A Passion for Picklin’

I’m not much a fan of pickles, but I realize I’m in the smallest minority – at least that’s the way it seems among all my family and friends.  Recently some friends were over for a meal and asked, “Do you make pickles?”  Well I’m not a very good hand at it but through more of that Christian compassion that brought last week’s beans, I’m well stocked with pickles.

It got me to thinking, is this passion for picklin’ everything a Southern thing?  Or are pickles universal?

Statista reports that in 2017 73 million Americans consumed at least 1 jar of pickles in a year, and nearly 4 million people consumed 6 jars or more.  The United States consumes 5.2 million pounds of pickles each year.

And a little research tells me that pickles are popular the world around.  Historians believe that the Mesopotamians first began pickling about 2400 BC.    At some points in history, pickles were thought almost magical in their benefits to the body.

Well, as with most things, Southerners claimed pickles for their very own and transformed the food.  I found this great article from the State Archives of Florida detailing a handwritten cookbook from the 1850’s or 1860’s with recipes for pickling everything from watermelon rind to cabbage (and that one was new to me).

Then there’s the protein-packed pickled pig parts.  Pickled pigs feet are probably the most popular of these foods but did you know folks also pickle the lips, snouts, ears, and hocks of the hog?  Now this just proves that you can truly use every part of the pig if you set your mind to it! Pickled eggs are also a great source of protein.

What strikes me among this list is the perishable nature of these foods.  Surely pickling was historically very practical.  Vinegar is easily created from fruits that will perish quickly.  And while smoked or salted pork can be made to last for months, it would be pretty hard to cure the feet enough to keep them.  So if you’re wanting to use a whole hog, pickling parts of it makes a lot of sense!

While we seal our pickles up tight in Mason jars, commercial producers actually cure them in open vats stored outdoors.  So even before self-sealing lids and glass jars were widely available, pickles could be put up and kept just in crocks. (Okay I’ve got to research what all you can actually preserve in crocks!)

My family tends to stick with cucumbers, but I can’t wait to hear what ya’ll pickle.  If you leave a comment – and I dearly hope you will – please be sure to tell me where you live or where you’re from as I’m very curious where the customs originate.

By the way, my friends around the supper table quickly put away half a quart of Grandma’s Bread and Butter pickles!  They were so excited by them I sent the rest of the jar home when they left.

When God and The Devil Divided up the Dead

In ‘Pon my Honor, Carrie Melton attributes this story to the Knoxville News-Sentinel but gives no further citation.  I tried to search their website for it without success.

As I said in last week’s post I’m not prone to telling stories of haints but your response to The Logston Tide was overwhelming so I thought I’d share another of Mrs. Melton’s stories from the section “I Wouldn’t A-Believed Hit if I Hadn’t Seen Hit Myself”

Once there was this here old man who was all crippled up with rheumatism.  Fact is, he hadn’t hardly walked a step in years, and the only way he had of getting around was having his boy carry him.  The boy wasn’t grown yet, but he could get his pa up on his back and tote him around the place anywhere the old man wanted to go.  The old man was an ornery old cuss, just as cross and crabby with his old woman and the young’uns as he could be.  His old woman would get so put out with him sometimes that she’s just out and tell him that he was so mean that when he died God wouldn’t have him and the devil wouldn’t want him even if he did have to take him.

Come one fall and it was powerful hot weather…hot and dry.  The old man got mighty tired of just setting in his chair all day long, doing nothing but sweating and cussing the flies and the heat.  So, he got in the habit of having his boy tote him to different places around about in the cool of the evening.

Now, not far from where he lived there was a graveyard.  It was off down in the woods like, and a lonesome place even in broad daylight.  The boy didn’t much fancy taking his pa there after dark, but for pure devilment on these hot, dry days the old man would make the boy tote him down to the graveyard might nigh ever evening.

It was powerful hot one day…much hotter than usual.  The old man could hardly wait for dusky-dark to come and the air to cool off.  It did seem like the graveyard was the coolest place to be found in such weather.  And, too, it did pleasure the old man a sight to go set among the graves of his friends and kinfolks and to watch the starts and the lightning bugs come out.  So, this time as soon as the old woman got supper on the table, the old man rushed the boy through eating so he could pack his pappy out to the graveyard.  Much against his wishes, the boy got his pappy on his back and started off down the road to the graveyard.  They had to go down the big road a-piece, then off to the right in the scope of woods.

It just happened that two of the neighbor boys had been pawpaw hunting that evening, and had stayed out later than they meant to, so dark had caught them on the way home.  They decided to set down and divide their pawpaws there at the graveyard, for the road forked just beyond, and one went one way and the other went the other way.

