Wild Summer and Fall Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (8)

by Edited by Foxfire Students

  OR: boil three quarts of half-ripe plums fifteen minutes. Rub through a colander and add one pound sugar, one cup apple vinegar, and ½ teaspoon each of ground cloves, mace, and cinnamon. Place again on the fire and boil for half an hour.

  Plum sweet pickle: take ½ gallon almost green plums and scald until the skins are tender. Drain them well and place in jars. Have ready a syrup made of two pounds sugar, one pint apple vinegar, and a teaspoon each whole cloves and mace. Pour over the plums while hot, and seal.

  Salt wild plum pickle: take ½ gallon large green plums, wash and put in self-sealing jars. Make a pickle of one quart water, one teaspoon vinegar, and one teaspoon salt. Boil a few minutes, pour over the plums, and seal while hot. Keep until the cool weather and they will be ready for use.

  Sour wild plum pickle: take ½ gallon green plums, and pierce them each two or three times with a needle. Put in jars. Boil one quart vinegar, two cups sugar, one teaspoon cloves, and one stick cinnamon. Pour over the plums and seal while hot.

  Green wild plum pickle (imitation olives): pick plums that are grown, but not at all ripe. Boil a mixture of one tablespoon white mustard seed, one tablespoon salt, and one pint vinegar. Pour this over the plums. Repeat this three mornings in succession and seal in jars.

  Spiced wild plums: boil ½ gallon plums five minutes, pour off the water and add three pounds sugar, one teaspoon each ground cloves, allspice, and cinnamon, and one pint vinegar. Boil a half hour, stirring constantly. Seal while hot.

  Peach (Prunus persica) (P. amygdalus)

  (Indian peach)

  Indian peaches are small trees, spreading with scraggly branches, said to be descendants of those trees planted by the Cherokees around their villages. Other, more modern varieties are planted by the birds, or persist around old homesites. Leaves are very narrow and shining, and beautiful pink blossoms appear before the leaves in very early spring. The fruit of the Indian peach is white with a rosy cheek, white-meated with a red heart. Other old peach trees have small, yellowish or pinkish fruits. All have a most delicious flavor, raw or cooked. Peaches are rich in iron, and peach leaf tea was a medicine for bladder troubles or used as a sedative.

  Peach and apple butters were made with molasses before the early settlers had sugar.

  ILLUSTRATION 19 Terry and Teresa Tyler with Indian peach.

  Pickled peaches: peel fruit, quarter, and put in a pot. Make enough brine of two parts vinegar, one part water, and two parts sugar to cover fruit. Add ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice to taste. Cook until tender. When done, lift the fruit out and pack in jars. Keep brine simmering and pour into jars over fruit leaving a half inch at the top. Seal at once. (Apples can be used instead of peaches.)

  Peach tarts: for the tart pastry use two cups flour; one teaspoon salt; two teaspoons sugar; two egg yolks; ½ cup sweetened soft butter; a few drops of water. Sift dry ingredients together. Place in bowl and make a hollow in center. Put egg yolks and butter in hollow and work in with the fingers, gradually blending in dry ingredients. Add a few drops of water to hold the mixture together. Wrap in wax paper and chill thoroughly. Roll out ¼-inch thick and fit loosely into an eight-inch pan. Bake, cool, and brush with glaze. Peel and slice the peaches, roll in lemon juice, drain, arrange in shell, and spoon on glaze, covering all pieces well. Chill. For glaze use ¾ cup orange juice; two tablespoons sugar; one tablespoon cornstarch. Mix in saucepan and cook, stirring until thick and clear. (Blackberries or grapes may be used instead of peaches.)

  Pincherry (Prunus pensylvanica) (family Rosaceae)

  (red bird cherry)

  The pincherry is a small tree found in the high mountains with a shining, lenticeled bark, and slender, almost drooping branches. The leaves are very narrow, thin, and a shining green. Solitary five-petaled white flowers appear before the leaves in the spring. Cherries are small, sour, and a bright red in color. They make a particularly pretty, bright red jelly.

  Wild cherry (Prunus serotina)

  (black cherry, rum cherry)

  The black cherry can be a tall tree (100 feet high in the mountain coves), or it can be smaller and almost shrubby on rock outcrops, along fencerows, or in old pastures. It grows in all habitats, and is a common tree in the mountains. The bark is satiny, the leaves are oval and shiny green. Flowers appear in a white raceme with the new leaves and the cherries are black on red stems.

  The wild cherry has always been a “medicine” tree. Its bark was used in cough medicines and known as “lung balm” bark. To prepare wild cherry bark for tea, boil the cherry bark and make a cough syrup out of it. Take the bark and a little whiskey. They claim it’s the best medicine there is for the stomach.

  Jake Waldroop says, “The wild cherries are ripe about the last of September and the first of October. They’re ripe when they drop off the trees. They’re mostly a hull and a great big round seed. They’ve got a pretty good flavor, not too bitter. They’re pretty plentiful.”

  ILLUSTRATION 20 Wild cherry

  Cherry wine: crush the cherries, put them in a large crock and cover with boiling water. Cover the crock and let it sit until the juice stops working. Then strain through a cloth squeezing out all the juice. Put the juice back in the crock, add three cups sugar to each gallon, cover, and let sit nine to ten days, or until it stops working. Put in bottles, but don’t seal too tightly until it has stopped fermenting completely. The wine is supposed to be very potent.

  Wild cherry jelly: wash three quarts cherries, and place in a vessel with two cups water. Boil until very tender. Pour off the juice, measure and add one measure sugar to each measure juice. Boil until jellied. Put in molds and cover when cold with writing paper dipped in brandy.

  Wild brandy cherries: fill a large jar with cherries. Make a syrup of a half pound of sugar for each pound of fruit. Scald the fruit in this syrup, but do not boil. Remove the fruit, boil the syrup until it is reduced by one third, and add one third as much brandy. Pour over the cherries, and seal while hot.

  Southern negus: take a quart red cherries, three pounds black wild cherries, and four pounds currants. Mash and mix all together, and store in a cool place for three or four days. Strain, and boil the juice. To every pint of juice, add ½ pound sugar. Let cool and bottle. Add two or three tablespoonfuls to one glass ice water.

  One-flowered haw (Crataegus uniflora) (family Rosaceae)

  (haws, thornapples)

  This is a small shrub found in open oak-pine woods and on rock outcrops. Its leaves are leathery and toothed. White blossoms appear in the spring with the new leaves. The haws are brownish-red, globose, and very seedy.

  October haw (Crataegus flava)

  This is the most common haw in this area, a shrub or small tree with rounded, serrate-edged leaves. The white flowers appear rather late in the spring, followed by reddish-yellow haws late in August-September. This haw is common in open, dry, or rocky woodlands.

  River haw (Crataegus punctata)

  River haw forms a very thorny shrub or small tree, found along stream banks and rich, rocky woods. The leaves are almost obovate, and its white flowers, purple-centered, are followed by bright red fruits.

  ILLUSTRATION 21 October haw

  ILLUSTRATION 22 River haw

  Mrs. Norton described the haws as “haw berries. They’re very seedy, and they are usually eaten plain. We used to call them rabbit apples; they grow on thorny bushes, and are just little, round, red things. I’ve eaten some of them. I prefer them to groundcherries any time.”

  Thornapple relish: pick over and wash one gallon thornapples. Remove blossom ends and cut the apples in half. Put in a kettle with barely enough water to cover the fruit, and simmer until soft. Drain, and strain through a colander. Add one cup brown sugar, two teaspoons pepper, two teaspoons salt, two teaspoons cinnamon, and three finely chopped onions. Mix together. Add one pint vinegar, and boil until onions are tender. Bottle.

  Hawthorn jelly: ½ pint water, one pound fruit. Simmer haws, mash, and add one pound sugar to one pint liquid pl
us a dash of lemon juice. The result will be a brown jelly that tastes like guava.

  Red haw (hawthorn): crush three pounds fruit (not too ripe). Add four cups water and bring to a boil. Simmer ten minutes and strain the juice through a jelly bag. Bring four cups of juice to a boil and add seven cups sugar. This shows a jelly test soon after it begins to boil (for test, jelly flakes rather than pours off a spoon). Pour in jars and seal.

