I don’t know what you did yesterday, but I watched the sun set from my back deck while eating muscadines and scuppernongs that I had bought in the mountains near Cleveland, Georgia the previous day. The sky was perfectly clear, and the temperature felt as though there were no temperature at all: perfect. Earlier, the sun was so intense, but the air so lacking in humidity, that it felt like one was sitting on a Caribbean beach. A small flock of migrating birds slipped by the magnolia tree and landed on the yellowing ginkgo. A maple, shuddering in the breeze, dropped its leaves in the sun-flecked grass.
Each morsel I popped into my mouth required the same procedure: bite at an angle, popping the interior away from the skin; spit the skin over the edge of the deck while anchoring the resulting ball of goodness to the inside of your cheek with your tongue; enjoy the burst of intense, unique flavor that envelops your head; feel the tartness take over the glands in your neck, inhale the intense, deep, toffee-sweet passion-fruit with grape perfume in your nose; squish out the seeds with your tongue; spit them over the rail; chew and feel the bubblegum sweet as it hits your mouth; kick your legs over a chair; repeat until all scuppernongs and muscadines are gone.
The South. Now, on to the pickled okra.
But the key: don’t hurry.
here’s the same text run through Burroughs’s cut-up machine:
I yesterday, the set deck and had in Cleveland, the The was clear, though were all: Earlier, sun but air lacking humidity, felt one sitting a beach. A flock the tree landed the ginkgo. A shuddering of the grass.
Each I into the procedure: at the the skin the of deck anchoring resulting of your with the of unique that feel tartness glands your intense, toffee-sweet grape in nose; out seeds your over rail; and the sweet it your kick legs a repeat and are South. Now, to pickled did but sun from back muscadines I bought the near previous perfectly and temperature as there no at perfect. the was in it like on Caribbean of birds by magnolia and on yellowing in breeze, its sun-flecked morsel popped my required same bite interior from the ball goodness the of cheek your enjoy burst intense, flavor envelops head; the take the neck, the deep, with perfume your squish the tongue; them chew feel bubblegum as hits mouth; your over chair; until scuppernongs muscadines gone.
The okra.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Nov 4, 2003 at 9:22 pm
Err, what the hell are muscadines and scuppernongs?
2 bitterman // Nov 5, 2003 at 10:41 am
Yum, yum.
Stuck in the hellhole that is California, I travel home just to raid my Aunt’s root cellar at least twice a year (Toone, Tn., population 428, SALUTE). Muscadine preserves, spicy hot pickled okra, pepper sauce, green tomato relish, pole beans, field peas, and the occasional jug of Muscadine wine.
Pardon me, but I gotta go book a flight and prepare a duffle bag to carry all the Ball jars…....thanks for the post, Scott.
3 trav // Nov 5, 2003 at 9:19 pm
Both of my grandfathers had scuppernong canopies and made muscadine wine. One made more than mere wine—he had a still, like everybody else in Virginia did.
My mom’s dad, the sphinxlike SD Windham, grew his own okra (and beans, peas, hot peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, figs, pears, walnuts, peanuts, tomatoes, etc etc), seined his own shrimp, and hauled in his own oysters. We’d sit on the porch on autumn afternoons eating boiled shrimp and chow chow, and he’d fry up fresh okra for us.
The Real South begins outside of Atlanta where you see your first Scuppernong vine trellis.
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