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Foraging for the Winter
Written By: Lance Hardin - Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust | Issue: 2020/10 - October | Photograph By: Andrew Renfro
October was the time for the first Plateau residents to load the larder and pack the pantry.
October is a special time in the North Carolina mountains, as the brilliant fall foliage enthralls residents and visitors alike. Activities such as leisurely leaf-looking hikes and scenic drives take precedence.
But it wasn’t that long ago that residents of our area couldn’t pause long to enjoy the scenery, October was a critical time to collect and preserve the food necessary to survive the winter.
Foraging provided early residents with a variety of foods beyond what they could cultivate themselves. Berries such as serviceberries, raspberries, blackberries, buckberries, blueberries, huckleberries, and elderberries began ripening in mid-summer and what couldn’t be used immediately was preserved, as were fruits including figs, pawpaws, plums, apples and cherries.
Drying berries and fruits required lots of patience and sunlight, but the advent of glass jars allowed for canning; in the absence of products like Sure-Jel, green fruit was added to the ripe fruit to cause jellies to “jell.” Paper dipped in brandy substituted for a paraffin seal. Blackberries and cherries made good wine, while huckleberries, dewberries and peaches did well pickled. Persimmons flavored with honey locust pods fermented into a potent beer.
Walnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, chinquapins, beechnuts, and wild chestnuts added flavor to cakes, pies, cookies, and stuffings. “If a girl really liked a young man, she would go to the considerable trouble of making him a hickory nut cake.” In tough times acorns could be dried and ground into flour or brewed into a coffee.
Cabbages and potatoes were buried in straw below the frost line, while pumpkins, corn and okra were dried in the sun. Green beans could be strung-up and dried into “leather britches” or pickled. Canned cucumbers, bell peppers, and green tomatoes resulted in “icicle pickles,” via a 14-day process.
The Foxfire book series, which began as a project by high school students at nearby Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in the 1960s, is a great resource for more insight into the practices of foraging and traditional food preservation.
The Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust conserves more than 4,000 acres (see hcltnc.org), providing the perfect backdrop to enjoy this special season in the NC mountains. As you survey the beauty, however, just be thankful that your survival no longer depends solely on what you could glean from these rugged surroundings!