  Haw marmalade: cook haws in very little water, and press through a sieve. Use 1½ cups strained pulp and juice. The juice of a lemon or orange improves the flavor. Add five cups sugar, boil hard for one minute, and seal in jars.

  Pear (Pyrus communis)

  Old pear trees are found at homesites, and sometimes naturalize at the edges of open woods. They are tall trees, often with scraggly branches. They have fragrant white flowers very early in the spring. The pears are of varying size and flavor, often very hard, and need cooking to be edible. Pears can be substituted in any recipes using apples or dried for winter use.

  Baked pears: put halves in baking dish, cover with honey and a dash of cinnamon. Or, scoop out the cores (but leave the peeling) and fill the center with honey and chopped nuts. Bake half hour at low heat.

  Pear conserve: one cup pears and one cup apples. Grind fruit, add two cups sugar, and mix thoroughly. Boil for twenty minutes and seal.

  Apple (Pyrus malus) (family Rosaceae)

  Old apples persist where orchards once covered the mountains, and around old homesites. Apples also come up along fencerows and woods’ edges where apple cores have been thrown. These old apple trees may be gnarled and crooked, but often have small apples with a very good taste. The sweet white apple blossoms appear with the leaves in early spring.

  Dried apples: apples are either sliced into thin slivers, or cored and sliced into rings. The rings were strung on a pole; slices were spread out on boards. They were then set out in the sun or in front of the fireplace, depending on the weather, until the slices were brown and rubbery. This usually took two or three days, and they were turned over frequently so they would dry evenly. When dry, the apples were stored in sacks for use during the winter. Mrs. Grover Bradley says, “Those make the best fried pies I ever ate.” (Peaches were dried just like apples. Small berries such as blackberries were simply spread out on boards and were not sliced.)

  Apple beer: peel apples and dry peelings as above. Put peelings in a crock, and add enough boiling water to cover. Cover crock and let sit for about two days until the flavor comes out in the peelings. Strain and drink. Add some sugar, if desired.

  Scalloped apples: use six tart cooking apples, one cup graham cracker crumbs, ¾ cup sugar, ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon, butter or margarine, water. Pare, core, and slice apples. Roll out crackers and add sugar and cinnamon mixture. Place in baking dish in layers, covering each layer with crumbs dotted with butter. Add hot water to moisten. Bake in a medium oven three quarters of an hour until apples are well cooked and crumbs browned.

  Dried apple cake: mix your favorite white or yellow cake, and bake in four thin layers. Mix one pint dried apples with one pint water and cook until thick and the apples are mashed up. Sweeten apples to taste and add spices. Let cool and spread between layers and on top of the cake.

  Fruit vinegar: Mrs. Tom MacDowell said that she used to make fruit vinegar. “We had a cider mill and we ground the apples up and made it out of the cider. Before the cider mill ever come, they mashed up the apples and put them in a barrel and let’em rot, and then drained the vinegar off.”

  Apple vinegar: mash up two or three bushels of apples. Put them in a barrel or crock and fill with water, using one quart syrup to 2½ gallons water. Cover with a coarse cloth and keep in a warm place. The vinegar will make in a few months, but will not be good for pickles until it is eighteen months to two years old. Vinegar may also be made from one gallon cider using one cup syrup and “mother” from other vinegar.

  Baked apples: wash, core, and fill with honey and chopped nuts. Bake at low heat.

  Apples on a stick: alternate chunks of apples and pears on a stick. Broil over an open fire.

  Cider apples: peel and cut apples in small pieces. Cook slowly on low heat in enough cider to cover the apples.

  Apple sauce: cook peeled, cored apple slices with butter and brown sugar.

  Apple grunter: use little, sour wild apples. Grease a baking dish with butter, put in two inches sliced apples, and shake on cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Tuck six ¼-inch cubes fat salt pork into the apples. Pour ½ cup molasses over the whole thing. Put on a biscuit dough crust. Make holes in the crust with fork tines so the juice can bubble up. Bake.

  Crabapple (Pyrus coronaria) (family Rosaceae)

  (northern wild crab)

  The northern wild crabapple is a wide-spreading tree of the mountains, found in thickets, rich coves, and often along streams. It has oval leaves and rather spiky twigs. The beautiful pink flowers appear in early May and spread a spicy fragrance over the woods. The fruits are round, yellow-green, and very hard. They are considered the best of all apples for apple butter.

