My daddy was born in 1949 into a large family. He was raised by my Mamaw, one of the strongest women I have ever had the privilege to love. To feed her large family, my mamaw relied heavily on gardening and the preservation of food when she got it. One of the many ways she preserved food was pickling it.
Now, when I came along, Mamaw had grown sons and daughters that made sure she never lacked with anything. But one thing she always continued to do was preserve food from her well tended garden. She followed the signs on her calendar and planted and preserved foods according to them. My daddy grew up helping her and now he is my link to her in many ways. Today, we pickled corn.
Daddy checked the signs on his calendar before we even started. “No point wasting good food if the signs are wrong”, he explained. Today the signs were “in the neck”, which he said is a good day for pickling anything. We planted corn but it hasn’t had time to grow yet, so we bought corn.
In a large, clean pickle jar ( Mamaw always used a large crock. We have saved it but due to years of moving it has a crack in it leaving it useless for us to pickle anything in it. She always used that and covered it with a clean white cloth and a clean flat rock.) Daddy cut the cooked corn from the cob and packed it into the jar. “You want to pack it but not too tight, you want a little space in it but not too much or it will rot”, he explained. He filled the jar to the bottom of the ring where the lid would screw on, leaving the space at the top of the jar. He then put four heaping spoons of pickling salt on top of the corn and covered it with cool water. “Not refrigerator cold, just cool tap water”, he said. He filled the jar with enough water to cover the corn and covered with a clean cloth and placed the lid over it. Now, every day for about nine days he will check his corn. If there is a film on top, he will gently scoop that off and throw it away. He will add water if there is not water covering the corn.
I remember when I was little we would go to my mamaw’s house every day. If she had been pickling corn, we would wait for her to offer us some. She often pickled the corn on the cob. One day, my cousins and I hid in the room where her crock was at, full of pickled corn on the cob. We quietly removed the rock and cloth and each got an ear of corn. I don’t remember if we ate all of her corn (I hope not) but I do remember eating until I was so full I couldn’t play the rest of the day. It was sour and cool and delicious.
My cousins are all trying their hand at pickling like my Mamaw. I hope we all learn to do it properly and do it justice. Part of the appeal to us, I think, is our memory of sitting around in Mamaw’s house and eating the food she had worked so hard to prepare. We never left her home sad, mad or hungry. She had the hospitality of an angel and she has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren working hard to try to live up to what she tried to teach us. I know she wouldn’t want us to brag on her like that, but I have a pretty good feeling she knew we would. How could we not? She raised eight children on her own. She worked for what she had and she worked for anything her family ate. She raised sons and daughters who knew what it meant to work and knew what it meant to take care of family. To say I’m proud of my family is an understatement. I come from good people. I hope to be a fraction of what they are.
Mamaw’s love and hard work live on, even though she is gone. In a few days, we’ll open up these jars of corn, and if they meet the high standards of my daddy, we’ll take a little bacon and fry it up in a cast iron skillet. We’ll set the bacon aside and in that bacon grease, we’ll fry up a little corn as the soup beans cook and the corn bread bakes. We’ll slice up a good ripe tomato and sit down together and share a meal fit for a queen…….or the family that loved her.
Grace In The Mess 