Today’s guest post was written by Ed Ammons.
My best friend C J lived next door. Next door has a different meaning when you live in a tiny Southern Appalachian community. My friend’s home was ¼ mile down the creek. The front porch of his house was only visible from ours in the winter when the leaves were down.
We could sometimes see the smoke from the second house away and if it was really really quiet and the wind was blowing up the holler we could hear them talking.
My mother was a clean freak, especially in the kitchen. She worried about diseases such as polio, meningitis, typhoid, and scarlet fever. She did everything she could to shield her brood from contracting them and all the others. C J’s folks were, shall we say, more relaxed with their sanitation efforts. For instance, they got their water from a branch that ran behind their house. Just a few feet downstream sat their outhouse astraddle the branch. A constant flush toilet if you will.
When I was seven or eight Mommy allowed me to play with C J but with restrictions. I couldn’t go in the house and I couldn’t play in that branch or the creek below the confluence of the two. That was okay, it wasn’t nothing but grape vines and sawbriars along there anyway.
As I got older, I was given more discretion about where I would play. I finally ventured onto the porch and sometimes into the front room. I was skittish about entering the house at first because C J’s grandmother Pearl lived in there and she loved to whack little kids with her walking stick (cudgel) if they got too close. I would often ask “Is Pearl in there?” “She’s in bed, come on in!” And I did, though furtively.
Then came the time when I was asked if I could spend the night. I was reticent but said I would have to ask my mother fully expecting a refusal. Much to my chagrin she left it up to me. So, now what am I to do? She said yes, and right in front of C J. I was stuck, I had outsmarted myself.
I had never eaten a meal with C J and his family. They got commodities which included the best cheese in the world. I couldn’t resist that! But that don’t count as a meal. As suppertime arrived, I was taken to the kitchen where supper was spread out. I don’t remember all they had but none of it appeared appetizing. “I’m not very hungry”, I lied. “But you’ve got to eat something, it’s a long time til breakfast.” Rather than being harassed I finally got a bowl and chose a piece of cornbread and a boiled egg.
The kitchen was lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. Still it was too dark for me in there so I took my cornbread and egg over near the window where I could see a little better. The food appeared to be the same I was used to except the egg was kinda pointier on one end.
I bit into the cornbread first. It was as expected at first but had a bitter finish to it. I inspected it before the next bite. “What’s that? It’s purple! It’s a blackberry! What’s a blackberry doing in cornbread?” I knew that some people up north put sugar in their cornbread but nobody I knew did. There sure weren’t none in this dish, far from it. I couldn’t handle it. I hid it! I’ll just eat this egg.
“This egg will be enough to get me by until I could get home in the morning.” I tried a bite. It tasted normal but again I looked before I bit. “It’s green!”, I said to myself. What kind of an animal lays green eggs?” “Nope, I ain’t eatin this!” I hid it too, down in behind my chair.
Needless to say I didn’t sleep good that night. I got up early and left with the excuse that I had to milk the cow. It wasn’t long before I had a belly full of Mommy’s eggs, biscuits, and gravy. No green yolks in this plate.
I learned later that the pointy ones were guinea eggs. I still don’t know why they were green or at least appeared to be in the dark room. I didn’t know, at the time, that guineas laid eggs. I guess I thought they were there for the beautiful sounds they make.
I still don’t know why anybody would put blackberries in their cornbread, it must have been an acquired taste.
I hope you enjoyed Ed’s post as much as I do. I was a very picky eater when I was a child so I can identify with Ed’s story. The girls once “hid” some dried peaches in the vent in their room. Even after they fessed up and the peaches were removed it took a long time for the smell to go away and it did not get better with time 🙂
Last night’s video: Shift Work, Progress on Big Garden, & a Delicious Supper.