  Crabapple (Pyrus angustifolius)

  The southern crabapple is a small, spreading tree, usually growing in thickets, with prickly branches and very narrow, toothed leaves. The flowers are deep pink and very fragrant. The little apples are hard, shiny, and green, and will hang on the tree until January. Jake Waldroop says, “We used them mixed with other apples for jelly. The crabapples are ready now (in September). They never do get sweet. Nothing affects them—they’re always sour.”

  ILLUSTRATION 23 Crabapple

  Crabapple jelly: one gallon crabapples and one gallon golden delicious apples. Peel apples and quarter. Cook together for thirty minutes. Strain the juice. Put into a cooker with two cups sugar for each cup juice. Boil for one hour.

  Crabapple jelly: simmer crabapples twenty minutes. Mash in a pan. Strain, and for each pint juice add one pound sugar; boil ten minutes. Add mint leaves if desired. Put in jars, and set in a dark place to thicken.

  Virginia jelly: four quarts crabapples, two quarts grapes. Wash and clean fruit, cook and strain juice. Add sugar and boil until it reaches the jelly stage.

  Crabapple preserves: small hard crabapples are picked from the ground in December or January. Cook with sugar and a few red cinnamon candies. Juice thickens into jell overnight.

  Sweet pickled crabapples: two quarts crabapples, 2½ cups sugar, two sticks cinnamon, two teaspoons whole allspice, one teaspoon whole cloves, two cups vinegar, 1½ cups water. Wash crabapples. Cut out blossom ends, but leave stems intact. Tie spices in cheesecloth. Combine in large pot with spices, sugar, vinegar, and water. Boil five minutes. Add enough fruit to cover the surface without crowding. Cook slowly until just tender. Fill jars, and seal at once.

  Crabapple butter: four quarts crabapples, three cups sugar, four cups water, two teaspoons cinnamon, one teaspoon cloves, one teaspoon salt. Cook crabapples with peelings and run through a food mill. Boil slowly over low flame until thick. Seal boiling hot.

  Crabapple preserves: peel the crabapples and drop them in water. When all are ready, place them in a porcelain kettle and let them just come to a boil. Remove from the fire, pour them with the water into an earthen bowl and let them stand twenty-four hours. Then take them out of the water and remove the cores. Drain them and then pack in sugar, using one pound sugar for each pound fruit. Let them stand twelve hours; pour off the syrup and boil it twenty minutes; then put the apples in and let them boil until clear, when they will be ready to seal.

  Crabapple jelly: remove the stems, wash the apples and rub them well with a coarse cloth. Put them in a porcelain kettle, cover with water and let them boil until very tender. Strain out the juice and return it to the fire and boil ten or fifteen minutes longer. Then add one pound of sugar to each pint of juice, and boil until it jellies. This will take only a few minutes.

  Crabapple pickle: peel and core the apples. Put them in a jar and over them pour hot vinegar, sweetened and spic
ed, as for peach pickles. Let this remain twenty-four hours; then drain off the vinegar, heat it, and pour over the apples and seal.

  Crabapple pickle: peel and core the apples. Put them in a jar and over them pour hot vinegar, sweetened and spiced with choice spices. Always use good apple vinegar not less than two years old. Always seal the jars with three layers of brown paper put on with a flour paste when it is not convenient to use jars that are self-sealing.

  Pasture rose (Rosa caroliniana) (family Rosaceae)

  The pasture rose is a familiar low bush which grows to six feet high, found in old fields, on rock outcrops, and on roadsides. It has variable divided leaves and prickly stems. The roses are single, pink, and very fragrant. The red hips are extremely rich in vitamin C.

  Swamp rose (Rosa palustris)

  The taller swamp rose is found in marshes, bogs, and along rivers and streams. The flowers are small but fragrant, and the red hips are equally edible. The hips of various cultivated roses such as the dog rose (Rosa canina), the sweet brier (Rosa eglanteria), and the multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) can all be eaten.

  ILLUSTRATION 24 Rose hips

  Rose hip tea: cook the hips and strain off the juice. Then reheat juice with honey or sugar. It has the taste of apple. The darker the hips, the better the tea.