McDermott - Fruit

Southern fruits are an essential, beloved gift of the hot sticky weather and fertile soil of the region. Gathered in the wild, or cultivated with care, plucked from trees and pulled off vines, they see us through the seasons. Sweet summer berries, fragrant melons, and globe-shaped autumn grapes distract us from the heat, quench our thirst, and decorate our pantry shelves with rows of jam-filled jars. From bluegrass to sea grass, from red clay fields to bayous, and from the Carolina Low Country to the Great Smoky Mountains, sweet southern fruits thrive all around us, heralding the passage of time while offering simple, transient pleasures throughout the year.

Here in Piedmont North Carolina, you-pick-em strawberry farms beckon us each spring. Savvy farmers entice us with the pleasures of harvesting their carefully tended berry patches, freed from the chores of planting and weeding en route to strawberry shortcake. Luscious, ripe blackberries mitigate the July suns glare, and scuppernongs and muscadines provide welcome shade under backyard arbors as the grape vines leaf-out. Late-summer figs remind us to make preserves so that fig cake can be part of cold-weather celebrations. Persimmons ornamenting their spindly branches each autumn invite us to make old-time persimmon puddingso easy, so good, and so emblematic of falls pleasures.

From Maryland, Florida, and West Virginia down to New Orleans, Houston, and the Mississippi Delta, we have a long, sweet tradition of feasting on a gracious plenty of southern fruits. We gather them to enjoy in season, and take time to preserve them in sweet and savory versions to see us through the year. This book spotlights a dozen of the best-loved and particularly southern of these fruits: blackberries, cantaloupes, damson plums, figs, mayhaws, muscadine and scuppernong grapes, pawpaws, peaches, persimmons, quince, strawberries, and watermelon.

These dozen natural wonders vary in numerous ways. Youll find wild mayhaws and grapes and carefully tended peaches and figs. Some ripen in spring, while other signal the arrival of summer and fall. Some are delicious right off the tree or vine, while others are impossible to enjoy until they are cooked. Some grow all over the South, while some are particular to one region and barely known elsewhere. Each has its charms, inviting us to slow down a bit, to learn a little history, to do some preparation or cooking in order to fully enjoy its goodness.

Half of the fruits featured in this volume are native to the southern United States. These include blackberries, mayhaws, muscadines and scuppernongs, pawpaws, wild persimmons, and strawberries. Not only are all six still growing wild in the southern landscape, but nowadays, they are cultivated around the South as well. That means we can often find them without mounting an expedition, and in some cases, even grow them at home.

The other six fruits featured in this book found their way to the South from elsewhere. Though not native-born, these were adopted long ago, eagerly welcomed, and invited to make themselves at home. This group of now deeply rooted southern heirlooms include cantaloupes, damson plums, figs, peaches, quince, and watermelon.

Not all the delectable fruits that bless the South made it into this book. With a limited number of pages, I had to decide which ones to feature and which to omit. With more than two dozen candidates and space for half that number, I went with the quintessentially southern ones, a few of which are lesser known and underappreciated in comparison to their status in the past. While apples, pears, blueberries, raspberries, and nectarines have a proud place on the southern table, they are also widely known and appreciated outside the South. Honeydew melons, crabapples, sour cherries, and mulberries fit on the long list, too, but lack the iconic southern stature of blackberries, watermelons, and figs. I hope that the fruits presented here intrigue and please you, and that you will be inspired to research and celebrate them.

Until the last few decades, none of these traditional southern fruits needed our help to be seen, maintained, and loved. Today, with so much on our plates, literally and figuratively, the need is there. This book is an invitation to notice them, seek them out, share them, and enjoy them in the kitchen and at the table.

These twelve southern fruits are more than simply memorable and lovely. Each one illuminates the Souths regional distinctions as well. For me, peaches signify the sand hills of South Carolina, where the plump, fuzzy, juicy harbingers of summer remain a roadside attraction for drivers en route from Piedmont North Carolina to the beach. Hand-lettered signs used to beckon us along the two-lane state roads. Nowadays enormous billboards expand on that tradition, bidding us to pull off the interstate and indulge in a bushel of peaches for pies, jams, or cobblers or for passing around to the folks back home.