As they went in the graveyard one boy was carrying the sack of pawpaws and the other one had his pockets full.  Just to be a-doin’, the boy with his pockets full stopped and laid a pawpaw on each gate post as he went in.  Then the two boys walked on down in the graveyard a-piece and set down by two headstones that were close together.  Then they started to divide up the pawpaws.

Now, the boy had toted his pa down to the graveyard gate, and since it was a right smart piece and the boy was tired, they stopped to rest.  The boy set the old man down by one gate post while he leaned up against the other one.  It was while they were resting that they heard talking coming from the graveyard.  They were all ears, and this is what they heard.

“You take this ‘un, and I’ll take that ‘un.  You take this ‘un, and I’ll that that ‘un.”  Then another voice said out loud and as plain as day, “Yes, and there’s two down by the gate posts.  You take one, and I’ll take the othern.”

At this the boy started over to pick up his pa and get out of there quick, but the old man beat him to it.  He jumped up, shoved the boy out of his way and said, “Iffen you can’t run, move over and let somebody run that can.”  And with that he took off down the road so fast that his shirt-tail fairly stood out in the wind behind him.  He beat the boy home by a long shot, and purt night scared his old woman to death.  She hadn’t seen her old man walk a step in years, let alone run!

“Lord-a-mercy! What’s the matter?” she yelled, thinking that the world was coming to an end.

“Hide me! Hide me quick, old woman,” begged the old man.  “We’ve just been down to the graveyard, and we heard God and the devil down there dividing up the dead.  I plain as day heard the devil say that there was two down by the gate posts, and that he’d take one and God could have the othern.  And, old woman, you know…good and well which one the devil was atter!”

The Time Levi Lost His Bible

Here’s the thing I love about the mountain…if your family’s been around here for very long, their liable to pop up in anybody’s tale.  I never knew Callie Melton and don’t know that I’m aquainted with any of her family.  But the subject of her story which I’m featuring this week is in fact a relative of mine!  That made this one particularly interesting to me, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Also, if you’ve read my first book, Replacing Ann, you may recognize some of the geography she talks about. The store in this story would have been the same one that Bill Lewis owned at one time.

Just about hog killing time one year during the Depression somebody broke in and robbed Benton Phillips’ store at Cliff Springs, up in the Ninth Civil District of Overton County.  So Benton hired Levi Testament to sleep in the store from then on.  Now, Levi was about middle-age, homeless and without any folks at all.  He was a good worker and as honest as the day is long, but he was as quare as they come.  And because he was so quare, he was the butt of much of the good-natured teasing that went on in the settlement.  Be it hot or cold, wet or dry, inside or out, Levi always wore his coat and hat.  And going to mill or going to meetin’, it made no difference, he always toted his Bible under his arm.

Levi had been living at Benton’s, so when the store got robbed Benton spoke to him about sleeping up there.  Levi thought about it for a day or two, then he told Benton that he would but that he did think it ought to be worth at least a nickel a night.  This sounded reasonable to Benton, so he give Levi a key to the store and fixed him up a pallet in back of the stove.

Now Cliff Springs wasn’t much more than a wide place in the road, but it did have a store, a Methodist Church and a Baptist Church, a schoolhouse, and a railroad over at Obey City.  But everybody went to bed with the chickens, so Benton always shut up the store in time to get home and help Levi do up the night-work before dark.

The store was about a mile across the holler form where Benton lived, so after Levi started sleeping over there he’d put his Bible under his arm, get his lantern and take off just as soon as Dollie Jain would get supper over with.

Things went along like this for quite a spell.  Then one night the cows had got out, so they had to be hunted before they could be milked.  This made everthing late, so it was way past Levi’s bedtime before he even got started to the store.

When he did get there and started to open the door, he thought he heard something or somebody moving around inside.  Since he was armed only with his Bible and a lantern, he put on a brave front and yelled, “Stand still, thar!  I’ve got ye kivered.”  The noise stopped, and Levi eased inside.  Holding his lantern high, he peered around in the flickering light.  He couldn’t see a thing, so muttering to hisself that it was most likely his imagination, he locked the door behind him and set his lantern on the counter.  He listened for several minutes, but heard nary a sound but the crickets around the stove and the wind in the trees outside.

Levi finally convinced hisself that he had just imagined things.  So he moved his lantern over by the stove, stirred up the coals and throwed in another chunk of wood.  Then as the wood caught and heat begin to spread out, he took off his coat and hat and put them on the counter by the lantern.  Then he fixed his pallet close to the stove, set down on a nail keg and pulled off his shoes and socks.  To warm his feet good, he put them up on the hearth of the stove.