Tipper
That was a great story. Reminds me one time my cousins and All of us lived up in a holler. There were 4 of us kids and 8 kids of my Aunt and Uncle. We all were poor but we always had something to eat. We had a cow so our milk went alot farther than theirs did with 8 kids. It was a miracle if we ever got cereal. One time I was up at my cousins house and the girl next to the oldest said, you want some cereal? I said yes. She brought me a bowl and I looked at it and said, what’s this? She said, cereal. She said o we ran out of milk half way through the kids so we always eat it with water. O my goodness! I tried it and it was absolutely awful. I just couldn’t eat it. I gave mine to one of the other kids. They ate it like it was nothing.
I just loved this. ♥️
I remember the first few times I was invited to have supper at my next door neighbors house. Me and her daughter were best friends growing up so her mom would occasionally allow me to come eat with them after we’d been outside playing all day. They had 4 kids in their family and she’d often make things like chicken nuggets and tater tots or corn dogs and French fries and boy I thought that was the best thing that ever was! My mama was a country cook and mostly made meat and 3 type meals with cornbread or biscuits so I really thought I was getting something special on those nights haha. Having 4 small children plus an extra mouth to feed when I was there…..I don’t blame her a bit for going the quick and easy route for meals!
I meant to say the food my mom and Grandma’s cooked was not anyways kosher food. LOL. And when Grandma lived with us she also cooked. I forgot to spell check. Thanks everyone. J
Another winning blog. I was raised as a youngster in the city. My best neighborhood friend happened to have been of the Jewish faith. I was often at their house and got to be a guest for lunch, dinner, and many Jewish celebratory meals. I love these people and most the food that was served. I was open to trying most anything with few exceptions. The one exception was a dried type fish. Couldn’t get around myself to eat it. Some foods were things I had already eaten in my life, but Kosher and a different name for them. A great adventure for me. I was a poor little girl and we grew up eating country foods cooked like my grandmas food. I guarantee it was a kosher food. Also with such a large family, we had a great deal of commodities in the house. Mom was a great cook. When my paternal grandmother lived with us she also co. We never had food we didn’t want to eat. Mostly. I eat most anything now, not picky in other words. It would be so much easier to feed people if they weren’t picky. LOL. Again thanks for the BP&A Blog Miss Tipper and Company. Love to all. So happy Spring is upon us. Enjoy it folks. Jennifer
I sure enjoyed Ed’s story today. Blackberries in cornbread? I don’t think so. If I am going to put anything in cornbread it would be cracklings. As far as eggs, I’ve never eaten guinea eggs, but if I was hungry enough, I imagine I would be glad to get them. We have friends who live out in the country and one of their neighbors have guineas and they can be quite loud.
Never had blackberries or any kind of fruit in my cornbread. Never had any other type of eggs, except chicken eggs. I have heard duck eggs are good, but again, I’ve never had any eggs except chicken eggs.
Oh how I loved my Grandmothers and Daddy’s mother always raised chickens and had guineas too. I’m sure they ate the eggs but I don’t remember me eating a guinea egg although I might have:) I will say though, as a child I sure thought they were funny looking chickens.
Matt is surely a goooood man and such a great cook! Oh my goodness, what a awesome healthy delicious supper!!! Tipper, you and Matt are a blessing to each other and your whole family. Praying for ya all and that you have a great month ahead.
An old man down the road raised guineas to keep the ticks out of his yard. His daughter has them now that he has passed away and they just dodge cars on the highway.
I loved this account from Ed Ammons! I experienced a cultural difference with the children I played with from down the road from us. They were from another state (don’t know which) and we were Appalachian. I remember the appalled looks on their faces when my Mom pulled a pan of whole baked sweet potatoes from the oven and asked if they wanted one. I also remembered my discomfort when I ate with them at their house, and learned that they ate at a different table, child-sized, beside their parent’s table and were not allowed to talk during the meal. I was glad for our “wild” Appalachian ways!
