Disappearing Foods
Monday, May 5th, 2008By Mr. Henry
In a New York Times article “Disappearing Foods,” Kim Severson reviews the new book by Gary Paul Nabhan, Renewing America’s Food Traditions.
Accompanying the article is a marvelous interactive graphic illustrating areas of the United States organized by “gastronomic regions.”
With one finger on the touch pad Mr. Henry wandered interactively around the country. In “Gumbo Nation,” the Gulf Coast region, he read the words “clay field peas” and memories sprouted like magic beans.
Not since the middle 1960’s had Mr. Henry tasted these delicacies. Field peas look like pale green black-eyed peas or greener versions of white acre peas. Normally they are dried and used as fodder. When served fresh, however, boiled with ham hock as Mr. Henry remembers them, they taste creamy, mildly nutty, and divinely sweet. Mr. Henry’s favorite boyhood vegetable, one day about 45 years ago they simply disappeared from the market. Were these the disappearing “clay field peas?”
In “Crabcake Nation,” the southern Atlantic Coast, during Mr. Henry’s youth blue crabs ran thick and wild on Florida beaches.
For spring vacation this year Mr. Henry took the kids to Florida. Promising them a bonanza of blue crab, he bought six flashlights and six poles with crab nets. After dark the hunting party set off after its nocturnal, side-striding prey. They found not a single blue crab on the beach. Mr. Henry hung his bush hat in disgrace. Are blue crabs disappearing?
In “Chestnut Nation,” the Appalachians, Mr. Henry once stopped at a roadside farm stand high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Spying mason jars of something mustard yellow in color, he read the label: “chou-chou.”
Thinking the name was derived from French, he asked, “Is this ‘shoo-shoo’ a pickled cabbage?”
“Naw,” said the tiny young woman. “That’s chow chow.”
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Henry. “Is it sweet?”
“Well,” she said pursing her thin lips, “It’s got right smart sugar in it.”
In Appalachian argot, “right smart” means “quite a bit.” The pickle, although a little too sweet, was crunchy and delightfully flavorful. Indeed, it was not cabbage but Jerusalem artichoke pickled in mustard. Was this Jack’s copperclad Jerusalem artichoke, one of America’s disappearing foods?
