Your post brought back memories of my childhood. ...

2011-09-09T11:40:48.898-04:00

Your post brought back memories of my childhood.

I was raised by my grandparents on their farm in Georgia. The region where they lived was only connected to the electrical grid less than 15 years before I was born. Every spring, we planted two large vegetable gardens. Grandmother canned all summer long but one of my favourites was sweet cucumber pickles. They were pickled using lime and sugar and are so much better than bread and butter pickles. I love putting them on chicken sandwiches, bologna sandwiches, roast beef. They are the absolute best to use when making deviled eggs.

I was a pain-in-the-ass to raise, and they were almost sixty when I was dumped off by my parents for a two week visit that lasted for 17 years. They taught me more than I think they realised. As much as their son hated my grandmother, I loved her and argued with her every single day. I think those arguments kept her mind engaged.

Grandmother taught me how to make a pie crust and how to love flowers in a garden. Granddaddy taught me how to raise tomatoes, chickens, and calves.

I hated shelling peas and butter beans because it always made my thumb sore under the edge of my thumbnail. We canned tomatoes, corn, beans, beets (which I still hate), and so many different kinds of peas. Grandmother also made her own peach pickles, applesauce, canned peaches, grape jelly, blackberry jam, apple jelly, peach jam, and canned pears. The pressure cooker was in constant use from late June into September.

There were also a lot of frozen vegetables, but I still dislike okra unless it is fried. Granddaddy also made hams from the two or three pigs he always raised but he did not like country ham cured with salt and always used sugar. I remember seeing him and Grandmother making chitlins one time, which is an old Southern favourite, but the smell of cleaning and preparing the pig intestines ensured that I would never touch one in my lifetime because pigs really will eat most anything and create the vilest of smells. They are sort of the sharks of dry land.

Sorry, I am blathering, but it was this time of year that we were preparing for winter and planting fall vegetables such as turnip greens, collards (yuck!!!), and cabbage.

Mmm... pickles. Those look great!

2011-08-03T11:23:54.980-04:00

Mmm... pickles. Those look great!

Comments on A Baker in Brooklyn: I finally got around to making those pickles! Satu...

Your post brought back memories of my childhood. ...

Mmm... pickles. Those look great!