Fran, reading your message is so much how I was raised. We had huge gardens and mom would not plant anything unless "the moon was right" and yes, my grandpa would plant corn in the moonlight. He grew up in LA and the 'gators were very much a factor. I was raised on creamed corn, pinto beans, corn bread, okra (fried & boiled, corn on the cob, baked sweet potates, ice tea (after we were able to go to the ice plant and get "blocks" which we put in the old refrig), buttermilk, sweet milk (hopefully the cow didn't eat bitter weeds), chucks of pork fried and "streakady gravy", pork chops and fried chicken for breakfast, homemade sausage, collard greens, turnips and turnip greens with pepper sauce and a wedge of onion. Grandma always grew her cucumbers and those big ones, we threw away, too seedy, and planted flower seeds around the garden and the house to keep certain pests away. Mom got the old "safe" (cabinet) that was brought across the Mississippi River and since we were here by the 1834's the old safe is old. It was screened and the legs white from sitting in water to keep out the ants. But for some memories of "flies" stayed with me and actually distasteful. Oh, Poke Salad Anne was really about greens that mom cooked with scrambled eggs and you had to pick it before it flowered or you could die, if you were lucky. I know now what it looks like as I mowed the plants down near her garden in 2006 or so not knowing what it was. Times were rough back then but there was good times. Granddad made sure we knew which side the moss grew on the tree in case we got lost, I shutter to rememer the squirrels he killed and grandma cooked. There are some good things about buying from a market. Not wringing a chickens neck for one. Adiene

Adiene, thanks for writing. Your post evokes memories long dead---or so I thought---just didn't have the right impetus to get the ole' brain cells a'movin'. Poke salat was a delicacy for us. To my delight, I discovered a few bushes growing in the back yard of a daughter/son-in-law. Said daughter is about 1 -11/2 hours from me, so getting me over there is problematic. I began trying to instruct them in the fine art of picking the poke at the right time, how to boil and dump the water, etc., to no avail. Once I told them the leaves can kill, they will not touch it with the proverbial ten foot pole. LOL I wonder if you ever used the poke root as a cure for poison oak/ivy/sumac? Not sure of this statement as applicable to all, but one treatment of the boiled poke root insured we never again "caught the stuff", walking/wandering with impunity from that poison in our area of the world; for lifetime. The root was boiled in one specific washtub, poured into another washtub where the afflicted one sat and the affected parts were immersed. Never do I recall such burning pain as when the solution first came into contact with affected part. This makes me laugh even today: my cousin, Betty, was the fastest runner of us all and none of us were slow. Betty's and my job when we were about ten-twelve was to go out into the yard and literally run down the chicken Granny had chosen. Betty did the running, caught the bird, I picked it up, took it to Granny who either did ring its neck or sometimes hung it on the clothesline and cut its head right off, leaving it to hang until bled out. BTW: Granny and her family became converts to the Primitive Baptist Church and on some basis the Preacher visited each household of his congregation once or so each year. It was the Preacher's visit that we had chicken. Otherwise, we ate from that provided by the land where we lived. Except pigs. And even now, not sure they were/were not wild hogs rather than "domestic" hogs. I know the men hunted the wild ones with their bows/arrows and knives at certain times of the year and butchering was a neighborhood occasion. One of my grands asked me one day about the "olden" days and where did we buy our chicken. I explained above procedure and the grand, who was about eight or so, listened intently and when I was through, he said to me Granny, you mean the chicken Mama cooks was alive at one time. Affirmative. He said to me that he would never again eat chicken as he thought all came packaged in the super market and he didn't want to eat anything dead-----he did not again eat chicken until about age seventeen or so. LOL Granny had us kids plant something around the walk up to the house so that ants would not enter the residence. It seems they were yellow, but not sure. Maybe orange, but not sunflowers as those were food for us and the birds. Recollect that when Daddy took me out and taught me how to live in our environment, he taught me about the moss and walking down-river; feeling animal droppings to see if they were warm so we would know whether to go on or go back. We all carried Buck knives from that age of four-five so that we could cut, suck, spit if snake-bitten. Etc. Can you even imagine giving the four-five year old of today a Buck knife???? FWIW: I do not know that our Buck knife was/was not that Buck knife of today, but that is what all called them. Well, Adiene, as can readily be seen, I am on a roll. Reliving my childhood is my delight/my joy. So will stop for now as the old fingers tire out faster than I would like----- Thoroughly enjoyed your reminiscing. Fran Chinkapin On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 12:26 AM, Adiene Humble <ahumble@consolidated.net>wrote: > Fran, reading your message is so much how I was raised. We had huge > gardens > and mom would not plant anything unless "the moon was right" and yes, my > grandpa would plant corn in the moonlight. He grew up in LA and the > 'gators > were very much a factor. I was raised on creamed corn, pinto beans, corn > bread, okra (fried & boiled, corn on the cob, baked sweet potates, ice tea > (after we were able to go to the ice plant and get "blocks" which we put in > the old refrig), buttermilk, sweet milk (hopefully the cow didn't eat > bitter > weeds), chucks of pork fried and "streakady gravy", pork chops and fried > chicken for breakfast, homemade sausage, collard greens, turnips and turnip > greens with pepper sauce and a wedge of onion. > > Grandma always grew her cucumbers and those big ones, we threw away, too > seedy, and planted flower seeds around the garden and the house to keep > certain pests away. Mom got the old "safe" (cabinet) that was brought > across the Mississippi River and since we were here by the 1834's the old > safe is old. It was screened and the legs white from sitting in water to > keep out the ants. But for some memories of "flies" stayed with me and > actually distasteful. > > Oh, Poke Salad Anne was really about greens that mom cooked with scrambled > eggs and you had to pick it before it flowered or you could die, if you > were > lucky. I know now what it looks like as I mowed the plants down near her > garden in 2006 or so not knowing what it was. > > Times were rough back then but there was good times. Granddad made sure we > knew which side the moss grew on the tree in case we got lost, I shutter to > rememer the squirrels he killed and grandma cooked. > > There are some good things about buying from a market. Not wringing a > chickens neck for one. > Adiene > > > ======*====== > List archives > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=cherokee > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > CHEROKEE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >