Simple Times

SIMPLE TIMES

BY SUZY McCRAY

THE CO-OP PANTRY

Sweet Canning Memories

My heart was pounding almost in rhythm with my stomach churning as I walked across the dusty concrete of the Blount-Oneonta Agri-Business Center.

I tried to act nonchalant. I had brought three halfpint jars of jelly and entered them in the Blount County Fair that Sunday afternoon after church. Judging took place that Monday night and early Tuesday, and we were allowed into the fair as it opened that Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Why was I so nervous? Nobody had known I entered anything and nobody would know if I didn’t win a thing … as a matter of fact, I really didn’t expect to win anything on my first year of entering … but there is always hope!

It was the late 1900s and jelly making was just one of the many homestead activities I’d been working on for almost two decades.

What got me interested in entering the fair was an article a fellow reporter at the Gadsden Times had written about his own jelly experiences.

Darrell Norman was the distinguished-looking suitand-tie-wearing reporter who covered the same cap

ital murder trials, county commission meetings and So, I piggy-backed on Darrell’s accomplishments, crimes in DeKalb County as I did in Blount and St. Clair, and that’s how I found myself wandering through the but his weekend – usually Sunday – columns told a bookcase shelves at the county fair hunting my jelly! different story! One little jar had a yellow honorable mention ribbon!

In them, an overall-wearing Darrell rode the back Then another jar featured a second-place ribbon! But roads of Alabama (and further north on each year’s that last jar, clear sparkling apple jelly, sported a blue annual several-state yard sales) driving his beloved ribbon as pretty as I’d ever seen! Volkswagen bus with windows rolled down and beard Somewhere here is a 35 mm color photo of my three flowing in the wind, writing about the little everyday jars of jelly lined up on a kitchen table sporting their things we too-often take for granted, but which form three ribbons when I was able to bring them home later the very foundations of our Southern world. that week! To top it off, I WON $7 in premium money

I was in awe of Darrell and knew him only through that I didn’t even realize I would get! I was ON FIRE! his writing (although we later became true friends!) … Darrell’s article is pasted inside the cover of the but his column one week stirred a small flame within 1997 BACKWOODS HOME ANTHOLOGY: The Fifth Year. me that gradually exploded into a There’s been many other triyearning fire. umphs and disappointments in my

He explained that jelly making One little jar had a lif e and Darrell’s since that long-ago was in his “genes.” He explained about his Grandyellow honorable time and both of us retired from the grind of writing for daily newspadaddy, “in a time when most men mention ribbon! Then pers years ago. He lives a few counleft the kitchen exclusively to the women, my Granddaddy John was the family jelly maker. He grew another jar featured a second-place ribbon! ties away, but neither of us ever lost our love for all things back-to-theland and all- natural … as I write this grapes and apples and peaches But that last jar, clear I can hear Mack tilling in the garden and pears, and he picked as many blackberries as he could get. He turned most of them into jelly.” sparkling apple jelly, sported a blue ribbon even now … and even at our age we planted two new apple trees just this spring and the new grape vines

Darrell never learned for certain as pretty as I’d ever we planted last year are flourishing! why his Granddaddy made the jelly, but he suspected it was because he seen! I stopped entering jelly in the fair a few years ago because I sell jelly in liked “all things sweet” and the only the small general store on our farm. way he could get jelly as sweet as he wanted was to So I guess now I’m considered a “professional.” make it himself! This past summer I was required to renew my cer

“In one of my earliest memories of Granddaddy, he tification with the Alabama Cottage Food Law that is standing over the wood stove – dressed in overalls details what methods you can use and what is lawful and a work shirt buttoned up to the neck, stirring a big in the state. My first course, taught by Extension Serpot of steaming jelly.” vice Food Safety and Quality Regional Agent Angela

His Daddy didn’t inherit the jelly-making gene (it Treadaway, now six years ago, gave me the assurance must have skipped a generation), but his Mama carI needed to make sure I am providing a quality product ried it on. for our farm customers.

In the particular year of the article, Darrell said I don’t think anything will ever give me quite the he found enough wild muscadines on a vine near his thrill of those little ribbons, blowing in the slight country home “to nearly fill the lunch bucket Daddy breeze and hanging on those jelly jars at my first enused to carry to the coal mines.” One of those shining tered county fair! jars of deep purple muscadine jelly was what he en“S ee I give you every seed-bearing plant that is tered in the fair that year. upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bear

While he too tried to act like nothing special was ing fruit; they shall be yours for food. ... These will be going on, he could hardly wait to get to the jelly exhibit food for you.” Genesis 1:29. that first night of the fair.

“My preserves and apple jelly had failed to place, (Suzy and her husband Mack strive to live a simple but my tiny jar of muscadine jelly was wearing a blue life on a small homestead in Blount County. She can ribbon. I was as tickled as any kid who won a stuffed be reached through their Facebook page or at suzy. tiger on the midway that night!” mccray@yahoo.com)