When he had got all fixed, he reached for his Bible…and his Bible wasn’t there!  For a minute he didn’t know what to think for he always put it right there by the lantern where he could lay his hands on it.  Then he recollected!  HE bet he’d dropped it just outside the door when he thought he’d heard something inside.  So up he got and went to padding barefooted to the door to see.  He opened the door and stepped out.  It was as dark outside as a stack of black cats.  He couldn’t see a thing, so he leaned down to feel around the doorstep.  Just about that time the door swung to behind him, and the latch clicked shut.  And there he was, standing outside in the cold, without his coat and hat and barefooted besides.

There wasn’t a thing he could do but to go get Benton.  Now it was so cold that the branch had froze over, and it was so dark you couldn’t see your hand before your face, but poor old Levi headed across the holler.  He couldn’t see, so he’d get off the path and run into trees.  He’d try to run but he couldn’t, and he’d fall down might night ever other step he took.  Then he’d give out and have to stop and rest to get his wind back.

But finally he made it to the house.  He opened the door and just fell inside.  Now when Benton and Dollie Jain saw what a shape he was in they knowed for sure that the store had been robbed again.  Poor old Levi was bareheaded and barefooted, and without both his coat and his Bible.  His hands and face was scratched and bleeding, his shirt was purt nigh tore off, and he was as blue as a fishhook from the cold.

His teeth was chattering so he could hardly talk, but after a spell he managed to make Benton understand that he’d just locked hisself  out and he needed another key to get back in.   Dollie Jain had to go hunt him up a pair of Benton’s shoes and a coat and hat before Benton could take him back.

It was all so funny that Benton had to tell it at the store the next day, and before night everbody in Cliff Springs was laughing about Levi losing his Bible.  And everbody joshed him about waiting till the first freeze to start going barefooted.

But it was Uncle Mel Phillips that capped the stack one day when real solemn-like he asked Benton right before Levi.  “Well, Benton, how in the world did you ever know that hit was Levi without his coat and hat?”

Cord and the Mutton

Following is another of Callie Melton’s stories from her book ‘Pon my Honor

As usual, this is presented just as she published it.

Grandpa purely loved to tell about the jokes he’d played on people.  He was as full of fun as a dog is of fleas, and he was always ready for a prank of some kind or another.  His pranks were always good natured, but also always good for a laugh.  The tale us young’un liked the best was the one about the time he got Cord Hull to eat the mutton.

When Grandpa and Grandma were first married, they lived for awhile on Uncle Will Hull’s place.  Now he really wasn’t Uncle Will, but Cousin Will, but, being a lot older than Grandpa and Grandma, they just called him Uncle.

Uncle Will had five boys.  The middle one was Cord, and he was the one who was always sent out to work with Grandpa.  They two older boys, Ress and Nade, logged with Uncle Will, and they two younger ones, Wyoming and Roy, were kept at home to help their ma around the house.

One time Grandpa and Cord got the job of farming that year, so Uncle Will and the two other boys could go on with their logging and rafting.  Cord was just about half-grown, but he was a good worker, so the two set about putting in the crops.

On the days that they worked the fields nighest Uncle Will’s house, Miz. Hull would get dinner for them.  And on the days that they worked near Grandpa’s house, Grandma cooked for them.  Grandma was a good cook, and Cord like to eat at Grandpa’s.  He’d say that Lar could cook the best sallet and hoecake that he ever put in his mouth.

Now, at this particular time Grandpa had just killed a sheep.  Grandpa rally knew how to butcher a sheep, so his mutton was always good.  Grandpa also knew, as did everbody else, that mutton was the one thing that Cord Hull would not eat.  But, being Grandpa, he laid plans to feed Cord some of that mutton!

One morning at breakfast Grandpa told Grandma that him and Cord would be eating with her that day, and to be sure and cook plenty of mutton.  “Cord purely hates the stuff,” he told her, “but don’t you say a word about mutton at dinner.  I’m going to make him eat some of it and like it.”

Grandma was scandalized, but what could she do with Grandpa!  So she just tried to outdo herself on her meal that day, and when Cord and Grandpa came in at dinner time she had the vittles on the table waiting for them.

While she poured the sassafras tea, Grandpa and Cord sat down at the table and started eating.  The first thing Grandpa did was to pick up the big platter of mutton, pass it to Cord and say, “Cord, I’ve just killed a calf… have some.”

Cord forked him a nice big piece of mutton and started in on it.  Before he had hardly swallowed the last bite of that piece, Grandpa was passing the platter and urging him to have some more.  “Make out your dinner, boy,” he said, “for we’ve got some mighty hard work ahead of us this evening.”

“Alex, this is the best beef I ever tasted,” Cord said, and forked him another big piece of mutton.

Grandma was so taken back that she was afraid to open her mouth for fear she’d say the wrong thing.  But not Grandpa!  He eat, and talked, and passed Cord the beef.  And Cord eat like there wasn’t going to never be another meal.  But, finally they finished eating, pushed back their chairs, and got ready to go back to the field.

