Mamaw, green beans and Uncle John

Working in the kitchen, especially food preserving of any kind, usually brings my paternal grandmother (we called her Mamaw) to mind. My first experiences with canning and freezing food grown by your own efforts was through watching her.  She canned tomatoes, of course, beans,  corn, strawberry jam, blackberry pie filling and even pork. Damn, that was good pork. She didn’t use recipes. She’d done it so often, it all just came naturally for her. 

I took a photo of an old B&W of my grandparents. Forgive the quality, please.

I particularly remember sitting on her porch in a wooden porch swing with a bowl of green beans in my lap. We each had a bowl with a paper grocery sack more sitting beside us. There was a pot for the beans that had the strings pulled out and were broken into bite size pieces and a bag for strings and bad spots broken off. It didn’t take much concentration to string and break beans, so she told me family stories. Some of my favorite times with her were spent listening to stories of her family, my family.

She grew up in a big, farm family. She had seven brothers and two sisters (one of the sisters died when she was just a baby). One of my favorite stories was about her sister, my great Aunt Lucy and Lucy's husband, Uncle John. When they were young, John came to the house courting Lucy on Sunday afternoons. He drove a car, something I don’t think Mamaw’s family had at the time. He parked in back of the house and sat on the front porch with Lucy, probably in a porch swing like Mamaw’s. They sat together, sometimes talking, sometimes just sitting, for a couple of hours until it was time for John to go home for supper. When he left, it was his habit to run through the house and down the back steps, running all the way to his car. I imagine he had some energy to work off after sitting for a couple of hours with the love of his life, only holding her hand. “Papa would not allow kissing,” I can hear Mamaw saying.

At the time John and Lucy were courting, Mamaw’s brothers would have ranged in age from pre-teen to almost-an-adult teenager. Some of the younger ones liked to play practical jokes, especially on the young man who was threatening to take their big sister away. One Sunday afternoon they took the short wood steps, not much more than a glorified step-ladder really, away from the porch and replaced it with a wash tub full of cold water. When John left, running through the house and out the back door, he stepped off the back porch coming down hard into that tub of water, soaking his Sunday best suit. He jumped up quickly, trying to pretend nothing was wrong, and jogged on to his car with a slight limp. Mamaw’s brothers were under the porch trying not to laugh, but making just enough noise to get caught. “Papa was spitting fire,” Mamaw said. “He could’a broke his leg!” Mamaw wanted to be serious when she told me this story. She wouldn’t have wanted me to get the idea that it was okay to do something like that and maybe hurt someone. But she giggled every time she told it. She adored every one of her brothers and always laughed at their jokes.

Today I’m canning tomatoes, pickling okra, jalapenos and green beans, freezing some of the beans and making pesto. I’m pretty sure Mamaw never pickled jalapenos. I’m not sure if she ever tasted one. I’m sure she never made pesto. But my love of growing my own food, cooking, and especially my love of “putting up” the harvest is thanks to her.

this year's bounty so far