The Magic Keys Albert Murray (read novels website TXT) 📖

would be a nice little down-home surprise for us after that many months of being primarily concerned with picking and choosing New York food markets as well as snack bars and restaurants, and they were right. And there was also corn bread that was crackling bread. Then, since sweet potatoes came with the gamy taste of the possum, there was pecan pie with dasher turned ice cream instead of sweet potato pie. We went on talking about down-home menus and recipes as we ate, and that was when they told us about the truck merchants who came up to Harlem, some from Virginia and the Carolinas and some from as far down the coast as Florida and could be found parked on certain corners and certain blocks displaying and selling whatever was in season, straight from the gardens, fields, orchards, and woods of their down-home localities.

Which is why I was not surprised when Stewmeat Anderson told us that their larder was also stocked with such other special down-home game meat as rabbit and squirrel and raccoon and even venison. But that was the first time I’d ever heard of down-home folks keeping a supply of frozen catfish fillet on hand for an occasion not unlike this one, when fish, not game, would be the pièce de résistance.

And guess what else besides?, Royal Highness said, when I said that I assumed that venison was no problem to come by in New York. He said, You’re right. And then he said, I’m talking about turtle meat, underground turtle meat. Not the sea turtles, that’s what they have down in them islands in the Gulf. But now talking about some meat that’s kind of special down that way but ain’t no problem in New York. There’s goat meat. As I remember it, the main time for goat meat where I come from was when there was some kind of barbecue, especially a big holiday picnic barbecue or a church barbecue. But now up here some of these splibs from the islands are very big on goat meat with curry and fresh-grated coconut and stuff. And another thing some of those other island folks up here go for much more than I was ever used to down home is a whole pig pit roasted on a spit.

And those Cubans know what to do with chicken and rice, Stewmeat Anderson said. But speaking of them street-corner truck vendors from down home, when it’s the right time of year I also know where to find some that bring up stalks of sugarcane and ever so often they might also bring along a few pecks of scuppernongs. Now that’s something that really takes me back, Miss Lady, he said.

And I said, Me, too. I said, Not as far back as you’re talking about. But not just back to the outskirts of Mobile as a place as such, either. But still back as long ago as those old unpaved streets with horse droppings along with those automobile tire ruts. Then I said what I said about remembering scuppernongs as yard arbor muscadine grapes and also about remembering fig trees as fruit-bearing yard trees. And about never having seen any orchards of fig trees anywhere in or near Gasoline Point.

Which is also when I said what I said about how during muscadine season we used to roam the woods on the slopes above the L & N Railroad bottom at Three-Mile Creek Swamp and sometimes also the slopes and woodlands above Chickasabogue Swamp and even as far as all the way up the AT & N Railroad to Bay Poplar woods. Which also led to what I said about how muscadine season being tree-climbing time because the muscadine vines I knew about entwined themselves around tree branches much the same as scuppernongs entangled themselves in the latticework of yard arbors.

As for vineyard grapes, in Gasoline Point in those days before the fully stocked supermarket chains replaced the old neighborhood grocery and general merchandise stores, like orchard fruits and other street-vendor produce, they came from elsewhere (which for oranges, grapefruit, and pineapples was as nearby as Florida; and for okra, butterbeans, scallions, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, new potatoes, and so on was only as far away as the truck gardens across Mobile Bay).

That brought us to what the two of us remembered about canning, pickling, jam, jelly, and winemaking season in our two sections of Alabama; and that was when Royal Highness said, What did I tell you? and nodded at Stewmeat Anderson, who got up and went through the door to the kitchen area and when he came back he was carrying two quart-size bell jars, one of green tomato chowchow relish and one of peach jam and two pint-sized glasses, one of blackberry jelly and one of pear preserves.

Folks down the way don’t never let us run out of these kinds of good old goodies, Royal Highness said as Stewmeat Anderson put the jars and glasses in front of Eunice’s place and gave me a playful jab and a mock conspiratorial wink on his way back to the kitchen to help Cherry Lee bring in the pecan pie and dasher turned ice cream that he himself had frozen and packed that afternoon.

Well now, seeing as how y’all already been through Christmas and New Year’s up in this part of the country, Royal Highness said as Cherry Lee went back to the kitchen to bring in the coffee to go with the dessert, I’m satisfied that you got everything squared away in the chitlins, hogmaw, and trotters department, including all the trimmings. After all, young soldier, you were in that band long enough to pick and choose chitlin joints and barbecue pits from border to border and coast to coast. So I’m sure that old Joe States personally saw to it that you got checked out on the choice of trimmings in New York.

And when I said, Including a little ceremonial taste of moon-shine as well as the big