I am in regular communication with hunters from areas other than Louisiana and the South. These folks are constantly talking about finding “morels,” a mushroom that is apparently a delicacy. Reading their posts on hunting forums about finding morels makes me think that locating a batch of these mushrooms is nearly as exciting as bagging a big gobbler.
From what I can determine, morels are rare in our part of the country so I can only imagine how good they must be. What we lack in morels, though, we make up for in wild fruit that flourishes in the South.
Growing up out on the rural route outside of Goldonna in northernmost Natchitoches Parish, the fruit growing wild in the fields and swamps provided many a tasty treat. Some of the first fruits to ripen were wild plums. Pick only the ones that were getting soft or those that had just dropped to the ground, pop one in your mouth and you got a mixture of sweet tartness.
Mayhaws are a mystery fruit. Every spring, my family would head down to the Winnfield Salt Works and wade the backwaters, scooping up ripe mayhaws. A wild plum was a lump of sugar compared to a ripe mayhaw. They were so tart, even the red ones, they’d bring tears to your eyes if you ate one. However, when my mother got finished with them in her kitchen, they were transformed into a translucent pink jelly that fairly cried to be slathered on a hot homemade biscuit dripping with churned butter.
Wild huckleberries were another special springtime treat. Resembling blueberries except they were half the size, wild huckleberries made some of the best cobblers and jam I ever tasted.
Another berry, though, was to the wild fruit family what purple hulls are to the pea family. They grew in abundance and when ripe, you could fill a lard bucket with shiny blackberries in an hour whereas in a hard morning of picking huckleberries, you were lucky if you gathered half that many.
Today, most of the jelly and jam I eat comes in a jar with a label. My sister still keeps my mother’s spirit alive by continuing to make jellies and jams from wild fruit and if I’m lucky, she shares a jar or two with me. I hate to admit that I hide the good stuff when company comes, hauling out those labeled Smuckers and Kraft instead.
Another of my favorite dishes made from wild fruit is blackberry cobbler. Kay has perfected the art of making fruit cobblers and when she has one in the oven, I hang around the kitchen like a puppy until it’s done and cool enough to eat without scorching my tongue.
I haven’t had a blackberry cobbler in several years simply because I haven’t found enough blackberries worth fighting red bugs, thorns and mosquitoes for. A few years ago, while foraging around in the brush outside the yard fence at our house, I found the mother lode. Big, juicy blackberries dripped from the vines just over the fence.
I was transported to another era as I waded through the briars, picking sweet black fruit until my bucket was full. It’s the most I’ve found since I last stood shoulder to shoulder with my mom, gathering plump berries that hung in clusters on the garden fence back home.
After Kay transforms the berries I picked into a cobbler, I scoop out a sizeable helping and I’ll dump Blue Bell ice cream over it, watching little rivulets of melting ice cream turning milky purple blending with the juices of the pie. We couldn’t buy Blue Bell when I was growing up so Mom garnished the cobblers she made with rich cream skimmed from the top of the crock in the ice box.
I’d still love to know how a morel mushroom tastes, but in the meantime, I’ll just have another helping of my wife’s cobbler, thank you.
Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com
