the above-mentioned pursuits provide. If so, I don’t see much evidence of it. Whether or not you view this with dismay is basically a personal matter, but for my part I will always have a hankering for closeness to the good earth and these and other simple aspects of a world we have largely lost. May is the optimal time to scratch that particular itch, and just a couple of days after you read these words I’ll be doing just that – heading for the Great Smokies to fish for trout, hike, savor blooming wildflowers, listen to some echoes, share memories with my 97-year-old father, and do my dead-level best to prove another son of the Smokies, Thomas Wolfe, wrong. He said “you can’t go home again.” I think you can, even if it is only in your mind. No mention of May would be complete without sharing a few berry recipes, so here are some of my favorites. All can be found, along with a host of others, in a chapter devoted to wild fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables in what is otherwise a game cookbook, Wild Bounty (available through this website for $20 plus shipping and handling). WILD BERRY COBBLERThis simple, straightforward recipe will work with most wild berries (and apples, peaches, and the like as well). 1 cup all-purpose
flour Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and milk; stir with a wire whisk until smooth. Add melted butter and blend. Pour batter into 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Pour berries (amount depends on personal preference) evenly over batter. Do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or milk. WILD STRAWBERRY BUTTER1 cup salted
butter (at room temperature) Cut butter into pieces and place in a blender. Pulse until light. Add desired amount of sugar and berries; blend until spread is light and fluffy. Refrigerate in a covered container. This is a good way to make a relatively small amount of wild strawberries go a long way. WILD STRAWBERRY FREEZER JAM2 cups crushed
wild strawberries Combine strawberries and sugar, mixing them thoroughly; set aside for 10 minutes and stir occasionally. Mix pectin with water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for a minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add to fruit and stir constantly for three minutes. Pour quickly into sterilized glass or plastic containers with tight-fitting lids. Cover immediately. Let containers stand at room temperature for 24 hours. Place jam in a freezer. Frozen jam may be thawed in a microwave oven. Measurements must be exact for jam to set. This recipe will also work for raspberries or blackberries, although they require three cups of crushed berries and 5 ¼ cups of sugar. Thank you for subscribing to the
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