Times of Plenty

Times of Plenty

Seasonal change in the south is subtle, very subtle. Slight variations in hue, fluffy seed pods, and St. Augustine Grass slowly fading toward tans. We missed a lot of this subtlety last year because of the draught, whereby all we saw from one winter to the next was a lot of brown and dry.

One of the most interesting things that has come about as a result of last year’s devastating draught is the abundance of seeds, nuts and fruit produced by the surviving trees. If one had no idea that the draught occurred they might assume that his is a “normal crop”. Of course this is not the case.

It would be a simple task for the city to gather up a small portion of these and just cover them with soil to replace the 5MM+ trees that were lost last summer. It won’t happen but it’s nice to think it could. Shoot we have 5MM in out block alone to start with. Then there is the whole revenue stream and job creation thing but I try not to dip my toe in those waters any more.

Another fun part of this time of year is that some of these “seeds” happen to be pecans. I first found a few last month while riding in a neighborhood I rarely ride through and then today Edy and I passed a “mother -load” and gathered some which I  just got through candying for snacks.

The recipe was one I “invented” when I was in 6^th grade after I stumbled upon another “mother-load” while climbing on the roof of our apartment building.  I collected three shopping bags of them and devised a grand plan of becoming the next “Stucky’s”.   The shelling of 1/6^th of one bag tempered these dreams a bit but I used up all the Glad Bags we had in the house and took them (raw-unshelled) to school and sold them for 25 cents a bag. Big bucks in the late 60’s, I assure you.  I experimented with my candy recipe some more and tried to do a caramel/chocolate thing (I later learned they were called turtles) which became mush and gooey on the way to school and settled on a pecan brittle type thing with cinnamon.  I have no idea how I came up with the recipe but am sure a lot of experimentation took place. What is even more amazing is that I remembered it all these years later as well as the “art of shelling”.

Anyway, “back in the day” I soon found that I could get 25 cents for 6 candied pecans where my bags held 30+/- whole pecans. I did the math and it turned out to be a thriving business for about a week until the school found out and told me to stop. It then turned into a black market operation for a bit more with folks meeting me after school and “doing a deal”.  Like many consumer items this one faded from the spotlight due partially to seasonal availability and more importantly customer saturation. The novelty had worn off.  

 

It was a very important lesson.