Pass the Peas, Please

article and illustration by LOU DAVENPORT

I’ve often written about my big, loud, wonderful family. All my aunts and uncles are gone now, but oh the stories and memories they left me, especially food stories! My father was one of eight children born to my grandmother, Lily, and grandfather, Phillip, a sharecropper. It wasn’t easy for them to feed all those kids. My daddy once told me that all they had to eat at times was popcorn. I thought he had to be kidding, even though I know they lived through very hard times, …but, he wasn’t. They all survived the flood of ‘27, and then the Great Depression. Somehow they did not starve, but it has made me fully appreciate, now that I’m older, just why my aunts went a little crazy when summer came and the fruits and vegetables were in abundance. They simply were just not ever going to go hungry again. But, me and my cousins, all teenagers at the time, just really hated to see big bushels of purple hull peas and those “hard to shell” butter beans start coming in. We were the ones who got to shell them all and oh, did we ever whine and complain. (But, we sure didn’t mind eating all that good stuff when it came winter!)

I choose to call three of my aunts; Aunt Red, Aunt Cye, and Aunt Mayvonne, “The Trifecta” for a good reason. I know it’s a racing term, but these ladies were so competitive when it came to food, especially cooking, canning, and putting it up for the winter. The name just fit them perfectly. They were so competitive about who was going to get what vegetable first, and then who “put them up” the best. Again, me and my cousins were their “work force.” All we really wanted to do was ride around and check out good looking boys!

I remember them having us shell enough purple hull peas to feed an army. Those things would stain your thumbs purple, and that color did not wash off, it wore off. And after a bushel of those things, we were done, but they weren’t! They’d just bring in another bushel! While we were shelling, they were busy washing those peas, and picking through them for bug stings, which they culled! If they got a bushel that were too “bug stung,” oh, the griping that would go on! We just kept on shelling; and they kept washing and picking. Then, they used big enamel pans where they would bring water to a boil, dump those peas in for so many minutes, then dump them into cold water. That was blanching the peas to stop growth, and also so they’d taste “right,” which was a very important step. Then, they’d bag them up in freezer bags and label them. Ziploc bags weren’t invented back then, and even if they had been, The Tritecta probably would not have liked or used them! All those bags went into freezers at my house, Aunt Red’s, Aunt Cye’s and Aunt Mayonne’s.

Aunt Mayvonne was usually the first one to get the butterbeans, and they were the hardest things to shell. They sure did taste good, but oh, the pain! Your thumbs would literally ache! One summer, my cousins, Judy and Loretta, and I thought we’d be slick and shell a handful, and then throw away a handful. Kinda make the job go a lot faster, you know? We never dreamed Aunt Mayvonne would check the bags we put the shelled pods in, but she did! BUSTED! The woman could have worked for the FBI. Needless to say, there definitely was no cruising around Greenville, Mississippi for us that evening. From then on, she kept an “eagle eye” on us little “butterbean” criminals!

Then there was the corn. Ohhhhh, the excitement The Tritecta felt when Aunt Red announced it was in. This time, it was off to Liddieville we went. Aunt Red lived on a farm, and had a large garden full of tall corn stalks, hanging with fresh corn. I really hated pulling corn. It was itchy, and there were worms you’d run into on some of the ears. YUCK! And, it was hot. The giddy Trifecta would lay all the corn out so that none was stacked on top of the other. I have no idea why they did that, except maybe they liked seeing how much corn we were going to get to shuck. It wasn’t too bad until you reached the point you had to get all those corn silks out. Bleh. You had to get them worthy of The Trifecta’s approval. They were serious about that corn! Thankfully though, we didn’t have to participate in the messiest mess you’ve ever seen because they did not believe in “putting up” whole ears. The cleaned corn was cut off the cob with this sharp thing on a board, and it had to be cut just at the right depth. Then they scraped the rest left on the cob with a knife! That was what made the whole crop “creamed corn.” And, yes it was heavenly to eat! I later learned it was called “Mache Choux.” I had no idea how fancy The Trifecta could get!

Sometime during the summer, the Trifecta, along with my mama and grandmother Lily, got bushels and bushels of fresh peaches from the old peach orchard in Bastrop. Maybe it is just nostalgia, but to this day, those were some of the best peaches I’ve ever eaten. They smelled so good, and I would sneak a few to eat!

But, these women had business to do; and they would get those paring knives out and get to peeling those beauties! I wasn’t the best peeler, but I hung in there. Truth be told, I probably ate most of mine. When all that peeling was done and each peach was sliced just right, into those big enamel pans they would go. They used a product called “Fruit Fresh” to keep them from turning brown, and then sugared them down until they were covered. That sugar mixed with the peach juice and made a syrup! They’d get used for peach cobblers, or sometimes just plain with real whipped cream.

The Trifecta also got all excited about fresh figs. They all had their own secret sources, but they’d get together and combine those sources in order to can fig preserves. Again, they’d wash them, pick through them, sugar them down, and cook them until they were thick. After the figs cooled a bit, they’d put them into jars that they’d sterilized earlier. They were very protective of the rings that went with their Mason jars, and usually didn’t have to buy anything but the tops. And you better bring back their Mason jars if you were lucky enough to get a jar of something – along with the ring. You could throw away the top though! So, they put the figs into jars, topped, and screwed down the rings. As they cooled, you could hear the tops snap down. That meant they were “good to go.” I preferred stealing as many raw figs as I could get my hands on, and skipped the preserves.

One of their favorite events was the race to get grapes off of my daddy’s grapevine. He did have a prolific one, and I think he enjoyed his sisters fighting over them. It usually ended with them all picking grapes, laughing, and sharing them with each other. But, whoever got there first was the one that got to gloat the rest of the year!

Next, there were tomatoes. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do much with those except make tomato sandwiches. Those tomatoes got dropped into a boiling water bath, dipped out quickly, and plunged into an ice cold bath. Magically, the skins came right off! Some were chopped up, put in those freezer bags, and labeled to be used for all kinds of dishes later. My favorite was when some of those tomatoes were mixed up with everything else that they’d “put up.” They called it “soup mix.” It was bagged, labeled, and put in the freezer. It was the best soup EVER!

I miss those women. I miss all the fun they had getting together and putting away food for the cold winter months so none of us would ever go hungry. They could have easily bought “ready to eat” peas, butterbeans, and all the rest, but it wouldn’t have been the same, and they knew that. Those women were three “forces of nature,” and how they loved each other and all of us. I bet right now, up in heaven, they’re making cream corn, fussing about who is going to get daddy’s grapes first, making fig preserves, and putting up fresh peaches. And, I also know they are having a great time being loud, proud, and as Aunt Mayvonne used to say, “wildin’ off.” That’s what they did.

John Prine has a line in a song of his that says, “She’s sitting on the back steps, just shuckin’ that corn. That girl’s been grinning since the day she was born….she ain’t hurtin’ nobody. She ain’t hurtin’ no one.”

Wonder if he’s met the Trifecta? RIP John Prine.