From the editor.
DeGarmo, Todd
I just had to pick the green beans this morning before heading off
to work. With last night's rain and the promised sun of the day,
the beans would grow a bit too big for my taste by evening. The
summer's bounty is upon us in upstate New York, only hinted at a
few months ago as winter turned to spring and I was first drawn back to
the kitchen garden to look for the first bits of chives or chervil,
arugula or dandelion greens.
My Dad was a gardener, too. A good one, I'm told, whose
vegetables he grew as a teenager won 4H ribbons. He followed the then
new methods taught by Cornell Cooperative Extension, like using
commercial fertilizers for bigger yields and hot water canning for safer
storage. I'm told he also followed the old ways, like always
planting your peas on Good Friday; salting and fermenting pickles and
corned beef in stoneware crocks in a cool basement; knowing the value of
cow manure for the best tasting sweet corn. His summer bounty was
essential for feeding the family, where summers were spent growing,
canning, butchering, and freezing to ensure food for the winter. He
built a cold storage room in the basement of our '50s ranch house
for the crocks and canned pickles, jams, and jellies. He also relied
heavily on the new American Harvester chest freezer for homegrown beef,
chicken, and vegetables. I remember finding his green beans at the
bottom of this freezer years after he had passed.
When my sister and I rediscovered gardening and canning as teens,
my Mom couldn't understand our fascination with this work. She
associated these activities with long, hot summers, some when she was
very pregnant--work that had to be done for the family. Sue and I did it
for the satisfaction of producing our own homegrown pesto or chutney or
jam, perhaps as a connection to our past, but not necessarily to feed
our families.
I enjoy eating green beans from my own garden but don't have
to rely on it. Raising my own family these past 25 years in an old house
in the upper Hudson Valley of my father's youth, I've taken to
rediscovering the old ways by indirect means. Thanks to the efforts of
an association like Terre Vivante and their book, Preserving Food
Without Freezing or Canning, I have access to traditional techniques and
recipes collected from the gardeners and farmers of rural France. I
continue to freeze and can (easy to find in cookbooks), but have also
learned to preserve my harvest with salt, oil, sugar, vinegar, and
alcohol. I've tried my hand at butchering with my younger brother,
who has learned to cure and smoke bacon and makes an amazing lonzino.
This access to the knowledge of our elders reminds me of a recent
discussion with a Native American friend, who appreciates the efforts of
earlier collectors so that he could rediscover his people's stories
and make them his own. I don't have my Dad's recipe, but
I'm told by the elders in my family that my garlic dill pickles
taste just Dad's.
I could blanch and freeze those green beans I picked this morning,
but I may try something new. Since they were caught a bit on the young
side, I may blanch and then dry them for an alternative to potato chips.
I think Dad would approve.
Todd DeGarmo
Voices Acquisitions Editor
Founding Director of the Folklife Center at
Crandall Public Library
degarmo@crandalllibrary.org