Cord thanked Grandma for the good meal, and started out the door.  Grandpa stopped him and said, “Cord, didn’t you tell me that you couldn’t eat mutton?”

“Alex,” he said, “I just can’t swallow that stuff.  It tastes just like wool to me, and the longer I chew a bite the bigger it gets.”

“Well, you sure eat a dog’s bait today,” Grandpa told him.

Cord couldn’t believe it!  HE couldn’t believe that he had eat mutton until Grandma assured him that he had.  Grandpa said that all the rest of that day Cord kept shaking his head and saying that he couldn’t believe that he’d really eat that mutton.

Of course Grandpa had to tell what he’d done all over the settlement.  And poor old Cord!  He had to take an awful lot of joshing about Alex’s poor little young’uns having to go hungry because he had eat up all of the mutton!

The Scalded Preacher

Everybody loves a story on the preacher – and knowing we’ve got 2 or 3 preachers who read these stories, I’m hoping for your comments at the end. 

This is from Callie Melton’s “Pon my Honor” and is presented verbatim.

James Watt Raine from The Land of Saddlebags book

One time I had the Shiloh Methodist Church Record looking it over.  The membership roll was fairly familiar, but her and there would be a name that I could not place.  The list of pastors, however, was a horse of a different color, and I had to call upon my father to acquaint me with them.

Dad was almost ninety then, but he still had an alert mind and that wonderful sense of humor that we’ve all found so delightful.   As I went down the list, he’d tell me what he remembered about each man.  I came to one name, and Dad started laughing.

“Oh, that’s the one I scalded,” he said.

“How come?” I asked him, knowing full well that there was a good story here.

“Well,” he began, “You know that pa started the Church at Shiloh when he moved to Overton County from Old Fort Blount in Jackson County way before the Civil War.  Him and the Eldridges and the Dillens were the first members.

Now you know that we lived the closest to the meetin’ house, so ever preacher that come to Shiloh in them days always stayed at Pa’s.  The Second Sunday in ever month was Meetin’ Day, and the Preacher would allers come on Saturday and stay all night with us.  He was allers a Circuit Rider, and he usually lived a fur piece away.  Then there was always the protracted meetin’ helt during the latter part of July ever year.

Now, I’ll tell you right off that them Methodist preachers was a breed apaprt.  Besides being the eatenist set, they was allers having somebody to fetch and carry fer ‘em.  I was jest a tad of a boy in them days, so I was the one to do all the fetching and carrying.

But Brother John here capped the stack. The protracted meetin’ was going on in July as usual, but it was unusually hot.  Since Brother John was staying at our house, we all had to go to meetin’ ever day… both morning and evening.  The morning preaching was helt starting at 10 o’clock so as to give the women folks time to get dinner ready before meetin’ time, and the men time to do any work that they had that was pressing.  The evening meetin’ was helt at early candlelight, and both times Brother John never did seem to know when to quit.

Brush Arbor that Concord Baptist Church in Chase City, VA started out with. 
http://www.concordbaptistchurchcc.org/Our-History.html

When we’d get back to the house at dinnertime, and even before we could eat, Brother John would have to have a cold drink right from the spring, and a pan of warm water to bathe his feet in.  I can still recollect how hungry I’d be, but I’d have to wait for Brother John to bathe his feet.  It was the same old story at night, too, and I’d have to run to the spring in the dark for cold water no matter how lond he’d helt or how sleepy I was.

Now all this meant that ever time before we went to meetin’ I’d have to set a pan of water on the hearth to have it warm to bathe his feet, and as soon as we’d get home, I’d have to run all the way to the spring and back to be sure his drink would be cold.

After a few days of this I got mighty tired of it.  But knowing my Mother, I knowed that as long as that protracted meetin’ went on I was stuck.  So one day I took matters in my own hands.          

That day when we got back to the house from meetin’ I dashed through the house, grabbed the water bucket without being told, and took off to the spring.  When I got back the Preacher was setting on the doorstep that led from the big room down to the lower room.  He had his shoes and socks off, just setting there waiting for his cold drink and his pan of warm water.

I rushed him his tumbler of cold water only minutes from the spring.  And while he was drinking it, I set the pan of water down right by his feet.

Without even looking down, he let out a deep breath of contentment jest like a sick kitten to a hot rock, and slid both feet into that pan of water.

And that’s when the roof purt night caved in.  He dropped the tumbler, fell back flat on his back in the floor, with both his feet in the air and yelling his head off.

“Lord o’mercy! Lord o’mercy,” he yelled, “I’m scalded!  I’m scalded.”

I’d got clean out to the barn, but I could still hear the uproar.  It took Pa and Mother both to convince him that the water was icy cold jest fresh from the spring and not hot a-tall.

Well, I got my hide tanned properly, but it was worth it I tell you, fer that was the last time that Brother John bathed his feet at our house.”