My brothers and I looked forward to the summer months. Not for the hot days nor the warmth nor the sport opportunities. It was the bountiful garden of food.
My dad sold appliances from Grandpa Clifford’s store. Mom had her hands full with four boys and myself. Creatively cutting up one round steak to feed seven mouths, she piled the plate with veggies. Summer was the easiest season to feed her growing families bellies.
From my earliest memory we referred to summer not as months but what we harvested. A basket of black walnuts were in the basement to await yearly shelling. The green husks had had been removed in the fall. We had a long handled nut cracker to break open the dried nuts. The natural dye in the outer shell turned my brothers’s hands black. A brother was asked,
“What is that dark stuff on your hands?”
He replied, “I am spending time with you, My skin is turning black.”
The first crop from the garden was asparagus shoots. Mom steamed them and added to a white sauce to serve over toast. She stated that this was a spring tonic. The smells from the toilet proved her correct.
Strawberries were the fruit in the berry patch. We had to hurry to pick them before the birds.
My favorite pickings were in the raspberries ,where they grew in a fifteen foot long row of bushes. I would crawl under the bushes to eat the ripening fruit on the bottom branches.
Raised to use what was given to us, we had a steady supply of carrots, radishes, peas and beans. Our small patch of pumpkins were harvested for their seeds and then carved into jack o lanterns.
I foraged for morel mushrooms. They reminded me of a wrinkle brown elf cap. My brother were sent to the spring fed creek to pick water crest for salads and sandwiches.
Frogs were caught and brought home for the preparation of fried legs. I could never eat them because the green color of the meat.
We had two old apples trees in the back yard. Eating the fruit before ripened, we suffered through many stomach aches, but we continued to eat the fruit.
Our neighbor , Mr. Eaton, grew a dozen fruit trees. We were invited to gather tart cherries, peaches and winter pears. I would take a brown bag to pick t mulberries on the way home from the recreation department. Learning to pick the blackest fruit to have the sweetest taste. The small green stems had to be bitten off each berry.
My older brother Bob, was sent to the local A and P to purchase over ripe bananas at 10 cents a pound. We teased him because the banana aroma stayed on his clothes until bath time.
When older, we would visit the grandparents homes. There we could find Vernors pop, vine grown tomatoes and a never empty cookie jar filled with windmill shaped almond cookies.
The early lessons in trying new foods helped expanded our appreciation of a varied palate.
free food
grown from the ground,
natures gifts, freely given,
learn where to forage we gather
bounty
carolaspot@aol.com. May 29, 2023
traveling up and down the blind highway 