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Feature article
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Redbud reverie: Spring blooms make tasty jelly
By Fred Sauceman
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| Minnie Curtis’ redbud jelly (Fred Sauceman photo). |
Minnie Curtis could conjure flavor out of an old tree stump. She makes meals out of things most people ignore, trample over or discard.
At 90-plus years of age, Minnie’s still the person folks in Hiltons, Virginia, seek out when they run across a mountain wildflower they can’t identify or if they need a remedy for colic that doesn’t require a trip to the pharmacy.
Minnie makes jelly out of the May apples that grow on the south side of Clinch Mountain, right behind her house. She dresses her salads with hillside violets. She didn’t get the idea from any high-dollar chefs or from the Food Network. It’s knowledge she’s acquired by staying close to the land, listening to its rhythms, observing its clues and signs.
For about 20 years now, she’s been making jelly from the blooms of redbud trees.
In Appalachia, the redbud is one of the first signals of spring. Before the greenness of the season fully returns, sprays of pink blooms streak the forests in early April. Redbuds paint almost a continuous band of pink along both sides of Interstate 26, running between Johnson City and Kingsport.
After the killing frost on Easter weekend of 2007, nature compensated this past spring. “Everything popped out at once,” says Minnie, looking back on the spring of 2008. “I’ve never seen the woods so full of blooms. Usually redbuds are gone by the time the dogwoods come in, but this year, they hung on.”
They stayed on long enough, in fact, for Minnie to survive intensive care, recover from pneumonia, come back home to the mountain, and start making redbud jelly again.
She describes the taste as slightly sour and fruity. I liken it to wild berries.
Minnie’s friend Ruth Tremble got her started making the jelly after they had visited the Redbud Festival, held annually since 1982 in Honaker, Virginia. Route 80 through Russell County has been designated the “Redbud Highway,” and the Library of Congress recognizes Honaker as the “first and foremost Redbud Capital of the United States.”
“I visited Minnie’s home on a hot, dry day, and even though the long drought of 2007 had caused many plants to wither away, she still found nourishment coming from the arid ground,” wrote East Tennessee State University graduate student Melissa Shipley in “Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine.” “Sourgrass made my mouth water. Sheep sorrel was bitterly good. Minnie served me a reminder of the previous spring, a jelly made from the redbud tree in her yard. Spread over a freshly baked butter biscuit, it was the best jelly I have ever eaten.”
Mountain people like Minnie have always found a way to help the transient tastes and colors of spring stay around just a little bit longer.
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–RECIPE–
Minnie Curtis’ Redbud Jelly
Place two cups of rinsed redbud flowers in a jar and barely cover with about two cups of boiling water. Cover and let stand for 24 hours. Strain and discard the blossoms.
To two cups of the extract, add two tablespoons of lemon juice and three tablespoons of Sure-Jell. Bring to a boil, then add two cups of sugar and boil hard for about one minute. Pour into hot jelly glasses and seal with paraffin.
--------GoTriCities--------
Food writer Fred Sauceman, author of the book “The Place Setting: Timeless Tastes of the Mountain South — from Bright Hope to Frog Level,” is senior writer and executive assistant to the president for public affairs at East Tennessee State University. E-mail him at sauceman@etsu.edu.
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