Enjoyed the story. I, also, was a picky eater as a child and still am. I remember two of my three children were very picky eaters when they were children. They would put food on a ledge under the kitchen table, down their shirts and/or go outside to play and throw food away. They especially hated Brussel sprouts or broccoli but love the broccoli salad I make today.
We had chickens when I was young, and the neighbors had a few ducks and we would find their eggs in our yard sometimes. My mother fried them and they were larger and stronger tasting than chicken eggs. My mother didn’t put anything in our cornbread while I was growing up but I do put a tablespoon of sugar in mine once in a while. I was raised in northeastern Ohio and learned to take the best foods from them and use them with our country cooking. They don’t use seasonings as much as we do. The green beans I had in school tasted like they opened up a can, heated the beans and served them to us. There wasn’t any salt or pepper on the table to add to your food.
My Dad had a saying, “Pore people have pore ways.” It did not mean what folks might think. It was not a slur. Rather it was a form of consoling oneself about not being able to do better. Richer people could hire work done, or buy machinery to do with or buy the best materials. But those who couldn’t do that had to “make do” with ‘pore’ ways of doing the same job or do without. I like something I read in Reader’s Digest many years ago, probably in “Quoteable Quotes”, ” We’re already rich. Maybe someday we’ll have money.” Of course, this has little to do with blackberry cornbread and Guinea eggs, but it is what that story made me think of.
I really enjoyed Ed’s post this morning. My mama has always been a clean freak too. Folks would often say how you could eat off her floors and that was with four children running in and out all day. We had an outside toilet growing up, but my mama went in with a bucket of hot soapy bleach-filled water and cleaned it every day. She often remarked that if she ever got a house with an indoor bathroom, it would be the cleanest ever. (She did get a new house after I left home, and true to her word, it was always super clean.). One day when I was around 13, I spent a night with a friend. We had walked down the road to visit another friend and I had to use the bathroom. The second friend took me into the house and pulled back a curtain, revealing a five-gallon bucket in the middle of a small room. I don’t remember how I politely backed out of using it, but I made myself wait till I got back to the friend’s house I had spent the night with.
My granny kept guineas….and true, they let you know when anyone or anything unexpected comes into their territory. She would cook the little eggs for me and they tasted just like chicken eggs. I thought they were special because they were small…just like me! Not sure about the cornbread. Prefer cornbread plain, without sugar or any other ingredients. Maybe the mother thought it would be special to add the berries. Folks tastes are different.
I ate a duck egg and turtle once which is just crazy, because I was always a finicky eater growing up. I was also very conscious if food seemed clean, and my appetite would be turned off immediately if something did not seem right. I do recall once not eating a biscuit cooked by a lady most people did not care for. We ate lots of things never seen much anymore such as pickled pig feet, chicken gizzards, and potted meat. None of which I will touch now. By far the strangest thing I ever ate was gravy on rice traveling through Georgia. Living in the south for a time I later learned to love it along with tomato gravy over rice. I cannot imagine blackberries in corn bread, but hard times probably made many eat strange combinations. Anytime, I read something like this I recall my mom speaking of some cousins during the depression who went out daily foraging for wild greens. I have to smile as I read of Ed hiding the food, as I had too hide so many times in my nursing bag. That photo is so touching to me, as I traveled so very many miles over roads just like that to see my beloved patients. It was difficult, but Appalachian people are so dear they make the difficult easy. I have been pulled out of ditches and traveled miles behind men I did not know as they kindly helped me find an isolated home. Perhaps, I should have feared them, but I never did. I always felt like God rode along to help me make sound judgments.
I had to laugh at the girls putting peaches in their heat vent. When my daughter was a little girl, I found apple cores, peach pits and other unidentifyable food sources in her bedroom vent as well.
Hiding food…rang a bell with me. My mother had visited California before I came along and had become familiar with avocado. When she found it in our Midwestern grocery, she snatched up two of them as if they were treasures. As a 10/11 year old, I looked into my salad bowl to find this strange sight. I tasted it. Didn’t care for it and said so. Mother said, “It’s good for you. Eat it.” Rule was, Eat till you have empty plate.!
