Memories of Minden

If you look on page 15 ( ( F. D. Drake ) page to the left, you'll notice a newspaper clipping that was glued to the page.

I had to get my magnifying glass to read it... It's was a recipe for CORN DODGERS..

I'd often hear my DAD talk about Corn Dodgers...thought it was just another term for hush puppies... I was wrong. Here the recipe word for word.......

                                               CORN DODGERS

                     Pour one and three quarters cup boiling water over two cups
                     corn meal, one teaspoon of sale and two teaspoons fat. Beat
                     well and when cool form into thin cakes and bake on half
                     hour in a hot oven. These crisp biscuits are good served hot
                     with butter or gravy.

Our preacher said a few Sundays ago that somebody gave him some “mayhog” jelly. He even wondered out loud what part of the hog the jelly came from. The comments were made in the pulpit, so the preacher is on record with God and everybody as not understanding the importance of mayhaw jelly in these parts.

The pastor did say that the jelly made his biscuits taste better, and that helped him some. If he had wasted the jelly on a bagel or bran muffin or something like that, there would probably have been a vote next Sunday to get another preacher. Biscuits are important in North Louisiana, too.

Brother Tommy will probably be forgiven by God and most of the congregation for his mayhaw jelly blunder because, as my daddy used to say, he’s not from around here.

The preacher came to Louisiana from Alabama, so people there obviously don’t have a clue about mayhaw jelly. Since Bear Bryant died, folks in that state don’t have a clue, either, about real, big-time football like they play at LSU. Bear knew about mayhaw jelly, because he was raised in Arkansas near North Louisiana.

One other thing that might help Brother Tommy survive the mayhaw jelly slip-up is that he’s probably too young to know about the tradition of mayhaw jelly making. I don’t know his age, but people who don’t get the AARP magazine seem young to me.

I have a lot of good memories of mayhaw jelly. Not just the jelly itself and how good it was on biscuits and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but the whole process of getting the mayhaws, making the jelly and “putting it up,” as my parents would say.

There was a little cluster of mayhaw trees in a creek bed a couple of miles from our house, and Dad kept a close watch on them during the weeks that the berries were ripening to make sure we gathered the mayhaws at just the right time.

We had the berries pretty much to ourselves, because the trees were a quarter mile or so off a dirt road surrounded by thick woods and heavy underbrush. If there had been much rain that season, the woods were boggy and the trees sat in a shallow creek.

The Saturdays we picked mayhaws were special events each year. The Hughes next door and the Friars on the street behind us were part of my parents’ jelly-making conglomerate, so the three families cooperated in getting the mayhaws.

I don’t remember the time of year the mayhaws were ripe, but it was warm. We took our shirts off and went barefoot after going through the briars and brushes, and we got frequent warnings to be on the lookout for snakes as we splashed around in the creek.

Our dads shook the trees to jar the berries loose and knocked others down with sticks and poles. We scooped them off the water and picked them up from the ground and put the little marble-size berries in big mayonnaise jars and galvanized silver buckets.

Helping gather the mayhaws was the kids’ only involvement in the jelly making. Adults took over after that, cooking the berries in big pots on every burner on the stove and pouring the juice through screen strainers and white bed sheets to remove seeds, skins, trash and other particles.

Then they added to the red liquid the sugar, gelatin and other ingredients that went into the jelly and cooked and stirred for what seemed like a long time until the mixture got to just the right consistency to pour into jars.

Dozens of pint size Mason jars left over from last year’s batch of mayhaw jelly had been scalded and sanitized to hold the new batch. The mixture was dipped hot from the pots at just the right time and pored to the perfect level in the jars.

The three families counted how many jars they had “put up” and the jelly was evenly divided after it was cooled and the metal caps were on the jars. It was shared with neighbors, kinfolks and the preachers at Calvary Baptist Church.

Our jelly lasted most of the year. When it ran out, we had to eat store bought jelly that was just not the same as mayhaw. I hear stores have commercial mayhaw jelly now, but I’m afraid to try it. Just like I wouldn’t eat canned chicken and dumplings after having the kind grandmother made.

Brother Tommy might not know the difference in home made and store bought mayhaw jelly, but folks my age would.