So I had a problem. Everyone had left the table but me. I didn’t like this new ‘food’ but had to hide it. I picked out every piece && stuffed it into the napkin as I was eating the rest. Then I went to the bathroom and emptied the contents and flushed.
She added it to our salad two or three more times with me repeating the same technique to rid myself of it, then we moved into town and the questionable item was never again presented, much to my relief. I am now 75+ yrs and my daughter loves the stuff as a dip. To tell the truth, I have actually taken several bites of it and have enjoyed it! .But, I won’t go around the table for a second or third round.
Guineas are interesting birds and about the dumbest creatures God made. But you can eat them and their eggs. Free range ones control insects on a place and they are great watchdogs. If you collect their eggs you have to use something like a wooden spoon to get the eggs out of the nest. Any strange scent will make them abandon that nest site. They also have to be raised on a place. You just can’t buy adult birds and turn them loose. They have to imprint or they will leave. I took from the post about his mother’s concern about family health. My grandmother always “scalded” plates, utensils and glasses with boiling water to protect against disease. Every meal there was a pan of water boiling waiting to be used. If there was company she always insisted on cleaning up the kitchen alone the reason being she washed their dishes separately from the family’s.
My mother also scalded all her dishes. Oftentimes a glass item would be unable to withstand the sudden temperature differential and would shatter into a thousand pieces. That meant the whole process had to start over.
I’m laughing because I put blackberries in my cornbread….but I do call it a corncake. hahaha!
I don’t remember my grandparents ever coming to our house for supper. We moved from the little house behind their big house when I was four years old. I spent many a time in the “country” at that big kitchen table that was filled with bowls and plates of Mama Sockwell and Grandma’s cooking. As a child I loved every bite and would save a biscuit for later in the larder. Later always came about the time they finished cleaning up the dishes. Honey from my Grandpa’s hive would seal the deal inside the biscuit as I stepped outside on the huge boulder they used as a step down. I remember a large room sized linoleum carpet was laid down every few years when the old one in the kitchen was worn thin. The best times of all were “workin’ in tobacco” tying it sticks and then takin’ it out of the curing barn to go to market. Cousins were always involved in that task and we would make up songs to go along with our work.
“Tyin’ tobacco hand by hand, slippin’ away whene’re we can….We’re nuts…We’re nuts.”
As a child, I went to every sleepover. I loved the adventure. Now my kids hate sleepovers. (unless it’s with the cousins ). After years of making excuses, we started just telling the truth. My kids like their own bed. And I like not having to pick them up at two am.
I’ve never had Guinea eggs, and I cannot imagine what fruity cornbread would taste like. One thing that rang true for me is, as a Northerner, I do put sugar in my cornbread–a heaping tablespoon, and I mostly use yellow corn meal though I love white as well, but I cannot fathom berries in my cornbread. That just doesn’t sound appetizing with soup beans.
I am a southerner and like sugar in my corn bread too
Loved the story. Especially the cranky Granny.
As far as I know, I have never ate anything but chicken eggs. Now I think along with “organic, and free range” it is becoming popular to eat duck eggs. I have a neighbor that has some some “Easter” egg chickens that lay eggs with colored shells, most of them are a blueish green color. We never had guineas but my grandparents had some before I came along and I have been told they would eat them just like chicken, I guess they would eat the eggs too. One of my supervisors that did not grow up in the south always thought we were pulling his leg when we told him of guineas, he didn’t t think there was such a thing. Ed mentioned next door neighbors, I remember when we couldn’t see our next door neighbor’s house, even ones that would live a mile or more away were often called neighbors, sure not like that now. Back to guineas, I have always heard it said a flock of guineas are the best watch dog you can have have, they will begin to “cackle” just as soon as anything strange comes around.